The Adventures of T&A

5:30-6:00am, people started leaving the parking lot of the hostel.  It’s the desert and you have to start early to beat the heat.  Most people start at daybreak, rest in the hot afternoon and then go out again in the early evening.  Lots of doors slamming and cars starting.  And the dumpster slamming too!  We’ll find a different place to camp for tonight.

We met Jack and Ellen for breakfast and went looking for a new place to stay.  We found Slickrock Campground on the other side of town and chose a campsite over a cabin.  The four of us then went into Arches National Park and drove thru.  Ellen has hurt her back and can’t hike much, but we did do a few short walks.  We went by many of the overlooks and formations and took some photos.  We had lunch in the shade of some cottonwoods.  We came back to Moab, just a couple of miles form Arches. 

Andrew and I had to pick up our bikes (they were in for a tune-up) and we all had to rest and shower before dinner.  We had dinner reservations at Sorrel River Ranch and Resort.  It was about 20 minutes out of town on the Colorado River and the food and the views were great!  

We got back to camp and tried to relax before bed, but it was so hot.  Andrew was being quite pissy because the guys at the next camp came in right at 10pm- quiet hour.  He complained about it being hot, even with out fan going in the truck and wanted to move to a cabin with air conditioning (swamp cooler), but when he went up to the office, it was closed.  We’ll just tough it out tonight.

We left our camp just outside Capitol Reef heading towards Moab, Utah to meet Andrew’s parents, Jack and Ellen Koransky.  Looking at the map, Goblin Valley State Park is right along the way, so we decided to stop by.  Andrew wanted to call his mom before they left Atlanta, so we stopped on the side of the road where we had a bit of a cell signal.  He wanted to make sure they were prepared for daytime temps around 95 degrees and evening temps around 35 degrees.  

We went into Goblin Valley State Park and found a small state park with a very cute female ranger, so Andrew noted.  He commented, “Why didn’t rangers look like that when I worked on Cumberland Island?”  I had to smack him, of course.

We got to the park right behind a school bus of local kids.  We took a hike the other way.  There were lots of cool “Goblins” or hoodoo formations.  We left shortly after lunch.

We had the most beautiful drive into Moab via highway 191 and found Main Street in Moab under construction, being repaved.  We found the Visitor Info Office in the same building as BLM and a few other agencies.  We also found that Moab no longer has free camping on BLM land outside the city limits.  It seems Moab was being loved to death.  Moab has two peak biking seasons a year, spring and fall.  Everyone wanted to come and camp on BLM land for free (as we do).  And everyone was peeing and pooping in BLM land.  And the dry desert climate couldn’t compensate for all that “stuff”.  The Health Department was ready to shut down the whole Moab area!  What was agreed on was BLM would set up designated camping areas with pit toilets and charge a minimal fee ($5 & $10).  So we tried to find a designated BLM campsite and found them all full (however, it was a beautiful drive down Kane Creek Road into the canyon)  We checked out a hostel, the Lazy Lizard Hostel and found it full, but they would allow us to camp in the parking lot for $6.00 per person.  So that’s what we did.  We ran a few errands, picking up some groceries and a few things for Jack and Ellen who would be coming in late tonight.  Their hotel allowed us to put a few things into their room for them (along with some flowers, a late Mother’s Day gift).

The night camping in the hostel parking lot was not too bad until the next morning.

Andrew and I got ready for our hike to Brimhall Arch, but Dick had changed his mind about hiking and took off this morning.  We suspected he may have been a bit hung over.

Our trail to Brimhall Arch took us down very steeply into the canyon below.  It’s about a 2.5 mile hike; the first mile is straight down, the second mile took us across the floor of the canyon, and the last 1/2 mile was when things really got interesting.  We hiked up a dry creek bed and climbed up a rock face about 10 feet high.  We walked/scrambled along the top of more boulders to a more narrow canyon with a few pockets of water from the last few rains.  We waded thru the pool of water, maybe halfway to the knee, to a huge boulder wedged in the narrow canyon.  We had to go to one side of the boulder and wedge our body to get up, after stacking rocks to get a foothold.  Andrew got up, but I couldn’t.  After the first rock climb, I was pretty tired, but this was much harder.  (I compared our pictures to Andrew’s first trip, it looks like there has been a lot of erosion in the last few years)  I waited while he went up to view the arch.  I sat on a rock and enjoyed a spectacular view of multiple canyon walls.  We had lunch and hiked back out, finding evidence of a carnivore living in the area, half a chipmunk and the hind foot of a rabbit (not real lucky for the rabbit, was it?)  It was getting pretty warm by the time we got back thru the floor of the canyon and up the mesa.  

