Paria Plateau, AZ (4/17/2018) & Bluff, UT (4/19/2018)

Nearing the end of my time on the Kaibab Paiute Reservation, I began to look for my next stop.  I wanted to stop in Page to tour Canyon X, a slot canyon that is part of the Antelope Canyon system, but not as heavily visited.  Unfortunately, there wasn't a campsite available in Page.  I remembered the Paria Outpost having campsites, and it's not that far from Page.  When I went to its website, I learned there are no hook-ups, so I ruled that out.  However, I took a long look at the wilderness tours they offer.  I knew they took customers to North and South Coyote Buttes, and to White Pocket.  I learned they also have tours to Pinnacle Valley and Soap Creek, places I'd not heard of.  The photos from these places were simply stunning, with very colorful and shapely formations.  I began searching for more information, but there wasn't much available, just that they were somewhere on the Paria Plateau.

Using Google Earth, I found a place that might fill the bill.  While it was not a certainty, I thought I had figured out how to get there.  Basically, I would drive as if going to White Pocket, but not make the turn six miles onto the plateau.  Rather, I would continue straight for another fourteen miles, then turn right for four more miles.

On my last full day, despite wind and low temps, I was determined to make the effort.  The moment I drove past the White Pocket turn, the road became very deep sand...enough to concern me about the risk of getting stuck.  The LRJ handled it well, but not very fast.  The roads seemed much different than I had seen on Google Earth.  A wrong turn took a while to overcome, looking for a spot to turn around.  On a hunch, I took a right turn at about fourteen miles and drove until that trail ended.  About half mile away I saw formations that looked promising, so started hiking toward them.

As I got closer, I could see the formation was much larger than I had first thought.  No way was I going to climb up top and do some exploring, so I circled around until there were gaps and I was able to climb over.

I could then see more distant formations, but nothing suggested any of the colors and shapes I was looking for.  Obviously, I had not found the place I wanted, but had stumbled upon a pretty nice spot.  I decided to enjoy it as long as possible, knowing that the return trip would take as long as the trip here, nearly three hours.

At one point, I found myself on the rim of the plateau looking down at the valley more than 1000 feet below.  What an awesome sight.  These photos don't do it justice.

One of my favorite discoveries was where two formations at the rim separated to create a space where one could walk right through and off the rim, if one desired.  It could be called "The Gap" or "The Crack".

Other formations were all around, but I had neither the time nor the energy to explore them.  I had a strong feeling, however, that Soap Creek Tanks wasn't that far from me.  I explored a couple roads without success, but stopped to make sure there was enough fuel to get out of here.

 On one road, I passed an abandoned ranch that intrigued me.  Why would someone choose to live in such a remote place, even if the land was cheap?

Hours later and back on the highway, I looked at the rim of the plateau where I had been.  It seemed pretty clear that several areas of colored rock might be the Soap Creek Tanks.  Since then, I have found more information, including a GPS track provided by a group of Germans who have been visiting the Southwest for many years.  Maybe next time I can find the right place.

The next day I packed and moved to Bluff, UT for a little R&R.  Sunrise the next morning pulled me out for some photos.

On the way back to Montrose, there was snow all around as I climbed Lizard Head Pass.  Fortunately, this ended long before Montrose, where Spring was in full swing,

And so ends a long and pleasurable RV trip, a little more than six months on the road.  The girls and I have settled in, more or less, and it may be a while before I have enough material to publish a travelogue.  Until then, have a great summer.

Smithsonian Butte, UT (4/14/2018) & Canaan Gap, UT (4/16/2018)

After finding the Paiute Cave, I still had time that day for more exploration.  Since I had taken the road to Colorado City, I thought I would try to find the "Yellow Man" pictograph on nearby Smithsonian Butte.  I had detailed instructions from the internet, but the distance to the first turn was wrong.  Not turning at the right place, however, gave me a great long distance view of the mountains in Zion National Park.

Zion National Park

Smithsonian Butte

Backtracking a bit, I found the road closest to the directions I had and it turned out to be the correct one.  After that, the directions were perfect, leading me through a series of turns and ending at the base of a very steep slope.  The trail was quite slippery, being covered with sand and small gravel.  In fact, I never would have made it up except for the old barbed wire fence running alongside the trail.  Having the wire to grab kept me from falling more than once, and the fence posts were helpful, too.  I arrived at a ledge quite winded.  A large rock at the top invited me to sit, so I did.

After catching my breath, I followed the directions by moving along the ledge to my left.  There were no pictographs that I could see, so I kept moving, climbing over a couple boulders and pushing through some bushes.  The ledge ended and I had seen no rock art, so I started back to the trail to start over.  There were some interesting formations along the ledge.

Back at my favorite rock, I looked up above it and there was "Yellow Man", directly over my resting place.  Once again, I have to say I've never seen anything quite like it.  Absolutely worth the effort.

In addition, around to the right I found more pictographs and a few petroglyphs.  Some were faded but all were visible and interesting.

More windy weather kept me in camp the next day, but the day after I just had to look for more unusual petroglyphs near Colorado City.  I invited the ladies from the next campsite to join me.  I had a pretty good idea of the mesa where the art is located in an area called Canaan Gap, but wasn't sure of the exact roads to get there.

