Return to the USA – End of the Magnificent North West Trip

Interest lasts longer than happiness.

Georgia O’Keeffe

Old Ford Hot Rod, Bonneville Salt Flats

From stunning Yukon, it is regrettably time to head back to the US.  There is smoke seeping nearly everywhere, the result of numerous and ceaseless summer fires. 

Because of the fires, I couldn’t enter Glacier National Park from the northern entrance; I had to use the east entrance.  I wanted to cross the park toward Washington but had to detour south via Idaho, again, due to fire and smoke, closing roads, campsites, and access to good views of the traversed sceneries. 

Fall is also approaching quickly.  Time to be further south to stay warm.

Glacier National Park

Mount Clemens near Logan Pass

Glacier National Park

As far west as I could get within the park, due to fires

Had to turn around and head south into Idaho

Every glacier in the park is shrinking.  The park had over 100 glaciers when it was established in 1910.  By 1966, 35 remained.  In 2015, only 26 (ranging in sizes from 411 to 26 acres) met the size criterion to be designated a glacier.  ALL have receded since 1966. 

Melting glaciers are just one of earth’s alerts.  As the temperature rises, the treeline is rising with it.  As the treeline moves up, alpine meadows are lost.  Species that depend on these meadows for food or protection from predators are increasingly threatened.  Some animals, like the ptarmigan, have already migrated farther up the mountain.  As the treeline continues to rise, where can they go when even these areas become inhospitable?  Not all can travel farther north rather than upward…

Fire past Hidden Lake near Hidden Creek

Glacier National Park

Mount Clemens, from lush green to bare rocks

From summer-like to winter-like

More Mount Clemens

Last time I was in the park was in June 2017 with Mike

Many more pictures of the park in this previous post

Three white mountain goats (2 adults, one small)

Glacier National Park

Detour south of Glacier National Park into Idaho

Lost River Motel, Arco, Idaho

With a welcoming Elvis, the small Yorkie/Chihuahua

Keeping it colorful in the face of windy and dreary conditions

An Airbnb where each room is colored and decorated with a different theme

Animal prints of all kinds were found in the room I rented

Arco City Office and Recreation Hall

First City in the World to be lit by Atomic Power

Although temporary, it paved the way

July 1955

Arco, with a population of about 1,000, is the largest city in Butte County, Idaho.  Looking out over the flat expense on my way here, it is understandable why it has been used for nuclear reactor experimentation and development.  Any slip-ups would render uninhabitable a plain already voided of plants or towns. 

The Idaho National Engineering Laboratory is 900 square miles and is closed to the public.  Since 1949, nuclear reactors – over 50 of them – have been built on this plain, more than anywhere else in the world.

In 1961, a reactor was destroyed due to operator error, causing the death of three personnel present.  It was the world’s first, and US’s only, fatal reactor accident.

It is easy to feel a sense of desolation in this place.  There is very little vegetation after eight volcanic eruptions between 15,000 and 2,000 years ago.  With an average of +/- 2,000 years between eruptions, we are nearly due for the next one.  Some of the vegetation is located within ‘Kipukas’; islands/pockets of natural vegetation spared and sheltered by lava flows.  These islands/pockets show scientists what native plant communities looked like before grazing livestock and non-native plants changed them.  They offer fabulous baseline data to help protect and restore native vegetation. 

Islands of cinder cones and sagebrush are scattered around.   Life barely clinging at the edges. 

The park is also considered the largest remaining pool of natural nighttime darkness in the US.  I can attest to the fact that there is not a lot of artificial light tainting the skies here.

Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve

By www.rvworld.com

Lunarscape – very stark

Tallest cone on the left: Inferno Cone

Very windy area, so windy in fact it alters the shape of the

volcanic cones, not so symmetrical, more to one side

Few trees left, so windy and dry

They also tend to lean to one side

If it weren’t for a narrow-paved walkway

It would be very tedious to get around

Interesting dark, complex, crumpled lava patterns

Indian Tunnel entrance (lava tube)

30’ high, 50’ wide, 800’ long

Stone Rings

Indian Tunnel named for stone rings that lie near the path to this large lava tube.  The Shoshones and other tribes left behind stone structures at various locations throughout the national monument.  Archeologists believe that some of these ancient stone structures may have had ceremonial significance for native people, but their precise function remains a mystery.  The Shoshones made use of lava caves for shelter and as a water source during their travels through the lava lands.

Inside Indian Tunnel

Collapsed roof, helping light the way

Survival of the fittest in Devil’s Orchard

Since the last eruption 2,000 years ago

Devil’s Orchard

Not many make it

From pitch black lava to blindingly white salt – Craters of the Moon in Idaho to Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.

Entrance to the Bonneville Salt Flats Recreation Area

Not sure how many years the salt flats have left.  The salt layer is quickly disappearing.  What used to be feet-thick is now merely inches-thick.  Racing here may become a thing of the past.  The causes for the thinning sadly have to do with various human activities.  What is the future going to be like?  It’s hard to say but when I was there, many of the races were cancelled or conditions were too dangerous to reach record speeds.  A disappearing act….  The white salt flats slowly turning to muddy pits.