We got packed up and headed further up the Burr Trail.  The Burr Trail Switchbacks took us steeply up the side of a mesa to the top.  In a couple of miles, we were back on pavement.  We had some of the most incredible views.  

Burr Trail begins in Glen Canyon, goes thru Capitol Reef and then into Grand Staircase-Escalante, then continues into the town of Boulder, Utah and the Anasazi State Park.  We stopped at Anasazi State Park to get some info.  It’s a museum and archeological site, but we don’t have time to check it out right now… next time.  

We drove north from Capitol Reef  back into Grand Staircase, thru the town of Torrey, Utah (stopped for gas), back into Capitol Reef and to the overlooks.  We’re back into Capitol Reef and checked out some of the exhibits.  We were both getting tired, so we didn’t get to finish Capitol Reef. They have a Mormon settlement living history museum and orchards that we didn’t get to.  We also discovered we broke a bolt on out bike rack and need to get it fixed soon.   We found an area of BLM land and camped.  We had to miss nearby Cathedral Valley.  We’re going straight into Moab, UT tomorrow and coming back thru here after our stay in Colorado.

We’re ready for a break from traveling for a day or so and we need to have some things fixed.  We have two holes in out Thule Roof Storage box, we’ve lost a bolt on one of the bike trays and we’re holding it on with a paperclip, our 1 gallon propane tank is broken and can’t be filled, our camera has a spring broken and won’t stay open to take pictures, the GPS is temperamental when it gets hot (it’s been fun dealing with that in the desert), our fuel gauge on the truck is acting up again (always fun when 150 miles out on a dirt road), our Camelback hydration systems have some serious funk growing in them and we’ve packed our cleaning brushes, so we need to buy another.  AND I ripped my brand new REI pants sliding down a rock today on the Brimhall Arch trail.  We need a break.

We took off this morning and our route took us up the Moki Dugway.  This route started (according to a local in the town of Mexican Hat) as a path for cattle to get up on the top of the mesa to graze.  Now this road is a partial dirt road, partial paved and winds very steeply up the side of the mesa.  The views were incredible!!  You oversee the Valley of the Gods and the edge of Monument Valley National Park.  We saw a group of German tourists on motorcycles with a camper support truck going up too.  They stopped at an overlook, and we stopped too, for a few pictures (that’s when I realized they were German).  Side note: The “Oh My God Road” (sorry, can’t find a good link) in Colorado was scarier to drive, but the views were better on the Moki Dugway.

We continued out to Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, but the Bullfrog Ferry was out of service.   We had to drive 75-80 miles out and around to get to Burr Trail in the area of Capitol Reef National Monument that we were heading for.  We got to Hall’s overlook, our trail tomorrow is the Brimhall Arch Trail, but it’s too late today to start the hike.  

We were just chilling out when another truck pulls up.  We met Dick Bradshaw from Salt Lake City, Utah.  He hung out with us most of the evening, telling us about some of the great trails in the area (he’s been hiking this area since the 60’s).  A rain shower came thru and all three of us were in the back of our truck for a while chatting.  The storm passed and we sat outside, Andrew and I drank our wine (Two-Buck Chuck from Trader Joe’s) and Dick was drinking vodka and Fresca.  He said he might just join us on the hike tomorrow and camped at the trailhead with us.  

We can only tour Canyon de Chelly (de Shay) with a guide.  We have several choices; hiking, on horseback, by private jeep of on a large tour truck..  By hiking or horseback, we wouldn’t get very far into the canyon.  We can tour farther into the canyon by private jeep (beginning at $125.00) for a minimum of 3 hours, or on a big group tour (for $44.00 per person) for a half day, 4 hours.  We’re not typically the “Big Group Tour” types, but that’s what we chose.  We were at the Visitor’s Center getting info on tours at 8:30am and the morning tour leaves at 9am, so we rushed down to Thunderbird Lodge, just about a quarter mile away, to see if there was room on this morning’s tour We got in!!

