Author Archives: Jill and Bud

We have just spent three days visiting Yellowstone National Park. I was going to post our visit day by day, but issues with the internet have changed my plans. I took a number of short videos of the thermal features but none of them will upload here. So I am going to tell you about other things first, and post about the geysers and pools once we leave.

We were surprised as we approached our campground just west of Cody, Wyoming on the east side of Yellowstone. I had expected the broad valleys and rolling mountains like on the west side. But our approach was along the Shoshone River and the valley narrowed to a canyon as we left Cody. Here it was so narrow that we went through three tunnels. There was a reservoir and a State Park after the tunnels.

I didn’t think there would even be room for an RV park, but the valley did get wider, and that’s where the park is.

The mountains on either side are quite rugged and the whole area is beautiful.

This post is just about going into and out of Yellowstone. Yellowstone is huge, the distances are great. We were in one of the closest RV parks to the East Entrance of Yellowstone and it was still 30 miles. Then it was another 27 miles from the East Entrance to the junction of the loop roads. The main roads in Yellowstone form two loops with the entrance roads running out from them. The northern loop is 70 miles around and the southern loop is 96 miles around, so there is a lot of driving involved in visiting Yellowstone.

Fortunately it is beautiful driving. Here we are on our way in the early morning traveling west along the Buffalo Bill Scenic Byway, which is the North Fork Highway and was the road from our campground to the East Gate of Yellowstone.

The morning sun makes the astonishing rock formations stand out in sharp relief.

The mountains are beautiful and so is the Shoshone River, which you follow well past the entrance.

Going in or out the views are always beautiful.

An advantage of being on the east side is that there is less traffic here. This is the East Entrance gate seen as we were leaving. Even with the North and Northeast Entrances closed because of the flooding in June we saw only one or two lanes of the East Entrance open and no waiting lines.

As you go into the park you come closer to the snow capped mountains.

You travel up and over the Sylvan Pass, going by several beautiful springs along the way.

It is a long trip, but never monotonous.

Wyoming is the least populated and least densely populated of the lower 48 states. We are now in Lander, Wyoming, which is close to the center of the state and it seemed we drove through miles and miles of open terrain to get here. We traveled 130 miles from Green River, on the southern border and went through one small town.

Yesterday we visited Sinks Canyon State Park. It is along the canyon of the Popo Agie River (puh-PO-shuh). This beautiful little river carries snowmelt from the Wind River Mountains, which are high enough to support glaciers.

But the most remarkable thing about this river is that the whole thing disappears into a cave with cracks and crevasses (the sinks).

It’s a lot of water, moving fast, and it all just disappears underground. During the spring snowmelt it overwhelms the sinks and part of the water does flow overground.

We were standing at the mouth of the cave when I took this picture. To overflow the water would have to be about 20 feet deeper than it was, hard to imagine.

A quarter mile down the canyon the water re-emerges into this relatively placid pool. Dye studies have shown that the water takes two hours to make this trip. No one knows what the underground portion looks like to make that part of the journey take so long.

The Popo Agie is a trout stream. The pool at the rise is full of Rainbow and Brown Trout whose journey upstream ends at the underground portion of the river. Many of these fish are two feet long or more. I took this photo from a platform about 25 feet above the pool. There is a dispenser for fish food and people feed the trout from the platform, but Bob Alexander, there is no fishing allowed in this section of the river.

It is a beautiful canyon…

in a beautiful state.

Now on to Yellowstone.

We are now headed, in short hops, towards Yellowstone National Park. Our first stop on the way is the tiny town of Jensen, Utah, just southwest of Dinosaur National Monument. To get here we took Colorado Route 139 which went up through Douglas Pass. This is looking back at the route just before we crossed the summit. Happily, the new brakes on the Tundra performed well on the several mile long, very steep downhill on the other side of the pass.

