The White Rim by Bike- A Nice Stroll Through the Park

I am writing this post from the public library in Moab, Utah. I am sure I am not the first to do so. The new library- a couple of years old now- is a great place to take a break. And the wireless connection is fast and free.

First, some recent Moab area happenings before I get to the ride. I am sure that most everyone has heard about geologic time ruthlessly moving forward, and the demise of Wall Arch in Arches National Park. But if you haven’t heard the news, tempus eda rerum- time devours all. (Forgive me if the Latin is mis-spelled or grammatically incorrect- I never took Latin.) An arch fell. Others will follow. Next, a coffee house has also fallen. Mojo is no more. It was in the Edie McStiffs plaza on Main Street, until about two weeks ago. News is that another coffee shop will open in its place shortly. I will strike it from my Moab web page soon, or perhaps replace it. Finally, about a week ago the area saw one of the biggest storms in recent memory, meaning old-timers couldn’t recall so much water in such a short amount of time. As luck would have it, most of the rain fell outside of inhabited areas, but quickly headed through washes towards roads and houses. There was no serious damage, no one injured. A few tourists had to be “rescued” from the far side of the Green River, and mud had to be bulldozed off a bunch of low spots on many roads. Most importantly, the Shafer trail from the Canyonlands National Park visitor’s center to the White Rim trail was washed away, closed down, and has been since the storm. On to the ride….

I was to begin my ride from the Canyonlands National Park visitor’s center, down the Shafer trail, to the White Rim trail. But nature would have me take a little detour. It really wasn’t all bad- Long’s Canyon and Pucker Pass were certainly interesting towing 90 pounds of B.O.B. trailer behind me. Or was the trailer pushing me? Even better were the next 11 miles up (UP) Potash Road to the Shafer campsite. I really do not mind signs that read “steep, narrow, winding road next 11 miles”. I mind them less when I read them on my way down.

All in all the detour only added about 20 miles to the normally 103 mile loop. It was a good thing I had added an extra day for rest- who needs rest anyway? All joking aside, the ride wasn’t as hard as I thought it might be. Once I arrived at the Shafer campsite for my fist night of rest, drank a couple quarts of the precious water I had hauled behind me, and ate a huge dinner, I felt great. I enjoyed the quiet, calm, starry night and slept straight through. The next few days were rather easy rides. Of course there is the ascent of the Murphy Hogback- this happens whether you ride clockwise or counter-clockwise. I rode clockwise by the way. Later is the ascent of a wall near Hardscrabble Bottom, again, you do it no matter what. And finally there was the wonderful ascent of Horsethief Trail (a.k.a. Mineral Bottom Road), but only if you ride clockwise. If you ride counter-clockwise you will have to ride up the Shafer trail at the end.

After the first morning, I rose before the sun, ate a quick breakfast, packed up and was on the bike shortly after 6 a.m. This strategy really paid off and I highly recommend it for anyone riding the White Rim during the hotter months. I averaged about 4 hours of riding per day, about 25 miles per day. The rest of the day I enjoyed the geology, the clouds, and stories of Africa by Isak Dinesen. As for water, I started out with about 52 pounds of the stuff- about 6 1/2 gallons. I could have used roughly another gallon to get me to the river, but the storm left some tasty, clear water in potholes. I took advantage of this and pumped out a gallon at the end of day 2. By the end of my ride on day four, at about 1030 a.m., I still had about 2 quarts. This allowed me to settle water from the Green River for the afternoon before pumping another gallon or so for the night and the final day of riding up and out Horsethief Trail.

Final morning, on Horsethief Trail, after the ascent.

I wouldn’t really change anything I did on the ride. Five days for 125 miles is perfectly adequate. Five days for 103 miles would have been even easier. Next time I may try riding counter-clockwise, just to try it in that direction. If you plan to do the ride, plan ahead, but remain flexible. Be sure to reserve your campsites well in advance, especially if you are riding in cooler months, along with the throngs of cool-weather riders. If you don’t mind 95- 100 degrees, as I don’t, ride it in August and you will have the park to yourself. Otherwise plan accordingly. Keep an eye on the weather. And most important of all, carry and drink plenty of water. For more information on water in the desert, see the Desert Explorer website. For more on the White Rim ride, the campsites, planning for it and a “bikepacking” packing list, visit the White Rim page of my website. (Note: I will have the page up after I return to Colorado, at the end of the month. Tomorrow I am off to the Escalante for week of backpacking.)