We all got on the open air tour truck and we were short a couple of seats.  So we all got off that bus and onto a bigger bus, more seats.  We started down the pavement towards the canyon.  Our driver, Davidson, got a call on the radio.  The truck he received had a bad front axel and they were bringing ANOTHER truck out!  At least we found out before we hot all the soft sand.  So we finally got started on our tour with 23 others.  We saw several Anasazi ruins and petroglyphs.  We saw Navaho’s living in the canyon, farming, tending to sheep, goats and horses like their ancestors did/;  Oddly enough, even though this is a National Monument, areas are still privately owned and have been in the family for generations.  Because this is all Navajo land and these ruins are considered Navajo burial sites, the Navajo can dictate how things are operated.  While we were there, a section of the canyon was closed due to vandalism of an archeological site.  The Navajo do have special vending rights and can sell jewelry, weavings and other art objects.   The tours stopped for breaks at areas with other Navajos selling jewelry and such.  Well, our tour kept us out baking in the sun for about 4 hours.  We got back about 1pm. 

We drove the rim trail and checked out several of the overlooks.  We saw a few vendors on the rim too.  We headed out towards Capitol Reef National Monument.  I was feeling really tired and out of it… Andrew seemed to think I was dehydrated.  It happens very easily in the dry air, you don’t realize you’re sweating and loosing water.  I drank lots of water and ate an apple and started feeling better. 

We found ourselves in the middle of nowhere (imagine that happening to US?) and decided to splurge.  We were in Mexican Hat, Utah, in which we saw maybe 5 hotels, a couple of restaurants and gas stations.  It’s just outside the Navajo Indian Reservation and not far from Glen Canyon Recreational Area and several other parks.  It’s named for a rock formation shaped (you guessed it) like a Mexican Hat.  We stayed at a hotel that had a restaurant, known for it’s “swinging steak”.  They had their grill outside in the bar and the rack for the grill was set up on a pendulum that would “swing” over the coals while it cooked.  What a gimmick!  Rather than $30.00 for a steak dinner, we decided to use the microwave in the room to reheat some Chana Masala we made the day before.  (Chana Masala is an Indian dish of onions, tomatoes, chick peas and spices.)  

At Homolovi Ruins State Park campground, it was nice to have a hot shower and unlimited water at our campsite, even if we did have to pay for it.  We went out to Hololovi I ruins this morning.  We were greeted with a sign warning of QUICKSAND.  You got to love this country!  We’ve got everything, even quicksand!  This is an unexcavated site and doesn’t look like much.  We did find thousands of pottery shards in the area.  All artifacts, pottery shards included, are protected by law and disturbing them can evoke some hefty fines.  Some people have moved some shards onto flat rocks and I took photos of the more interesting pieces.  We moved onto Homolovi II ruins.  This site was partially excavated and still had lots of pottery shards.  We checked at the Visitor Center and asked about the pottery left at the sites.  (I figured they would have gathered them up, numbered and stuck in a museum drawer)  We found out that the modern day Hopi are believed to be the decedents of the people that once lived here and they had requested the pot shard be left at the site.  It seems that the Homolovi/Hopi have a belief of a great light-skinned shaman, Bahana, who left to go east.  When asked how he would find his people as they migrated, they were told to break pottery as they left a site to move on and Bahana would follow the pieces to find them where ever they went.  So, for religious purposes, they excavated these sites, then filled them in and left the broken pottery there.

We next went to the Petrified Forest National Park in the Painted Desert.  We stopped at a few petrified wood stands outside the park.  You cannot collect petrified wood from inside the park, but this was gathered outside the park and for sale.  Even inside the park, they have petrified wood for sale in the gift shop and it is noted that it was collected outside the park on private land.  We drove thru and  saw a pueblo ruin that had a hundred room and some petroglyphs.  We continued our drive thru the Painted Desert.  The views were nice, but we’ve become jaded, since many areas of the same region have similar geology and similar formations.  We find ourselves comparing this park to that park and it’s just not fair to some of the smaller parks.  

We stopped by a place called Hubble Trading Post.  We had heard that this was a historic site and we shouldn’t miss it.  Well, we missed it.  We got there after 6pm, when they closed.  

We moved on to the Navajo Reservation and Canyon de Chelly (de Shay).  They have a free campground and we found a spot in the very crowded place.  We met the camp host and his dog, Bob.  We also made friends with what we feel was a res-dog.  In talking with different people, it seems that Native Americans on Reservations don’t treat their dogs like the pampered pooches that others do.  The dogs are not spayed or neutered and seldom have all their shots.  They are outside dogs and are free to roam.  Only slightly better off than a stray.  They are referred to as res-dogs.   We played with one of the dogs and missed our pampered pooch, Simon. 

We both felt much better after a good night’s sleep.  We headed out for some pueblo ruins and Andrew wanted to use a “shortcut” on a dirt road that was getting more and more rutted and rocky as we were on it.  Our shortcut was not working out, so we found a spot to turn around and went back the way we came in.