This area still has desert hills, but the valleys are all green. This is looking towards Dinosaur National Monument from the campground. The white mountain is Split Mountain. The Green River cuts a zig-zag path right through the mountain. The geology is similar to that of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison River. Many layers of loose material once covered the area. The Green River had cut a course through these layers. Then the land was pushed up. The river was confined and so continued to erode down through what became Split Mountain.

This afternoon we drove out along the Cub Creek Road following the guide book for the Tour of the Tilted Rocks. A side turn took us to where the Green River emerges from its canyon through Split Mountain.

It rolls past this huge rock wall before continuing its journey.

We stopped at several sites with petroglyphs. Some, like these were petroglyphs with coloring added. These are called pictoglyphs. We had never seen those before.

These images are about 1000 years old. I used the color enhancing program on this one because it brings out the way some images are made of a series of pecked dots. I had not seen that before, either.

My favorites were this huge lizard (close to 6 feet long) and…

this flute player.

Up on the ledge with those images was this Ephedra. It was covered with brownish buds and very striking blue beetles with red lines between their dorsal and ventral sides.

So much beauty, big and small!

We jogged east to Montrose, Colorado to see The Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. It was on our itinerary last summer when we took our 72 day trip to the west coast and back. We didn’t get to see it because US Rte 50 between the park entrance and Gunnison was closed. We were staying just west of Gunnison and the trip to the park was close to three hours one way due to the closure. It’s still closed Monday – Thursday, 8:30 AM – 12:30 PM and 1:30 PM – 5:30 PM. This time we came from the west and the road is open from Montrose past the park entrance. The trip to the park was 24 minutes.

The Black Canyon of the Gunnison is one of the steepest, deepest and narrowest canyons in the world. In the park it reaches depths from 1800 to 2700 feet deep. At its narrowest point on the rim it is only 1100 feet wide and at the river, just 40 feet wide.

We drove to the end of the main park road at High Point, 8289 feet above sea level. We then hiked about three fourths of a mile to Warner Point, the place where the gorge reaches its greatest depth. Not only were the views of the canyon stunning,

the views to the south and west, over the valley to Montrose, were also captivating. At mid altitude there are a number of beautiful ranches. We think the white hills between the ranches and Montrose are volcanic ash, but I can’t find a specific reference.

Along the way we came across these two Western Collared Lizards. They hung around for several minutes while we watched.

This is looking upstream from Warner Point. The point is named for Mark T. Warner, a Presbyterian minister who came here in 1917 from Ohio. He worked for years to have this canyon preserved. He was instrumental in getting the Lion’s Club to build a road to the south rim in 1929. In 1933 the canyon was made a National Monument and in 1999 the protected area was enlarged and made a National Park.

This is the equally impressive view downstream. This canyon is so deep and narrow that there is no historical evidence of Native American use below the rim.

On our drive back out we stopped at the overlook for the Painted Wall. The rock is black gneiss with intrusions of pink pegmatite. Molten pegmatite was pushed up as magma into cracks in the gneiss. These rocks are 1.8 billion years old. About 2 million years ago the river, which is confined by mountains to the north, east and south, started cutting into this old, hard rock. The steep canyon gradient of 43 feet to 95 feet per mile created tremendous water power. Compare this to the 7 feet per mile gradient of the Colorado in the Grand Canyon. In spring floods the water has enough force to propel four foot boulders.

In 1972 Bill Forrest and Kris Walker were the first to climb this 2,500 foot wall. I just couldn’t picture it as I gazed at this expanse.

We were all glad we made this trip to see this amazing river and canyon.

On Sunday evening Bud was putting air back in our truck tires in anticipation of our move to Montrose, Colorado on Monday. (The recommended inflation for towing is higher than normal, which makes for a rough ride without the trailer, particularly on unpaved roads.) He noticed that the new shocks we had put on June 15 in St. George, Utah, didn’t look right. He called me to take photos. Meanwhile, our neighbors at the campground in Moab returned from a day of off-road driving.

They said the shocks were mounted wrong. One of them jumped up and down on the back bumper while I took this little video of the movement. You can see that the top of the rod is going up and down. It shouldn’t do that.

