Hurricane Draw, AZ

I went down to Hurricane on Friday looking for some time off the pavement, off the grid, off line, and off the air. I left the pavement near Sky Ranch and made it all the way to the power line south of Cottonwood Canyon without incident. It was late on a winter day and the sun was low in the sky ahead of me. I crossed the power line road, crossed a steep gulch, and started into Black Rock Canyon. That was probably a mistake. On the map the road looked like the main route south along the base of the Uinkaret Plateau; plus, it was the Temple Trail. It was, unfortunately, as rough as anything I've ever driven, more of an ATV trail than a road. There were a couple places so narrow that I wasn't sure the Chev would fit. Of course, once you've started, it is almost impossible to turn around, and you ain't gonna be able to back all the way out. I passed the parts of three other vehicles that had been abandoned along the way (fortunately they seemed to be many years old and were not accompanied by human skeletons) and stopped often to move bowling ball sized chunks of basalt off the "road."

By the time I reached the Lower Hurricane Valley near East Mesa, it was dark. At least the road was better and the Chev had, once again, proven itself, but now I needed a place to camp. In the end, there wasn't really a camp. I pulled off the road beneath the East Mesa and went to sleep on the seat of the truck. The forecast of pleasant lows in the 30s and 40s had been incorrect and it was in the 20s with a biting wind. When I woke at 6a, the inside of the truck was thick with ice and daylight was still two hours away. This is, of course, one of the problems with sleeping rough during December: There are 14 hours of darkness each day.

I made some coffee before the sun was up, got the truck started, and headed down the Hurricane Draw. By 10a, the ice was gone from the windows and the road was smooth and straight. The big open end of the Lower Hurricane Valley was before me, with Mt. Logan and Mt. Trumbull in the distance. I reached the Navajo Trail by 11a. I stopped there to brew more coffee and eat a Poptart. I had left the pavement on the edge of Hurricane about 19 hours (and 35 miles) before. I got going again headed west and, after a few miles, turned up the Sunshine Trail. This "trail" was much better than the one for reaching the Temple, though I am not sure why. I made it all the way to Yellowhorse Flat before I stopped for some more food.

This wasn't intended to be a two night trip and I wanted to reach pavement again before the sun set. Fortunately, it wasn't long before I came out on top of the mesa above the Well. I could see Warner Ridge and St. George in the distance. I drove down off the mesa and across the flat. When I reached the outskirts of Washington, a yuppie driving some kind of silly Toyota passed me headed south. It was the first person or vehicle I'd seen in 24 hours. I hit the pavement again after 80 solo miles on the Strip and drove up through Washington to the freeway. I was home before dark.

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Grosvenor Arch, Utah

We needed to go to Boulder to pick up some paintings, but we wanted to spend some time over there so we took the camper. When we got to Cannonville we turned off the highway and headed down the Cottonwood Road. I had planned to go down to Wahweap Creek or even Four Mile Canyon, but the road was rough all the way to Grosvenor Arch so the trip was slow. By the time we got to the Wahweap turn-off it was late, so I turned around and we camped along the impoundment above Grosvenor.

The clouds came in before dinner and it got dark early, but it made for a warm night since they served as insulation. In the morning, there was a biting north wind and the girls ate breakfast in the camper. We should have packed up right then, but I believed that it would clear up later in the afternoon, so we left the camper and drove to Boulder. By the time we returned, the clouds had set in above Powell Point, above Bryce Canyon, and above Canaan Mountain. It looked like we were in for some winter weather. We hustled to pack the camper in a drizzle. When we crossed the Paria there was a winter storm towering over us and filling the whole southern sky. We dodged storms all the way back to Parowan and had the truck unloaded just before a snowstorm covered town. It wasn't the best weekend for a campout.

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Kanab, Utah

It was snowing on Friday when we left for Kanab, so, instead of driving over the Markagunt, we went around. The trip down to Hurricane was uneventful, but the bright afternoon sunlight and winter storm clouds were spectacular as we passed Gooseberry Mesa and Moccasin Peak. I was tempted by the light on the walls of Kanab Creek and by the turn-off to Toroweap, but we'd been in the truck long enough by the time Fredonia hove into view.

We stayed at Aikens Lodge in Kanab and attended The Business of Art seminar at the middle school. The organizers did a great job, and it was a pretty good program. Our only problem with it was that some of the invited speakers were academics and art-bureaucrats who were not interested in the practical problems involved with making a living as artists. As a result, their sessions were full of self-indulgently foolish art-speak and social consciousness mumbo-jumbo.