We went back thru Flagstaff and on to Wupatki National Monument This whole area is dotted with some of the best preserved pueblo ruins from 800 years ago!  The dry climate has preserved them quite well.  Some structures even have wood beams still existing.  Tree ring dating has determined that these trees were cut down between 900-1200 AD.  The Spanish explorers came thru around 1400.  When we entered Wupatki, we stopped first at Lomaki Pueblo and Box Canyon Dwellings.  These pueblos were built on a natural earthen crack.  This flat area at the bottom of the crack collected more water and silt than the surrounding areas, improving the soil and making it better for farming.  We also stopped at Nalakiho and Citadel pueblos.  Our next stop was the huge pueblo of Wupatki, built around a natural rock outcropping.  This pueblo is significant because it also has a ball court similar to those found in Mexico built by the Aztecs.  They found remains of ball courts in several areas and feel ball games were a great source of community activity.  Also, near the ball court, was what they called “The Blowhole”.  It is a small opening into a large underground cavern that blows cool moist air.  It’s like Anasazi air conditioning!  If this was used to cool the ball players or the heads of the community, it’s anyone’s guess.  

We drove thru Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument nearby, which was still an active volcano during the time that the pueblos in the area were inhabited, about 800 years ago.  It’s thought that the volcanic ash that was produced helped the poor soil in the area hold moisture and aided the production of crops.  Perhaps when the volcano went silent, the inhabitants were forced to find more fertile ground and moved on.

We grabbed a quick lunch in Flagstaff and moved on to Walnut Canyon National Monument.  This is a very steep canyon with cliff dwellings in several areas of the canyon.  Our trail took us about halfway down the canyon and thru several of the structures built under an overhanging ledge on the canyon wall.  These people are also called the Sinagua people (named by the Spanish: Sin-Agua= without water; the people of Sierra Sin Agua= Mountains without water) who they believe later became the modern day Hopi.  They did what is known as “dry framing”.  They didn’t irrigate their fields, they were solely dependent on the rain.  They farmed deep in the canyon and up on the mesa, climbing up and down the canyon walls as they needed.  

Our next stop is Winslow, Arizona.  The famous line from the Eagle’s hit “Take It Easy” written by Jackson Browne and Glenn Frey; “Standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, such a fine sight to see.  It’s a girl, My Lord, in a flat bed Ford, slowing down to take a look at me.”  The city has an art exhibit on the corner of Second St and Kinsley Ave depicting a bronze statue standing on the corner.  According to the owner of the gift shop on “the corner” the story goes like this:  Jackson Browne was in Winslow and thrown in jail for drunk driving or something.  The next morning he was having coffee in the drug store (then on this corner) and was talking with some folks about his experience, playing with some song lyrics.  He said he was going to write a song about this.  But he didn’t, not right away.  His roommate at the time, Glenn Frey, liked the beginning of the song and they worked on it together to finish it.  It was the Eagles first really smash hit (of many).  We asked the  store owner, so is it Jackson Browne or Glenn Frey depicted in the bronze statue on the corner?  Neither!  It seems neither one would give their permission to use their likeness.  The artist of the statue has a son named EZ and it’s actually his image that’s in bronze.  Of course, there’s a red, flat bed Ford parked right in front of the exhibit.  Sadly, in 2004, a fire destroyed the building that provided a wall where the mural and exhibit stands.  The area was a corner park, but is now all fenced off due to safety concerns.  

While in Winslow, we stopped at La Posada, a hotel and restaurant designed in the 1930’s by Mary Jane Colter, the architect that designed many of the buildings at Grand Canyon.  This is supposed to be her best work.  The train stations and restaurants of the Fred Harvey Company were bringing “civilization” to the Wild West, but also tourism.  The staff at these places were more than waitresses, they acted as tour guides, spoke several languages and helped travelers plan their trip (with many stops at Fred Harvey establishments, of course).  

We finally made it to Homolovi Ruins State Park and got a site at the campground.     

We headed up to the Arizona Snowbowl to begin our hike to Humphrey’s Peak.  The info we read describes it as a 4.5 mile hike, the last part being a rock scramble.  With a 9 mile round trip, an estimate of 5 to 7 hours to hike to the top and back.  We started hiking a bit later than we wanted, about 10am.  The area had lots of dead pine trees from the pine bark beetles.  We read about the pine bark beetles in an info newspaper we got somewhere.  The beetle enters the inner bark layer of the tree, where the tree gets nourishment from the roots to the leaves, and destroys it from the inside.  By the time the tree shows any signs of damage, it’s already too late.  