Driving toward the area, I noticed a Jeep following us.  Thinking he may be going to the same place, I flagged him down. He had a different destination, but said he knew how to get to our petroglyphs.  Following him proved to be a real adventure.  Suddenly he drove over the rim of a wash with an almost vertical wall, and I went right behind him.  Twenty feet down, at the bottom, we took a hard left and then faced a boulder in the edge of the wash.  Going up on the wall, I missed the boulder.  Almost immediately, we faced a vertical wall to get out of the wash.  He made it up, so I gunned it and went after him.  Thank goodness for 4WD.  Throughout the couple minutes into and out of the wash, you never heard such language from my ladies.

We asked the guy if he had done anything like that before.   He told us he had done that wash in his ATV, but never in a Jeep.  "But I knew we could do it", he said.  The petroglyphs were a short hike up the end of the mesa.

From there, we had a good view of Canaan's Gap and could also see the wash we had just traversed.

These petroglyphs were unusual because many of them were much deeper than normal.  We don't know if they were originally dug deeper, or if erosion has taken more away for some reason.  In any case, they are called the "Cookie Cutter" petroglyphs due to their dept (around 3/8 inch). 

There were also a few that looked "normal", possibly because they were done at a later date.

 We finished our viewing, then tackled the wash again, but I'm afraid there was more shocking language as we drove over the edge.  Fortunately, the guy had told us about an exit that was much more gentle, and we appreciated that,

Grand Canyon N P - Kanab Point & Paiute Cave (4/14/2018)

I am now back in Colorado, but there are still a few travelogues in the pipeline.

It seems that every morning and every evening there were really nice sunrises/sunsets on the Paiute Reservation.  I hope you still enjoy them.

After my adventure at Toroweap Point, the weather took a bad turn.  There were several days of extreme wind, steady 30 mph with gusts to 60 mph.  It did not encourage me to do some of my planned activities, especially the one that required hiking in a stream.  I used the time to catch up on chores and commiserate with others stuck in the campground.  Finally, I decided I had to get out, even though it was still somewhat windy.  Instead of hiking the canyon with running water, I chose to drive to Kanab Point.

Kanab Point is where Kanab Creek enters the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River.  It is similar to Toroweap Point except it is even more remote and gets much less visitation.  I would be surprised if even 500 people per year make it to this spot.  It is a 50 mile drive, moderately rough road until it crosses into the national park, when it becomes very rough for the last four miles.  The park service seems to want to make it a challenge to reach these overlooks.

There are three overlooks that one can drive to, which limits the views somewhat.  To see more requires hiking in very thick sagebrush, but I had no desire to do that.  The views that are available are spectacular, and I was awestruck by the canyon created by a small creek.  I suppose it isn't always small, but it has certainly created an awesome canyon.

Since it was still early in the day, I thought I would look for a site called Paiute Cave.  I had heard about this place, actually a lava tube, from the tour guide I met at Toroweap.  He had given me only a general location, on the road from Toroweap to Colorado City.  Subsequent research told me the "cave" has very unusual pictographs.  As I left Kanab Point, I met some BLM rangers  on the road.  They told me the "cave" was on a two-track trail on top of a cinder cone the road went over.  If you go off the cinder cone, they said, you have gone too far.

With no other information, I drove to the road in question and started looking for two-track trails.  The first three I tried had lava rock scattered about, but no lava tubes.  The fourth trail looked more promising and I soon came to a stack of lava rock almost hidden by dirt pushed up to make a pond.  Walking up to the pile, I could see an opening at the top of a twenty foot pile of large rocks.  As I climbed the pile, I reminded myself what a mistake it would be to fall on these sharp rocks.  Further, I thought how this would make a great home for some critter, even a snake hibernating in the rock pile that would be unhappy if disturbed.  I was careful as I could be, given both hands were full with my camera, a flashlight and a lantern.

The lava tube was actually not that dark.  It was small and had an extra opening that let in light.  I looked and looked for rock art, but there was none to be found.  Bummer!

Back outside, I observed that the trail continued on, and there was a large butte half mile away that appeared to be lava rock.

Driving toward the butte, I suddenly saw a pile of lava rock off to the side, with a BLM registry box  indicating this was definitely the place.  There was a sizable depression with a thirty foot wall of lava boulders, and an opening near the top of the wall.  Fortunately, the trail I found led to the middle of the pile, not the bottom.

This time I only brought the flashlight, not the lantern.  As a result, it was considerably darker in here.  I could see markings on the boulders down below, but could not tell if they were the art I was after.  I took a few photos using the flash.  With the flashlight, I thought I could see synbols about twenty feet down the rocks.

Scooting down the boulders on my bottom, I began to see some of the most unusual rock art I have ever seen.  The technique seemed to be painting a solid background, then painting the image on it.  The paints used, even after hundreds of years, were very bright and colorful.

There were a few places where it appeared the background had been painted in preparation for more images that had never been added.

Needless to say, this was an exciting find, well worth all the effort it took to get there.