Back From Utah and Our San Juan River Float

We have just returned from camping in Utah and a wonderful five day family float on the San Juan River. I am now busy cleaning the San Juan from all of our gear, and repacking for my next trip to Utah in just over a week.  I will be riding the White Rim trail solo, then meeting Robert for a week of backpacking in the Escalante.

The weather on our San Juan trip was relatively cool, in the low 90’s, and there were afternoon and evening clouds and rain showers every day to cool things off even more. We had great flows on the river, reaching nearly 3000 CFS on one of the days. All in all it was a great trip.

After camping for a few days on the way to Bluff, we put in at Sand Island on 22 July. We floated two Aire Tomcat tandems, one for Mia and Nicolai, and one for myself and much of the gear. We took out at Mexican Hat on 26 July. Five days for that stretch of river is quite a lot of time, considering it is only about 28 miles. Most people do it in a few days. But as a family we took our time and floated along at a leisurely pace. We looked at a bunch of petroglyph panels, including Butler Wash panel, River House Ruin, and various other sites. We made it a point to start out late and finish up early which gave us plenty of time for sitting around at our campsites, eating good food, drinking tea, and writing in our trip journal. Mia is a book artist and creates a special book for each of our trips to fill with thoughts, sketches, watercolors, and photos. You can see some of her work at Photo-Mia.com.

We started out with the river flowing at about 1200 CFS. On our first night there was a tremendous storm- thunder, lightning and rain all around us. The river jumped up to nearly 3000 CFS the next day. The following day it dropped back some, but went up again once we passed Chinle Wash. There had been storms to the south the night before and Chinle Wash flowed red into the brown San Juan. It made for a fun ride later in the day when we floated through Eight Foot Rapid. If you are familiar with it, the rock at the top of the rapid was completely submerged. The rest of the float was calm, as the river dropped back to normal rather quickly. For more information on floating the San Juan River, visit the Desert Explorer website.

Another highlight of the trip for all of us, besides our Sunday breakfast at the Olde Bridge Grille at the San Juan Inn, was our stay on the drive home at the Movie Manor Motor Inn in the town of Monte Vista, Colorado. The place is truly amazing. The Star Drive In was opened in 1955 and is still in operation. The owner, Mr. Kelloff, still operates the ticket booth. All of the rooms at the hotel face the movie screens and there are speakers and volume controls in each room. You can lay in bed and watch the drive in movie. We chose to actually drive in, as there is a playground at the base of the original movie screen that Nicolai wanted to play at. The playground is vintage as well, from 1960. It has a real merry-go-round and a real teeth-busting teeter totter. If you are in the San Luis Valley between May and September and need a room and a movie, this is the place. They do not have a website, but you can call ahead for reservations or the movie schedule- 800-771-9468.

On the Way to Utah and the San Juan River

It is mid-July and we are preparing for a family trip to Utah, including about five days on the San Juan River, with three or four days of camping on either side of the river trip. We leave Colorado on Friday with our put-in date being next Tuesday, 22 July. Although we are only floating from Sand Island (Bluff) to Mexican Hat, we plan to be on the river for five days total. The river distance is only about 30 miles, and many people do it in two days, but we plan to take our time and have fun, see all the sites along the way. There are unlimited diversions to keep us busy- lots of birds, petroglyph panels, ruins- both historic and prehistoric, and interesting geology. For more information on the float, see the Desert Explorer San Juan River Page.

The flow on the San Juan is dropping daily. Today the river is flowing at about 1350 CFS, up about 100 CFS from yesterday, but down from about 2000 CFS a few weeks back. The flow on the San Juan can fluctuate daily by a hundred CFS or more as water is released upstream. You can see the river flows at the USGS website. The weather proves to be hot with the temperature predicted to be about 95 degrees every day for our trip. There is a 30 percent chance of rain nearly every day during our trip. The afternoon showers may help cool us off. If you are heading to southeast Utah be sure to take sunblock.

Fire restrictions have just be enacted throughout Utah. No fires are allowed on the San Juan River corridor as of 08 July. These restrictions also apply to parts of the Green River and Colorado River in southeast Utah. For more information on current fire restrictions, visit the state of Utah Fire Info website.

Check back for updates on the trip at the end of July. We will try to post an update from the field- probably from Comb Ridge Coffee in Bluff after we takeout.