The trail went up gradually and we were quickly hiking thru pockets of snow.  We started at about 9,000 ft elevation and the peak is at 12,633 ft.  As we neared 11,000 ft started feeling the altitude.  It was gradual, but I was getting very sluggish.  We had just hiked the Grand Canyon…I should be in shape for this.  We reached the saddle at about 12,000 ft and it overlooked both sides of the mountain.  The whole backside of the mountain was completely covered in snow.  Really beautiful!  The trail was tough at the top, beyond the saddle.  Lots of loose, sharp volcanic rocks.  There were signs to stay on the trail to protect the fragile tundra, but the trail was difficult to follow.  We got slightly off trail several times.  I felt like I had lead in my legs, it was harder and harder to lift them.  It wasn’t altitude sickness, but I was feeling oxygen deprivation.  After a brief rest, we continued to the first of a series of false summits and I could go no further.  According to the GPS, we were at 12,500 ft, but I couldn’t lift my legs anymore and was out of breath.  Andrew continued, but had set a turn around time of 3pm.  I headed back to the saddle to wait for him and he went on to the summit.  He caught up to me quicker than I expected.  He didn’t make the summit either.  The 3pm turn around time came and he was still about a half mile from the summit.  He turned around and came back to check on me.  What a sweetie!  We went back to the saddle and rested for a few minutes.  We saw more people on their way up at about 4pm.   We saw three guys with daypacks, moving fast and on a mission.  We also saw a girl, by herself, no daypack, no water bottle, just kind of meandering.  We asked if she had water or needed water, but she said no, she was fine.  We wondered if she made it out ok.  As we descended, I started feeling better ad Andrew started feeling worse.  We were both really tired, but Andrew had a headache and was feeling some altitude illness.  I felt better than I’d felt all day!  We rested several times as we went back down the mountain thru patches of melting snow and muddy trail mixed with scree (scree= small loose rocks, especially good for slipping on).  We got back to the truck shortly before sunset.  We went back to our dispersed campsite we had the night before to rest our weary bodies.

I woke this morning and heard a strange sound… kind of like a car on a gravel road, but only for a second or two, then it would stop.  Or maybe like the sound of a car crossing a bridge… When I got out of the truck, I found the source of the noise… a hot air balloon was landing just over the hill from where we were camped behind.  I was hearing the gas jet as it was coming down.  Not something you’d see everyday.

We drove several miles up a dirt road to Honanki and Palatki Pueblo Ruins.  The first we came to was Honanki, cliff dwellings of the Sinagua people (named by the Spanish: Sin-Agua= without water; the people of Sierra Sin Agua= Mountains without water) who they believe later became the modern day Hopi.  Guides there describe the ruins and the pictographs and petroglyphs on the rocks there.  We bumped into a Pink Jeep Tour and listened in on their tour.  Next, we went to the ruins of Palatki.  We were shocked to find out we needed a reservation!  To walk thru pueblo ruins?  The person at Visitor info never mentioned that!  They let us in anyway and they had guides/volunteers at the two sites, the pueblo ruins and the rock art, to explain things.  Very nicely preserved rock art and and ruins.  

We headed back down all the dirt roads and thru the town of Sedona.  North of Sedona we were going to do a day hike, but found out they have a concessionaire running the area as a State Park and charges $7.00 for parking.  Our Golden Eagle pass won’t work there.  We decided not to do the hike and headed north to Flagstaff.  A had a negative feeling about Sedona and a few of the people we dealt with were not very friendly (not all, some were very nice… and had negative comments about Californians).  maybe the unfriendlies we encountered were Californians?  We did notice, while on the dirt roads, as we’d pass another car, we’d wave.  In the east, you always wave and they will wave back.  Not here.  Andrew started checking license plates and the ones that wouldn’t wave back… were from California.  

We got to Flagstaff, AZ before the Chamber of Commerce closed and stopped there for info.  We also found out about a couple of brew-pubs nearby- like one block away.  We stopped at the Beaver Street Brewery for a sampler and appetizer.  We split a large red ale.  Their beers were ok, but nothing spectacular.  We liked the feel of the city and walked around downtown and then headed out to find some camping.

We took the road up to the Arizona Snow-Bowl, a ski resort with a very short season.  On the way, we found a free forest service dispersed camping area.  Our hike tomorrow begins up the road.