06/18/01:
I had trouble breathing again last night so rather than suffer all night at a higher altitude I drove 20+ miles along the Mt. Nebo Scenic Drive and found a campsite at the lower altitude. That helped somewhat.
Then I drove up up to the Dinosaur National Monument on the Colorado border but entered via Dinosaur Fossil Bones Quarry in Utah. A shuttle took me to the visitor center where they have an exhibit of dinosaur bones still in the ground. This apparently was a sandbar that caught many of the bodies that washed down during heavy flooding. Sand then covered them up and helped preserve them. They've cut away much of the facing dirt, stone and debris leaving a wall with the bones partially exposed. Cool stuff. It looks like the exposed bones have been coated with shellac or something.
After returning to the parking lot I began the auto tour. I stopped off to see some petroglyphs and a live prairie dog village but didn't see any of the little guys. I got as far as the boat ramp on the Green River. Here I found 10 different rafts returning from day trips and overnight trips down the Green. The current was about 2.5 knots at the ramp and looked tempting. I don't know what kind of rapids might be upstream but I suspect there might be some class III+ up there.
The Green River Campground is in a cottonwood grove. The wind picked up in the evening and I now know why they're called cottonwoods. Little bolls and little fragments of cotton like pods were blowing all over the place, almost as if it were snowing.
06/19/01:
This morning started off cool but heated up quickly. I finished the auto tour, visiting some more petroglyphs and an old ranch. Then I went back to the Split Mountain boat ramp where the 2 mile Desert Voices Nature Trail begins. This is a trail mostly for children with lots of signs along the way by children. It's mostly a trek through the desert. 30-40 cars were in the parking lot when I arrived. These, presumably, are for overnight/multi-day raft trips. Seems like a popular trip, too popular with that many people in the middle of the week. Saw my first prairie dog running beside the road. About a foot long, light tan and seemed to have a black mask.
I then drove the 20 odd miles to the Canyon entrance to the Dinosaur National Monument in Colorado with the intent of hiking the 2 mile Harpers Corner trail. When I got there, however, I saw I had mis-read the map and it was another 30+ miles rather than the expected 6 miles. I didn't have enough gas so gave up on that trail.
On the way back I started seeing prairie dogs squashed on the highway. Then I began running into them, not literally. For whatever reason, they were bound and determined to run across the road, regardless of traffic and the road soon became an obstacle course. I managed to avoid hitting any but was weaving back and forth on the road. If a cop had been around I would have been stopped on suspicion of DUI for sure.
It was still pretty early so I thought I'd try to find the trailhead for the Jones Hole Trail. I soon found I wasn't going to make that trip a second time. The drive was almost 50 miles and while paved, much of the road was pretty rough. I found a camping spot a half mile from the Jones Hole Fish Hatchery and spent the night.
06/20/01 Hiking Jones Hole Trail:
Wow! What a difference between the easy 8 mile (roundtrip) Jones Hole Trail and some of the others I've been on recently. This one actually has shade trees and the sun doesn't beat down on you the entire time. Of course I got started at 8am and the sun hadn't come up over the 500-1000 foot canyon walls, but it was cool. The entire trail pretty much follows Jones Creek. This is a 10-20 foot wide creek with fast moving water and class II rapids all the way. The rapids are very technical and would require a very small kayak to run.
The creek is on a canyon floor .25-.50 miles wide. Midway to Jones Hole are a couple walls with some nice pictographs and even some petroglyphs. This is also big horn sheep country. I had seen some really nice pictures of a ram taken not too far from here. So I spent most of my time scanning the slopes and cliffs for a sign. I also spent most of my time tripping and stumbling along the trail for not watching where I was going.
I got to Jones Hole in under 2 hours. The trail had turned to sand and the trees gave way to open spaces and I didn't want to go much farther. I sat and watched a dozen 1.0-1.5 foot carp swim around for a while and then started back.