Nevada Rock Art- Grimes Point and Salt Cave

Grimes Point

We are in the Nevada desert now, enjoying some sightseeing and fishing. We have visited the Grimes Point Petroglyph site, just east of the town of Fallon. Grimes point and the surrounding caves were formed along the border of the regressing, ancient Lake Lahontan at the end of the Pleistocene, about 10,000 years ago. The caves were inhabited as early as 9,500 years ago, based on the date established for the burial of “Spirit Cave Man”, and were returned to as the level of the associated marshes left by the ancient lake fluctuated. The caves were used for storage, living, and burial.

Archaeologists S. M. and Georgia Wheeler unearthed “Spirit Cave Man”, the oldest mummy in North America from one of these caves in the 1940’s. It was confirmed through testing in the late 1990’s that the mummy dates back nearly 9,500 years. The mummy was a male, in his 40’s, and was buried with woven clothing, moccasins, a rabbit skin blanket, and other grave goods.

The oldest petroglyphs associated with the caves are in the Pit and Groove style. The name is derived from the many “pits”, resembling the small mortars ground into sandstone surfaces across the southwest, that are ground into the faces of rocks. Often found accompanying them are elongated “grooves” that are usually across an angular edge of a rock. The exact use or significance of the pits and grooves has not been established, although it is believed that they did not serve a utilitarian purpose.

The Great Basin Pecked style is the next found in the sequence, dating from 3000 to 500 years ago. The earliest figures in this style are represented by circular or wavy lines, the later figures by straighter, more angular lines. These are distinctly different from the Pit and Groove style and begin to show possibly anthropomorphic forms, as well as forms of local fauna. Some of the petroglyphs in this style are believed to have had religious significance, possibly having to do with abundance in hunting.

Salt Cave

We have also visited Salt Cave, located across the valley from Grimes Point. Not much is known about Salt Cave- there is a brief reference to the cave in Rock Art of Nevada, noting only that it is a registered site and including drawings of a number of its pictographs. There are actually two caves, about 25 meters apart, found right at the margin of the valley floor. The southern-most cave has fewer pictographs and many of these are dust covered. The northern-most cave has, if you count each dot or line or blotch of pigment as unique, possibly thousands of paintings. The walls of this cave are cleaner and the rock art is more visible. The roof of this cave is blackened from fires and was obviously well used.

One of the signs letting you know you are driving through the middle of a bombing range, on the way to Salt Cave.

Dots make up the predominant element in the cave, typically measuring about 1 centimeter in diameter. These are found on the lobes of tufa, covering each lobe’s natural shape in many cases, but also in horizontal lines around the cave at about eye level. In some locations it appears that a hand may have been dipped in pigment and wiped across a lobe of tufa, covering it almost entirely. There are straight and wavy lines, resembling the “power lines” found at Puebloan sites, arcs, sets of lines made by pigmented fingers, figures of lizards, possibly a scorpian, and a single handprint. There is a very interesting “sunburst” where the artist took advantage of a knob on a lobe of tufa. The knob of tufa may have been modified by smoothing. All of the pictographs are in the same red pigment.

The “sunburst” element from Salt Cave.

Salt Cave is definitely worth the visit if you are interested in rock art and are traveling through the Lahontan Valley. I will research the site further once I return to Colorado, and write a more comprehensive summary of this site, as well as Grimes Point and post them on the Desert Explorer website.

The Dirty Devil River is My New Favorite, Visiting Central Nevada

My time on the Dirty Devil River is over. I say that with a deep sigh. It was one of the best trips I have ever taken- a 14 day solo. I put in on 13 May just below Hanksville. I was loading my boat and gear back into the Landcruiser on 26 May, after having hitchhiked back to the Hanksville BLM office for my truck earlier that morning. I didn’t realize that the 26^th was Memorial Day and I was in a bit of shock once I got back to Hanksville seeing the number of rushing people, with their expensive, oversize, manly trucks with barbeque grills strapped in the back towing shiny powerboats back to garages after their inaugural weekend on the ‘lake’ for the year. But enough of that- back to the Dirty Devil.

The trip was nothing short of amazing. The weather was hot the first week and cool towards the end, with wind and some light rain over the last five days, apparently an abnormal pattern. I had a full moon midway through the trip and so was able to enjoy the stars and planets early and late in the trip and the bright moon In the middle.