It shouldn’t do that because if it does eventually it will punch a hole up through the bed of your truck. Oh no! We hadn’t seen the hole because the bed of the truck has a rug in it. We thought the noise we heard on some rough roads was something we had stowed wrong, though we couldn’t find it.

The neighbors said it should be a quick job to get them fixed, but it was already Sunday evening, nothing was open and we wanted to leave on Monday.

Monday morning Bud called the garage that installed them and had to leave a message. He then called and left a message at a local garage. The place in St. George called back right away. It turns out he is friends with the guy from Moab, so he sent a message asking the Moab garage to help us out. The local garage called Bud back and by eight-thirty our truck was up on the lift. Turns out a convex washer had been installed upside down (on both rear shocks) and so had broken. The mechanic was able to heliarc weld them back together and before 10:30 Bud was back with the repaired truck. We never saw the bill, it went directly to the garage in St. George. And when we have time to make a permanent repair on the bed, the St. George garage will pay for that and a spray on bed liner. Wonderful! We pulled out just a couple of minutes after the 11:00 AM checkout time.

We took the back way which eventually got us into some beautiful country, but not until we’d come down some steep and snakey hills. The one in Utah was marked as a 9% grade. Once we got into Colorado the grades weren’t marked. They were pretty stingy with their guardrails, too.

We think this is Telluride in the distance. We were just northwest of the area.

We finally made it to about a mile from the main route up the valley into Montrose when up ahead there was a construction vehicle on the side of the road and a highway worker stopping traffic. Cars were passing one at a time, and most were turning left, not going straight. When it was our turn he asked if we were going to Montrose. We were. The road was closed in that direction (due to an accident; Bud asked) and we could either wait for a couple of hours or take the detour on County Road 1. After the drive we’d just had on state highways I asked if we could pull the trailer on that road. “You can,” he said. “It’s gravel but the people who live up there have trailers.”

We took the detour. There was a steady stream of cars both ways. The road went up a very steep hill, but that part was paved. The miles of ridge top road were not paved, but it was the hardest packed, smoothest gravel road I’ve ever been on. Then that road was closed due to utility work, so we had to take a detour on the detour! The whole time it was steady traffic; cars, motor homes, even a few semi’s. The hill back down was not as steep and at 3:30 we finished what should have been less than a three and a half hour drive to Montrose and Cedar Creek RV Park.

Our reward? Cedar Creek really is a creek. With water, and trees!

Before we left Bluff we took one more tour.

This was at Hovenweep National Monument. Matey could come on this trail that led around a small canyon with some unusual native ruins.

These were very well made structures, but not linked as in the other pueblo ruins we had seen.

There were a number of buildings around the edge of the canyon,

and two towers down in the canyon. No one knows just what these buildings were for, but we do know they were built by natives, probably the same ancestors of the modern Pueblos that built the villages at Mesa Verde.

At Moab we visited a couple of petroglyphs sites.

Not only did we see some unusual and well preserved petroglyphs, the ride and terrain around them was spectacular.

Do you see the Jeep on the OHV road (Off Highway Vehicle, as they call them here)? That’s right across the side canyon of the Colorado where we were.

We took another day to visit Dead Horse Point State Park and Canyonlands National Park.

Dead Horse Point State Park was beautiful, but small. At least Matey got to walk on some trails there. The road you see below was not part of the park, the park ended at the point.

Unless you have an OHV or are doing some serious backcountry hiking and camping…

The Island in the Sky part of Canyonlands is a series of overlooks;

admittedly…

very

forbidding…

but beautiful overlooks.

We all agreed we preferred Aches.

To get a break from unending rocks we drove the La Sal Mountain Loop Road. As we got higher into the mountains we came to trees.

And more trees,

these little blue butterflies,

and these really big trees.

We even saw some snow still up on the mountains. It was a nice break and a foretaste of things to come.