I was pretty much done with it after lunch, so I left Valerie and made a run out to Johnson Canyon. Once again, the light on the winter storm clouds was spectacular. By the time I made it to the GSENM boundary, however, there was no more light, only the darkness of a full winter blizzard. I loved it. I pulled off the road, opened the truck windows, and listened to the snow pelt the pinyon trees. Finally it was time to go back. I grabbed Valerie in Kanab and we made it to Cedar City in time for dinner.

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West Desert VI

Posted to the WDTL on 18 May 2009:

It's not really the west desert, but I've been spending a lot of time in the southern Sierra for work. It involves crossing the Mojave Desert and the dry foothills near Bakersfield. I love it for some of the same reasons that I love the four corners: big, empty, and rugged. Well, this being California, it isn't so empty. My first stop is always Mesquite, which I don't hate as much as most people do. Then, there is Vegas, which I hate far more than most people seem to. (It is a hell-hole that could cease to exist as far as I am concerned.) I usually stop in Baker, just because it is such an arm pit, and I like arm pits. Barstow isn't much better and I usually pass it by. But, once you get out past Edwards, it becomes really beautiful. There is Mojave and Tehachapi and Keene. I turn off at Caliente and wind my way over to the Walker Basin. Wow. I love Utah and the four corners, but if you want to buy me a few hundred acres of the Walker Basin, I will be happy there, too.

West Desert V

Posted to the WDTL on 3 May 2009:

We drove toward the Gap with a huge storm brewing. A few drops spattered us as we passed the southern end of the Little Salt Lake. The deluge hit as we entered the Gap. Ellen said we had an ocean on our windshield. We did, but it was gone by the time we reached the Minersville Highway. From there we drove straight to Lund. Lund has a population of five. Maybe. But it has two little abandoned (and now vanalized) railroad houses that we like. Valerie wants to move one home for a studio. We turned north past the pig farms and, by the time we hit Jockey Road, Ellen was asleep. She didn't miss much but, after we'd passed the road to the mine, I wasn't really sure where we were going. We passed some hand-carters and finally stopped at an old corral, but we still had nowhere to camp. We turned around and went back to an abandoned gravel pit. It wasn't very picturesque, but the girls were ready to quit driving. We were probably 80 miles from Parowan, but it had taken us about three hours to get there.

After erecting camp, Ellen and I took a walk down a little wash nearby. We were in a pinyon-juniper forest and it showed signs of heavy cutting, even half a mile from the road. Most of the fence posts between there and Minersville must have come from that forest. Nevertheless, there were plenty of trees and they collectively blocked our views of the surrounding area. So, we had just ourselves and our little wash. Which was quite enough. We were out of the wind and the temperature was just right for walking. The air smelled of pinyon and sage. Ellen chattered on about the flowers she found—penstemon, indian paintbrush, and some little native snow-in-summer type plants. We found coyote tracks and scats; we found old horse poops; we heard the call of a crow; and, where the wash entered a little meadow, we startled a grazing cow elk. On the way back we found a couple of resting rocks; we sat there while Ellen dumped the sand out of her shoes. A few minutes later we arrived in camp—just in time to open a bottle of two dollar wine and start cooking dinner.

In the morning, we left Valerie to paint and we drove over to a spring just below the Tetons—three or four little knolls with a grand sounding name. From there I hiked to the crest of one of the, well, Tetons, while Ellen sat on a rock about half way up. I had unimpeaded views across Pine Valley and all the way to Indian Peak. Ellen started to call, so I went down and we drove back to camp. I got Ellen a snack and we packed up the camping gear. The sun was out and it was hot. With the windows open, we turned back down Jockey Road and drove to the confluence with Blawn Wash. We turned there at the old windmill and continued down the wash. Blawn Wash Road was in very good shape and within minutes we were in front of Broze Knoll. We set up Valerie to paint and made lunch. After a while it was time to go and Ellen went to sleep on the seat as we drove back to Lund. From there, it was a straight shot back to the Gap and Parowan beyond.

West Desert IV

Posted to the WDTL on 26 April 2009:

Twice this year I've driven to Kernville, California for meetings. From Parowan, one can drive all the way to Barstow on I-15. There are three words for that trip: Boring, boring, and boring. (The only interesting part is Las Vegas. Instead of boring, Las Vegas is hot, dusty, garrish, and traffic-choked. It is, in short, a hell-hole. But, I digress.) To break up the boredom, I've taken two large detours. On 23 January, I did a 200 mile drive-through of the Mojave National Preserve. It was cool and wet, of all things, and the landscape had the expectant feel of spring. On 21 April, I did a 200 mile drive-through of Death Valley National Park. It was already hot—106F—and one sensed that spring was, perhaps, past. Neither the Mojave nor Death Valley is beautiful in the typical sense, but both of them are large, rugged, and harsh, which makes them attractive. They say that the best time to visit is between Thanksgiving and Christmas—the crowds are gone and the weather is moderate. I may want to take them up on it.