I spent lots of time looking at the geology of the area. The cliff faces were enormous in places, up to 1500 feet high. it was a great chance to see millions of years of sedimentary rock all at once.

I tried to keep track of birds, but it was tough. I could have just sat still for the two weeks and watched birds. I saw the usual- lots of wrens, Spotted Sandpipers, Turkey Vultures, and little gray birds, Western Tanagers, Hairy Woodpeckers, nighthawks, and hummingbirds. Added to the list were a couple of nesting pairs of Peregrines, two separate flocks of Chukar high up Twin Corral Box Canyon, a lone Forster’s Tern (?), pairs of Indigo Buntings, and a pair of Ruddy ducks among others.

I had two rattlesnake encounters, both in Twin Corral Box Canyon. (For more info on Twin Corral Box Canyon and others’ snake encounters, as well as super-informative floral information, visit Watching the World Wake Up Blog. I ran into Alex and Steve a few days into my trip.) The particular snake to the left was about 5 minutes upcanyon from Alex and Steve’s camp, just before I met them.

I was visited by lots of Red Spotted toads, some of which may have been Spadefoot toads. I did not check that closely. According to Sandy, the wildlife biologist at the Hanksville BLM Office, you have to pick them up and look for the spade on the foot, this being the telltale sign. On my overnight up Poison Spring Canyon I explored a side canyon that had what could be called a stretch of wetland in it’s middle. It was filled with tules, segmented and spikey grasses, and cottonwoods. It was also home to lots of toads, specifically the Woodhouse toad.

I managed two overnights, one up Twin Corral Box Canyon and the other up Poison Spring Canyon. I had a great, long dayhike up Robbers Roost Canyon, up to the inscriptions in White Roost Canyon. I enjoyed a walk through Happy Canyon, up through the narrows and into the wide open canyon above. Also explored Fiddler Cove Canyon, up to the pouroffs a day after rains up on the mesa. There was water running from the pouroffs to the river, making the hike even more interesting.

I will post specifics about the trip on the Desert Explorer website once I am back in Colorado, along with lots of photos.

For now, I am in the Lahontan Valley in central Nevada for the next week or so before heading back to Utah and the trip home. I am planning to visit some of the local sites, including Lovelock Cave and Salt Cave to view pictographs and their ancient habitation.

For more on my trips, the desert, survival and primitive skills, visit the Desert Explorer website.

On the Way to the Desert…

I am nearly ready to head west toward Hanksville and the put in for the Dirty Devil River. Most of my gear is packed, there are just a few things left on the list to do. I will be on the road Monday morning. I called Tag-A-Long in Moab a couple of days ago to confirm my shuttle, and there was bad news. The river trip that I was going to get a ride with canceled completely. So I am on my own now. But thanks to email communication with Shane of HikeRaft.com I have a backup plan. I will drop my gear just south of Hanksville on the river, at Dry Valley Wash down the “dump road”. From there I will drive back to town and leave my truck, walking back to the river. When it comes time to take out 12 or 14 days later, Shane pointed out a safe takeout above Hite, down Sheep’s Crossing Road. I will takeout there, tie up the boat, grab my pack with food and water, and head to Highway 95 to try and hitch a ride north to Hanskville. Problem solved. On the bright side I save 50 dollars and get an extra day on the river.

I have been watching the water level of the Dirty Devil steadily drop over the last week or so- potentially more bad news. Today it is below 20 CFS- you can see the real-time graph here. But according to Shane, if I put in lower, at Dry Valley Wash, I will be saving myself a couple of miles of dragging the boat across sandbars. Sounds good to me. The temperature has been cooler and that may have something to do with the decreasing flows. With some luck, as it warms next week, the flows will increase. The 10 day forecast is for highs in the 70’s to mid-80’s. I hope this will help melt some of the snowpack to give me some good floating days.

I have been looking at maps and have decided on a couple of overnight trips. It looks as if I can easily walk up No Man’s Canyon, hopefully exit at the head, and drop back in for a walk down Larry Canyon. I am hoping the same will be true for a walk up Twin Corral Box Canyon and back down Sams Mesa Box Canyon. The exit and entrance involved in this hike may be a bit more strenuous, if possible at all. I will also explore Poison Spring Canyon and Happy Canyon, possibly with an overnight stay in each.

My next post will be at the end of May or in early June. I will have lots to share and plenty of trip photos. Be sure to check back for that.  For more information on this trip and others, visit the Desert Explorer website.