4/07/01:
Last night I camped in the San Juan National Forest. It was cold, blustery with heavy snow flurries. Winds blew at 25-35 mph. Snow came down so heavily at times I left for lower elevations three times. Each time things cleared up when I got below 7000 feet so I turned around and went back. Eventually I said the hell with it and went to sleep. I saw my first magpie this morning, a fair size bird with black back and wings and a white chest.
This morning I drove the 10 miles to Mesa Verde National Park. I knew they had some cliff dwellings but that's about all I knew. The Morefield Village Campground was closed as was Wetherill Mesa. Both will presumably open April 20th.
It's 20 miles from the front gate to the Museum. I found the Spruce Tree Trail near the museum and without knowing what it was or where it went took it. I saw a sign for Spruce Tree House and began looking for a tree house. Hey, what do I know? What would you look for? What I found was some great cliff dwellings dating back to 1200. These dwellings are very well preserved with only minimal restoration.
From the dwellings I took the 2.8 mile Petroglyph Point Trail. Yes, I did expect to find petroglyphs along this trail somewhere. The dwellings and the trail run along one side of Soda Canyon with the trail following along under a long sandstone bluff. The trail wasn't designed for fat people. It led through some very narrow passages between boulders and some of the rock steps were tough to squeeze through. After a mile or so I came to the petroglyphs. While there weren't a whole lot of them they were by far the clearest and sharpest I've seen so far. They're supposed to represent the migration and settlements of these Pueblo peoples.
After lunch I took the Mesa Top drive. On it are 10+ sites. Many of them are pit dwellings, dug well into the earth and presumably with a roof. The drive is along Soda Canyon which apparently is several miles long. All along the canyon are cliff and mesa dwellings build into the alcoves and overhangs of the canyon walls and the mesa on top. There are 4000 ruins in the area from two rocks stacked on top of each other to buildings up to 4-5 stories tall. Of these, 600 are some kind of cliff dwelling built between 700 and 1300 AD.
04/08/01:
Woke up this morning in the San Juan National Forest with almost an inch of snow on the truck. Got down to lower elevations just in time for some nasty snow/sleet/rain combinations. It sputtered on and off while I stocked up on food at the Wal-Mart Supercenter and did laundry. Headed up US 666 for Utah and the on again off again snow continued. Some stretches of the road were beginning to cover.
Got into Monticello, Utah and the sun was out. Tried going up into the Manti-Lasal National Forest but the farther up the road I got, the deeper the snow became. Almost got stuck trying to turn around. I'm carrying 18 gallons of water at 7 lb/gallon and the weight helped me out of there.
I finally decided to head for Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and Lake Powell. Hopefully it's at a lower elevation and not subject to as much snow as the mountains. Stopped at a couple of Manti-Lasal National Forest campgrounds along the way but they wanted $8 a night. For what? Turned into a recreation area and almost got mired in mud, twice. Got my butt out of there as quickly as possible. Came to Natural Bridges National Monument on US 95 and found the campgrounds open. They wanted $10 a night though. I found the camping overflow area which was free. I can afford that.