My apologies for the gap in posts. While in Moab I couldn’t get any of my photos transferred to my iPad. I’m doing three posts to catch you up. First is our two days in Arches. This park is so popular that you now need a timed entry permit to get in anytime between 6 AM and 5 PM from April 3 to October 3. Happily I had known this and applied for and got entry tickets for between 7 and 8 AM on June 22nd and 23rd. This meant a very early morning, especially on the 23rd when Matey didn’t go and had to be walked before we left. Fortunately our RV park was only 20 minutes from the entrance.

Arches National Park has the highest concentration of stone arches in the world with over 2000 in the park. The first ones we saw were these double arches, although we chose not to hike up to them.

Instead we took the hike up to, and through the Window Arches. Here Adler and I are approaching the North Window Arch.

On the way up we got a good look at the Turret Arch.

From underneath you see and feel how huge these formations are.

As we scrambled down on the other side you could look back at both the North Window Arch (on the right) and the South Window Arch.

We took the primitive trail back, which led through this little valley hidden among the rocks.

We then drove out to the main park road past this odd formation.

We stopped at the view point for the Delicate Arch. This is one of the most photographed arches in the park. It is the lone remnant of a rock fin. We opted not to do the 3 mile hike up and back to the arch. My knee seems to be good only for a mile at a time.

We stopped at the overlook for the Firey Furnace, a hike here would have been great, but a permit is required and unfortunately that hike also seemed beyond Bud and my capabilities. Poor Adler, we told him he needs to come back with friends when he is old enough to drive. He’s being a great sport, though.

We also saw the Skyline Arch that day. Its placement along a prominent ridge makes it one of the most visible arches in the park.

The next morning we started our day with a hike through Devil’s Garden at the end of the main park road.

The trail was beautiful;

the morning sun on the red rock fins made some great photos.

We visited three more arches, Tunnel Arch…

and Pine Tree Arch, which were on spur trails,

and most spectacularly, Landscape Arch, the longest natural rock arch in North America. This is as close as you are now allowed to approach. In 1991 60 tons of rock fell from the bottom of the formation. Happily, the people under it heard the cracking and ran back before it fell.

Bud and Adler went a bit further on the difficult trail that continued. Adler made it to the top of the uphill scramble, but Bud couldn’t and I was waiting below so he turned back.

Later we took a gravel road out through Salt Valley to Klondike Bluffs and the trail to Tower Arch.

This started with some rock scrambling.

I made it far enough to see the tower arch, which you can just about make out in this picture. Looking down the left side of the tower you can see an oval impression in the rock wall just below the tower. That is the arch.

I was proud of Bud and myself for making it that far, this is the “moderate” elevation we climbed up. Look closely just right of center and you can see a bit of the road coming in.

This is looking down at the truck after we’d climbed down the first steep section and we’re ready to climb the last steep part.

And here is Adler, just below me on the trail. Yes it was steep, but I made it, bunged up knee and all.

We all loved Arches, a very different experience than Mesa Verde, but equally interesting.

We have visited several Pueblo tribes on our trip so far and have seen rock art from ancient Indian groups, so visiting the Long House held extra meaning. Mesa Verde National Park encompasses several inclined mesas, or cuestas. Only two of them have roads and developed sites to visit. The main road extends along Chaplin Mesa and there is a side road, open only from May through October that extends along Wetherill Mesa. The cuesta slants at about 7 degrees from north to south. The park road enters on the higher, north side and once reaching the top of the mesas runs all the way to the south end. The Wetherill Mesa Road turns off the main park road on the Chaplin Mesa, crosses the canyon to the Wetherill Mesa and runs to its southern end. All this makes for an interesting, if somewhat harrowing drive.