Hot Rod, Bonneville Salt Flats

My favorite, old car with matching homemade trailer

Notice small mirror, soap holder and shower at back

Seat, hatchet, saw and small shelf on the side. 

Top opens into a bed

Another old salty on what is left of the salt flats

Salt may be the only thing holding these rusty cars together…

Took three hard pressure washes to get most salt off my vehicle

after my visit here.

Snow salt man

A Canadian racing team with a sense of humor

Can’t forget the flamingoes

Believe it or not racing can be seen along the horizon somewhere, somehow

Without radios to hear what is happening or binoculars to see that far

one is more inclined to speak with the riders and see the cars on display in the pits

The races are just the icing on the cake

So many interesting stories of this dying talent

Buzzard Racing Team

1927 Model-T Ford with S-3 Desoto Engine

Average rider is between 60 and 80 years of age

Very few newcomers in this field

Too expensive and it takes a long time to get good at it.

Who, anymore, has the patience for it?

Onward to the Four Corners area

Potash Road on the way to Poison Spider Trail

Colorado river on one side, these sheer cliffs on the other

Near Moab, Utah

Private Potash Pond bright blue rimmed with white

Dazzling colors in an otherwise drab desert

As seen from the air by www.amusingplanet.com

I walked from the very bottom of this photo to the far right where

I took the picture above through chain link fencing

So dry and sunny here, best place for rapid evaporation

Many people must make this mistake:

STOP

Your Map/GPS is Wrong

This is a Private Road

You ARE Trespassing

So, I went the other way

Capitol Reef National Park

In Wayne County, UT – hence once called Wayne Wonderland or the Land of Sleeping Rainbow because of the contrasting multi-colored leaning sandstones surrounded by green river bands and arid desert vegetation all folded under deep blue skies.

Now named from the great white rock formation which resembles the US Capitol building and from the sheer cliffs that presented a barrier (reef) to early travelers. This ‘reef’ is called the Waterpocket Fold and is 100 miles (160 km) long. It seemed so impenetrable that it was the very last territory to be charted in the contiguous 48 states!

Gifford Homestead in Fruita settlement, Capitol Reef National Park

Barn and orchards from old Mormon establishment

Allowed to pick fruits for free while in season

as long as you stay inside the 3,000-tree orchard

If you want to bring fruits/nuts out of the orchard you pay

a small fee per pound (was $1/# when I was there). 

I don’t know of any other parks where this is available.

Enjoy!

Fruita was a modest Mormon community established in the 1880’s.  It never consisted of more than 10 families and was a safe haven for polygamists. It is now part of Capitol Reef National Park.  In 1896 the one room school also served as church and meeting place.  Kids only went to school once farming needs were met, roughly from November to April only.  In their orchards they grew almonds, pecans, apples, pears, peaches, apricots, quince, cherries, and plums.  There are so many fruits rotting on the grounds that local deer get sick from eating so much sugar instead of their regular grass-based diet.  When I visited the apricot season had just finished, its perfume still hanging in the air.  Apples were not quite ripe however so I didn’t get to pick anything – next time…

‘It is a maze of cliffs and terraces… red and white domes, rock platforms gashed with profound canyons, burning plains barren even of sage – all glowing with bright colors and flooded with blazing sunlight…. It is the extreme of desolation, the blankest solitude, a superlative desert.’

Clarence E. Dutton, geologist, 1880

To think that when this beautiful area was formed, this continent was along the equator, where Northern South America is today!  

Fremont Culture petroglyphs

Named after Fremont River Valley

aka Hisatsimon (people of long ago), 300-1300 CE

They were potters, rock mason, farmers, hunters, gatherers

Precursors of the Zuni, Hopi and Paiute people

The Fremont people were contemporaries of the Ancestral Puebloans (Anasazi) of the Four Corners area.  Anthropomorphic figures normally had trapezoidal shaped bodies with arms, legs and fingers. The figures were often richly decorated with headdresses, earrings, necklaces, clothing and facial expressions. A wide variety of zoomorphic figures include bighorn sheep, deer, dogs, birds, snakes and lizards. Abstract designs, geometric shapes and handprints are also common.  The ones represented above are located far from foot traffic, so my picture is not very clear, but these figures are approximately six-feet tall.

Small arches being created everywhere you look

Following streambed, you see the sculpted heart of Capitol Reef

Footsteps echoing between the towering sandstones escarpments

surround you everywhere you go in these canyons

Or mushroom rocks guarding the path

Cohab Canyon Trail

Or ooze-like colorful smooth rock creations

Named ‘The Castle’, for obvious reason

Hickman Bridge

Massive 133 feet (41 meters) span

Bridge rather than arch because it is over a stream/river

Reminiscent of what I saw in Namibia’s Spitzkoppe

Bush Cassidy’s Arch

Named after the notorious outlaw and train robber who was

thought to have hidden in these canyons

At 140-foot-tall, it sits 400 feet above Grand Wash Road that leads to it…

While you see most arches from below, this one is approached from above!