West Desert III

Posted to the WDTL on 22 March 2009:

The wind gusts were hitting 45 mph this morning. At church, the preacher said that one of the local farmer's hens was facing away from the wind . . . she laid the same egg six times. Har. With all that wind, there was a terrific salt storm rising off the Little Salt Lake and blowing up the Parowan Valley. I wanted to see it, so after church I drove towards Minersville and around through the Gap. Ellen was with me and I told her that we were hunting dust storms. Before we got to the Gap we encountered a bad one just on the west side of the little mountain range there. It was worse than fog. I couldn't see the road and Ellen said that it made her eyes water inside the truck.

West Desert II

Posted to the WDTL on 10 February 2009:

Today I went out to Three Peaks. It may be my last visit. It is a beautiful and interesting place, but it looks like another ATV sacrifice area. I don't want to be there with the motors. But, today it was cold and windy. It had snowed hard all morning, and the sun was just breaking out now and then. Besides, it was a Tuesday. So, the place was quiet. And I loved that. I think the loss of the quiet is the thing that is making me miss Escalante so much. That deep silence became a friend to me, and now it is gone. There is no silence in the Parowan Valley; none in Cedar City.

West Desert I

In February, I started a sister blog to the Four Corners Travel Log and called it the West Desert Travel Log. After moving to Parowan, I expected that we would spend as much time in the Great Basin as we did in the Four Corners. But it hasn't worked out that way. In fact, with the exception of two posts that I generated during May while on the road for my job, I've had only one entry since March . . . and not a single post of any kind in almost six months. The West Desert Travel Log simply isn't. And, so, I'm going to shut it down. I will incorporate its contents into the FCTL by copying them over . . . one per day for the rest of this week. After that, any trips west will be posted here despite being slightly off topic. We will call them "geographical oddities." So, without further explaination, here is the first entry from WDTL. It is from 8 February 2009:

You knew it was coming. I promised it when we moved. The sister blog to Four Corners Travel Log has been born. Welcome to the West Desert—very different from the Four Corners, but beloved for some of the same big, empty reasons. For me, the West Desert starts right outside our door. For the sake of geographic simplicity, I-15 makes up its eastern boundary, and I-15 is in our backyard. Well, not really, but close enough. Today, we crossed the border and started west. The first big feature is the Little Salt Lake, but just beyond that is the Parowan Gap. "Discovered" in 1850 by the Parley Pratt expedition that founded Parowan, the Parowan Gap is well known for its incredible 1000 year old petraglyphs. We hiked, picked up rocks, and froze in the February wind. But, it felt good to be out seeing a little of the country—the West Desert.

New Home Bench, Utah

We needed to meet some other painters and photographers at Calf Creek on Saturday, so we drove over to the east side on Friday afternoon. I was planning to camp somewhere between Head of the Rocks and New Home Bench. I didn't turn down Spencer Flat because I figured that would be too popular. Well, I may have made a mistake. New Home Bench was crowded and we had to go half way to Salt Gulch before we could find a place. In the end, it was too close to the road and the traffic kept us up half the night. What the . . . ? This is Garfield County, Utah . . . where is there to drive to at 11:30p?

Of course, it was worse in the morning. When we lived in Escalante, I wouldn't go near Calf Creek because I couldn't stand the mayhem. Well, it was our planned meeting place, so we had to ignore the yuppies, hippies, and euros for a change, and deal with the carnival. V came up with a couple of nice little paintings and E got to wade in the creek, plus we had a good time talking with Irene and some other painters. By 2p we were worn out and we went back up to Salt Gulch for a nap. The nap was followed by a hike in Big Gulch and a spaghetti dinner.

On Sunday morning, I took a run down the Escalante River to Phipps Wash while the girls went upstream to the natural bridge. Even the lower end of Phipps was full of tourists, so I never did have an hour of silence, but I guess that is the price one pays for visiting the Calf Creek area in early October. I messed around in one of the side canyons and missed Phipps Arch, but I did find the Maverick Natural Bridge. By about 1p we were all at the bridge and loaded up for another hundred mile drive back to Parowan.

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