We had tickets to the ranger led tour of the Long House cliff dwelling on Wetherill Mesa. The cliff dwellings are under the rim of the southern end of the cuestas, because that’s where the water runs down, seeps into the sandstone, freezes and carves out chunks of sandstone that form alcoves. Our tour was at 11:30, the park entrance was an hour and a half from our campground and the park information said to allow an hour and a half to drive the 30 miles through the park. We could have made it in less time, but the park roads are not built for hurrying. The Wetherill Mesa Road had a speed limit of 25 mph for most of its length, steep inclines, switchbacks and for all but one sharp turn, no guardrails. There are no pictures of the drive because I was too busy simultaneously gazing around and gripping the armrest.

Once we parked we had to walk 3/4’s of a mile on the top of the Mesa to get to the meeting point for the tour. Then it was another 1.1 miles down stairs and a switchback trail to the site.

At our first glimpse of the Long House we knew it had been worth it.

Our group gathered where the trail came into the west side of the dwelling. We met our ranger guide, Michael.

After a brief introduction Michael led us up the two fifteen foot ladders to the main level of the dwelling.

There were several levels, including small rooms tucked way up under the roof of the alcove.

Michael explained that the dwelling was expanded over time and that earlier construction was crude, with unshaped blocks and extensive use of mortar and small chinking stones.

Later construction used carefully shaped blocks and much less mortar. In reading the park brochure I learned that people had lived on the top of the mesa since about 500 CE (current era), while the cliff houses were built from about 1150 to 1300 CE. They did use the cliff alcoves but didn’t live there. During the years they lived on top they improved their building skills. I would guess that the early walls and rooms were built by the people living on top of the mesa and incorporated into the dwellings once the people moved below.

It is not known why they chose to move to the alcoves. We do know that their culture was prospering. They were growing corn, beans and squash on the mesas and not only were their own families growing, but people were moving in from other places. There are at least 600 alcove dwellings in the park. The Long House is the second largest (Cliff Palace has a few more rooms) in the park and in North America. One draw can be seen in this photo. If you look to the right of the remnants of the rooms, you can see an open area where the shale floor meets the sandstone roof. The green is plants growing at a seep spring. The water that permeates the sandstone comes out when it hits the impermeable shale. That both shaped the alcove and produced the springs. Those springs were essential during dry periods.

Central to their lives and their belief system were their Kivas. This photo is looking down at the original floor of a kiva built about 800 years ago! Looking from the lower right towards the upper left you can see the ventilator (the rectangular opening in the wall and the space behind the wall). Next is the short wall of the air deflector and the round fire pit. An entrance ladder would descend from the center of the roof in this area. The docent at the Coronado site had told us that it was designed so you would come down through the smoke and be purified. Kivas were built partially underground. The small round opening above and left of the fire pit looked like a piece of PVC pipe. It is actually the sipapu and is the neck of a large clay vessel. It is embedded in the floor and is an opening to the earth and a reminder that these people believed they had come from below the earth into this world on a journey to find their proper or ideal home.

Our tour took us all across the upper story of the dwelling and then down into the plaza. Michael told us that the plaza was the center of their social interactions. He also explained that these dwellings in Mesa Verda held a unique place in the native culture. Here many people came together and shared ideas and skills.

But after a number of years their crops were failing, perhaps because of a drought combined with too many people growing crops on the mesa fields which may have depleted the soil. In the end the people decided this was no longer the right place for them and the groups dispersed. The Zunis, Jemez, Acoma and other pueblo communities we had passed all had Mesa Verde as a former home. These people still come here to visit their ancestral home and to hold spiritual ceremonies. Our guide told us a Hopi elder told him they always end their ceremonies with a prayer for all people to live in peace and in balance with the earth.

We left with a greater appreciation of the skill and wisdom of these people.

And for their physical abilities, because we learned they had no steps to get up and down, but traversed the canyon with hand and toe holds cut into cracks, and often were carrying clay vessels on their backs held up with straps around their foreheads!

On Thursday we drove 319 miles, which is the farthest we’ve driven since we left Arkansas. We were up early and left the campground at 6:40.