Behunin’s Cabin, 1882

Home of Tabitha Jane and Elijah Behunin

They had 13 kids although we don’t know how many

they had while they lived here for only a couple of years

Repeated floods destroyed their crops, they moved elsewhere

Illustration of hardship of early settlers looking for religious freedom

Living in rugged, remote, unforgiving areas

Arches National Park

Arches National Park

Just because I was passing by

But I regretted it. 

I was lucky to have seen it in the late 1980s without the crowd,

the trash, the graffiti.  Better remembered the old way.

It is only possible for these arches to form thanks to very little rain (less than 10 inches a year), the right type of stones (Navajo and Entrada sandstones) sitting on a moving bed of salt thousands of feet thick, as well as no destructive earthquakes to eliminate or damage the fragile arches.  With some 2,000 arches (defined as more than 3-foot span), the park contains the highest density of natural arches in the world. 

Edward Abbey (one of Mike’s favorite authors – and mine as well) was a park ranger here (1956-57), where he kept journals that became his famous book, Desert Solitaire (quality of the writing compared to that of Thoreau’s Walden).  The first book I read with Mike while we were camping in the area 30 years ago.  His descriptions of the desert made me appreciate the landscape on a much deeper level.

Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit,

and as vital to our lives as water and good bread.

 A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare,

the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and

betraying the principle of civilization itself.
Edward Abbey

Wilderness. The word itself is music.
Edward Abbey

Belief in the supernatural reflects a failure of the imagination.

Edward Abbey

More delightful sandstone eccentricities

From grey (Navajo sandstone) to salmon (Entrada sandstone)

Fins – the mothers of arches

Park Avenue, geological ‘skyscrapers’

Like tall buildings lining a street

Newspaper Rock

Recording 2,000 years of history from 700 BCE to 1300 CE

Designed in desert varnish, which would eventually recover everything over time

Needles, part of Canyonlands

Came to Needles for my very first camping trip with my then new boyfriend 30 years ago. He passed away a couple of years ago and coming back here brought back a lot of good, though sad, memories. Then, we were nearly the only ones on mountain bikes – it hadn’t been discovered yet. We lucked out enough to watch a full eclipse of the moon on one side, while on the other side, there was a thunderstorm with flashfloods filling the canyons with red silty water. Then we encountered dead animals that had gotten caught in the flash flood and a pink 4x4 tour group that didn’t make Elephant Hill and went tumbling down. My husband, a medic, helped with the helicopter rescue. The forces of nature are tremendous… Biking after the flashfloods was challenging, encountering a lot of hidden quicksand…

This time it was very hot and quiet. I hadn’t planned anything specific and when I looked at a historical calendar of full eclipses of the moon, I happened to be in the park exactly 30 years later to the day!!! What a nice ‘coincidence’?

Unbeknownst to me I visited again exactly 30 years to the day

My first camping trip with Mike was here on August 17^th, 1989

Cave Spring Trail

Overhang ‘cave’ where cowboys camped while

ranching cattle (1890 – 1975)

Thanks to its natural protection and year-round water source

Has seen 1,000 years of human use (natives prior to cowboys)

Amazing that there are still artefacts left from an era when true pioneering cattlemen worked/lived here (late 1800’s through 1975, end of cattle ranching within park). It is difficult to fathom that by 1926, there were 10,000 head of cattle over 1.8M acres. To succeed, ranchers needed 200 acres per cow in this type of environment – a huge distance to monitor well.

Cave Spring was an isolated outdoor camp for cowboys because of its reliable source of water, rainwater percolating through layers of porous sandstone = seep.

Today, Heidi Redd runs the 5,200-acre Dugout Ranch bought by The Nature Conservancy in 1997 to save this iconic landscape from development and to help with research on the interactive effects of grazing, and other types of land use, as well as climate change. 

Well, after more than 14,000 miles (22,500 km) it is time to let my faithful pickup rest a bit.  I am now enjoying the land of enchantment, New Mexico.  I can see why Georgia O’Keefe chose such a place for inspiration, collecting bleached bones, rocks and memories.  What a beautiful area, colorful yet stark, bold yet cautious, vibrant yet serene, full of simplicity of line and form, centering around light and space…  Great for reflection, contemplation and appreciation of nature and life.

She was considered the mother of American Modernism 

Black Mesa, 1930

If I could paint the flower exactly as I see it no one would see what I see because I would paint it small like the flower is small.  So I said to myself - I'll paint what I see - what the flower is to me but I'll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking time to look at it - I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers. 

Georgia O’Keeffe

Oriental Poppies, 1927

More on the marvelous and inspiring sights of New Mexico in upcoming post.