Raindrops and Lizard Tracks

For a less crowded and altogether different canyon flavor, Island in the Sky, in Canyonlands National Park, is the place to be. A 1.8-mile hike through lizard condo-land gets me to Murphy Point, where I pause to sit at the edge of the world. The morning light is exquisite on the canyons. It is so quiet I can hear the whir of violet-green swallows catching breakfast bugs on the wing. When I sit very still, they zoom within two feet of me. A chipmunk chirps nearby.

Then, wow. Raindrops! Pattering one by one on stone, my clothes, my daypack beside me. The wet drops feel cool against my bare legs, arms, and shoulders. It’s a spit of water, dry almost as fast as it lands on hot rock. But the swallows are gone as soon as it starts. It lasts four minutes. Breezes return. The swallows come back after the bugs. And the bugs come back after me.

I drive to Grand View Point Overlook and take the easy 1-mile hike to the southmost outcropping for more amazing views of the river-carved landscape. I finish in the early afternoon with a swing by Mesa Arch, where I climb on top of the arch and stare down into a canyon hundreds of feet deep beneath me (but not for very long).

The road to Canyonlands park entrance. This area is still used for cattle grazing, if the cattle grates and signs are any indication.

Part of trail to Murphy Point.

Lizard tracks.

“Don’t Bust the Crust” is the desert slogan and plea to stay on the trails. Crust is a living network of bacteria that takes up to 200 years to grow a fraction of an inch. It plays a vital role in the water retention, nutrient exchange, and survival of the entire desert ecosystem.

A closer look at crust.

Trail-defining branches help keep feet from straying onto crust.

Desert still life.

Raindrop prints.

At a stop on the trail.

The world is an exciting place from a cliff edge.

A piece-it-together-yourself panorama shot. View to the left. The Green River is just visible snaking in that canyon basin. The Colorado is on the other (east) side of this peninsular plateau. The rivers meet south of Grand View Point and continue on as the Colorado.

View to center.

View to the right.

Near the end of line at Murphy Point. Note the stone cairns that mark the trail.

I forget what this formation is called, but it’s visible from a lot of places. Here from Murphy Point...

...and here, closer, from Grand View Point.

At Grand View Point, looking southeast.

And southwest.

I was fascinated by the many ways water affected the rock. Everywhere I looked was sculpture.

One scraggly hanger-on.

Sandstone seems to invite more than water to carve it.

Lichen does some weird things.

Trees will grow anywhere, even on a troll’s face.

Footprints to Mesa Arch.

The arch.

A view through Mesa.

On top of Mesa Arch. It’s not nearly as scary to climb as it looks.

Boots on the Arches

As most of us know from National Geographic and Time-LIFE coffee table books, the bulk of Utah is ancient rock weathered into arches and canyons. Eroded rock explored as caverns and corridors and mesas. Rock transformed by wind and water into needles and dollops of frosting.

The stand-by must-sees of Arches National Park, like the highlights of so many national parks, have been photographed to death by far better photographers than I with my little Pocket PC, Perry. Balanced Rock. Courthouse Towers. Windows Arches. Delicate Arch (Utah’s unofficial state image). This park is both popular and very, very crowded at these and other famous pullouts.

So today I went to the northmost end of the area, Devil’s Garden, where fewer people go because you have to really do some hiking to get to the arches in this area. And even I didn’t make it to the farthest ones.

The trail itself was the fun part of this hike. Finding and following stone cairns (small rock piles) to keep on track. Walking the top of a high rock fin (the ridgeline of those “walls” that stack next to each other like pages in a book). Crawling into an arch hole at Double O to discover the most amazing cooling breeze to make the hot trek worthwhile.

This park is intimate because you can walk around and through most of the arches. It’s also a bit distancing because of the many miles you must drive to get to each area. But, really, at the end of the day, it’s all about a bunch of people flocking to see a bunch of holes in a bunch of rocks. And I was right in line with them.

Above: Pine Tree Arch; I have no idea why it's called that, except that there was a 6' pine tree by its sign.

I dubbed this one The Prow.

Clamshells? Whipped cream? Your call.

Everywhere a photo op!

A surprisingly photo-friendly lizard.

A fin between two walls (I nearly walked off the end of this one...oops, not on trail!).

Partition Arch.

Rock fin ahead (note tiny people on top).

On trail.

This one's ready for Wile E. Coyote to send over the cliff.

Double O Arch.

A zippy visitor at Double O.

Curious chipmunk.

Not on trail, but a beautiful detour.

View from a fin.

A tree grows through it.

March of the Elephants (they really do look like petrified pachyderms).

The infamous Three Gossips.

Tomorrow to Canyonlands NP.

Ah, Here’s the Utah I Expected

And then some.

The drive to Moab from Las Vegas is long and easy, 244 miles in one day, close to my preferred max. Cruising at 55mph alongside 75mph traffic, astounded by the constantly changing scenery. Farms and fields, pinyon-dotted hills and willow/cottonwood forests along rivers. Rocky canyons in black, creams, white, reds, oranges. Rock all folded together and jutting every which way. Plains of only sand and scrub. An aqua sky giving way to cloud cover darkened with rain in the distance. Mesas and plateaus standing like stepping stones in a dried creek bed. Highway that has been blasted through mountains in man-made canyons, or poured as asphalt in ribbons across flatlands. Wow, wow, wow, was all I could get out after each new turn. No ten minutes of terrain were alike.

Entering Emery County brought immediate canyons, like the world is one great big gravel pit. Most of these photos were taken at Salt Wash viewpoint. The two viewpoints I stopped at were lined with people selling bead necklaces and other jewelry, painted pottery, and Indian “artifacts” right under signs saying “No Vendors”!