The drive went well, into Arizona, back into Utah, into Arizona again and arriving in Bluff, Utah before 2:00 PM. Still it was a long day and Bud had a bit of a headache, so today I thought we’d just go about 5 miles down the road to Sand Island to view petroglyphs.

We found two short trails along the cliffs along the San Juan River (the same river we were camped near in Bloomfield, NM in the beginning of May) both of which had some nice panels of petroglyphs.

Signs there said they were from 300 to 3000 years old. We could tell some were really old, but they didn’t show up well enough to photograph.

When we were getting ready to leave there, Bud asked if we’d like to continue west to Monument Valley. Well OKAY, if he was willing to make the hour drive we were willing to go along.

Monument Valley is a Navajo Tribal Park. To me it was like the inverse of the Grand Canyon. Instead of a plain with a deep canyon eroded through it, you are on a plain where everything has eroded except these towering rock structures. The park is 91,696 acres. It has a 15 mile gravel road through it that winds around the mesas, buttes and spires.

I struggled, as I have been all through the southwest, to capture the grandeur of it. Here I am at the base of one end of Cly Butte. Were I to walk up to the base I would not be tall enough to reach up to the lowest crack in the cliff.

This is the view when I turned around. The spires in the distance, probably well over a mile away, are the Three Sisters.

This is a closer view of the Three Sisters.

I had Adler climb up on one of the smaller boulders at the base of one end of the Spearhead Mesa.

Here Bud and Matey are resting in the shade of a huge boulder at the same end of Spearhead Mesa.

At the overlook at the Navajo Code Talker Outpost you can see how a more erosion resistant layer is creating flat-topped columns.

These huge columns, which were still quite distant, were two formations, one called the Totem Pole and the other Yei Bi Chei. Notice the sand dunes in front of them.

These dunes, not far from the Totem Pole, were easily as tall as a two story house. Adler really wanted to walk out and climb them but you aren’t allowed to hike on your own and the dunes were probably a mile away.

We drove out, leaving West and East Mitten and Merrick Buttes and all of Monument Valley. We got back to the trailer at 3 after another busy day. And tomorrow we need to leave here at 7:30 to get to our tour on time at Mesa Verde National Park. Whew!

Monday Matey stayed home while Bud, Adler and I went back to Zion.

We left very early and were on the shuttle by 7:40.

We turned off Utah 9 and onto the restricted road up through the main canyon, the canyon of the Virgin River.

The last stop of the shuttle was at the Temple of Sinawava, which is also the trailhead for the Riverside Walk which leads to the Narrows. The Narrows was the trail Adler most wanted to hike.

You are immediately surrounded by the huge rock walls.

Riverside Walk is a paved trail the leads along this beautiful canyon.

I’ve run out of superlatives to describe the beauty of this place.

We followed Riverside Walk just over a mile up along the river as the canyon narrowed.

Along the way we passed some very tame wildlife, like this mule deer,

and this squirrel, one of many.

We passed this spring…

and interesting rock formations,

a lot of interesting rock formations.

At the end of the Riverside Walk was the Narrows. The canyon walls come right to the river here so the trail takes you through the water.

The water was cold. Adler took this picture of me picking my way across the rocky bottom.

Even as early as we were, there were a lot of other people wading up to see this magnificent canyon.

After a bit we came to a place where it looked like you had to wade in up to your waist. I decided not to do that, so I took Bud’s keys, wallet and phone and the pack and his hat from Adler.

I stood in the cold water and watched them wade away from me. I noticed others coming back and they were only wet to their thighs. I changed my mind and followed, now carrying everything.

I made it through the deep part and was rewarded by this lovely spring running down the canyon wall.

I found Bud and Adler, but the current was getting more swift and the bottom more stony.

We decided to turn back. The guide said the Narrows was a nine mile out and back trail, we had probably not made more than a half mile, but it was enough for us.

We walked back to the Riverside Walk…

and back to the shuttle stop.

I can see why so many people visit Zion, and why private cars are kept out of the Virgin River Canyon. There were many more hikes we could have taken…maybe next time.