Staying at Spanish Trails RV Park in Moab, a few miles south of town. Good park. A patch of fresh lush grass for Patchouli, a freshly painted picnic table, a bit of adobe-colored concrete walkway right beside the rig. Almost every spot has a shade tree—mine has one on each side for morning and afternoon shade, plus a western view of trees and cliffs.

Patchouli seems very happy here. Took a long walk and he parked himself in several places.



The sky tonight at 5:30 for dinner is blue with white clouds in the northwest, rimmed with silver white over the cliffs behind the restaurant. Dark steel in the southeast where Hwy 191 disappears into the horizon. Lightning strikes like a needle flashing in sunlight—there and gone almost before the brain has registered it, like falling star seen at the edge of eye and sky.

Dinner at Moab Microbrewery—tried the Dead Horse Ale, advertised as “a mid-hoppy brew served ice cold from the serving tank; ‘Dead Horse Ale’ is named after the scenic overlook near Canyonlands. A traditional English mild ale with a well-balanced malt-to-hop ratio. The perfect beer to compliment [sic] all foods.” It was quite good.

The house-made lime chipotle salad dressing was the best part of my meal of smoked chicken with garlic red potatoes and slaw. Too bad they don’t sell it at the in-house store. I’d like to try making it—lime, olive oil, roasted chipotle peppers, and cilantro all ground up and mixed together would be a great start. Or maybe even pureeing a good chipotle salsa with fresh lime juice would work.

The Road Less Traveled

“Unimproved road for next 6 miles. Can be impassable when wet. Not recommended for trailers.”

A fat lot of good that sign does you if you’ve got a trailer in tow--you’re already committed to this lonely two lane road, and there’s no turnaround option except two miles straight behind you. I’m immediately thankful that the Flying Heart is safely parked at its site and that I’m just on a day trip with the truck.

Wanting to stay off the interstate, I have decided to take this alternative route, marked “scenic” on the map, on my way back to Beaver. The sign baffles me. “Unimproved” means…what? Expecting miles of poorly maintained pavement that’s crazed and cracked, I am quickly gripping the steering wheel, sweaty palmed and tense, as the Falcon jolts along over stones (pinggg! tink! ka-thunk!), gravel (shssshhhh-grrrrwhfff-plink-plink-plink), and pot-uuhoompphh-holes on a forest service road laid down in the dinosaur age and now meant only for ATV’ers and hard-core dry-campers.

The rear wheels fishtail at 5mph around sharp uphill turns on loose gravel. My teeth clatter as we dr-rr-vr-iivv-rrvvvvvv-rr ooo-vvr-rrer washshshshhh-bb-b-bbb-oardd-ddd g-ggr-owwnn-nnd-ddnd. Dust billows behind and around and onto every surface of the truck. At every new mile marker, I’m ever more grateful I don’t have the trailer attached, and I make a Note to Self When Hitched: until more experienced, make sure I know that all “scenic” routes are paved.

The sign also lied. The unimproved road lasted 20 miles, not 6 (although 8 was the worst of it), and I spent nearly two hours going that 20 miles. The reward was increasingly stunning views of sky and valleys, alpine grasses and flowers, and--near 10,000 feet--meadow upon meadow of green. Aspen leaves shimmered in the wind. White-barked birch stood like pillars. Pine and other conifers filled in the depths of spiky green.






I was in bear territory, a posted sign said. I saw none, but a guy I overheard at a fuel stop the next day said he’d seen a mother bear and her cubs up there. Did spot several deer between the trees. What looked like two instances of plump cats dead on the road turned out to be live marmots sunning themselves. Each got up and scampered away when my truck neared, although I did see evidence of one that moved too slowly from another set of wheels.

I had spent the morning at Fremont Indian State Park. It’s dedicated to protecting the pictographs and petroglyphs of the Fremont Indians who lived here for about 900 years (they disappeared in the 1300s, but no one knows why). They (and some itinerant Piutes) left hundreds of wall art images in the area, from square-bodied sheep and triangle-shaped people, to spirals and concentric circles and zig-zags, to weird collections of art that might be telling a history lesson. Newspaper Rock, Water Panel, Indian Blanket, Sheep Shelter...There’s enough to see here to last two days, at least.

I walked a few of the shorter trails. Sadly, the trail forces people to stay a distance from the art, and my little camera couldn’t capture most of the images I was near. I did appreciate the vast distances the Fremont could see of their surrounding lands, though.

One side-hike was to 100 Hands Cave. The trail crosses Clear Creek and ducks under I-70. Scads of swallows had taken up residence under the bridge, and the birds were active. The fluffy heads of little ones were just visible in some of the nests.


100 Hands Cave sounded romantic…a place to walk into, to pause in the silence and hear the dead speak in whispers from their palm prints on the walls, to imagine shadow stories being told and replayed before a cavern fire.

Not so.

100 Hands Cave is a recess in a rock wall about 6 feet deep, 8 feet high, 20 feet wide, blocked by iron bars, and marked by not 100, but 31 hand prints. Maybe the people who named it thought “31 Hands Cave” or “About 40 Hands Cave” or “Over 30 Hands Cave” wasn’t compelling enough of a draw, although it did work for Baskin Robbins 31 Flavors, so why not here?



All the marketing-speak (and iron barrier) notwithstanding, I found it interesting to really look at the hand prints. Small, like children’s, in keeping with the short stature of the Fremont—they were about 4 and a half feet tall. Several colors, mostly in groupings. A painted hand had dragged in a zigzag near the ground, fingers spread, making the symbol of mountains. Or perhaps someone was just getting the paint off his hands by scrubbing it out on the wall.