With summer almost upon us, I hope everyone has had a chance to get their paddles wet or mud on their boots and maybe even shed a pound or two gained over the winter.
I spent most of March in New Mexico. A quick day trip to the Carlsbad Caverns National Park on the Texas/New Mexico border was quite interesting. This is a series of huge underground caves and caverns. The Natural Entrance is a huge cave entrance. Thousands of bats exit here at dusk to feed on flying insects. During the day they hang out in the Bat Chamber but that's closed to the public.
Most of the rest of March I spent in the Gila National Forest. Juniper trees and 100+ foot tall Ponderosa pines are the predominate trees. The Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument is 44 miles up twisty, windy mountain roads with lots of sharp switchbacks. Dating to the late 1200's, Indians built 40 rooms into 5 large caves 180 feet up a cliff face. Trails lead right through the dwellings so you get a close up of construction methods, etc. Different forks of the Gila River have worn canyons 100's of feet deep making for some great scenery. There's lots of good hiking in the area too. Nights in the teens and days in the 70's were common in March.
El Morro National Monument in New Mexico is a great day trip. El Morro is a huge sandstone mesa rising 200 feet up from the surrounding desert. Because of a small pool at the bottom, this has been an attractive place for travelers for 10,000 years. Ancient petroglyphs appear side by side with Spanish inscriptions from the 1700-1800's and American inscriptions from the 1800-1900's as travelers passing through wrote their own form of graffiti. Petroglyphs are pictures cut or chiseled into the soft rock face while pictographs are paintings on the rock.
Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado has some 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. The petroglyphs I found while not numerous were by far the clearest and sharpest I'd seen so far. They're supposed to represent the migration and settlements of these Pueblo peoples.
I got to Utah in the beginning of April and have been here ever since. Southern Utah has five National Parks, Canyonlands, The Arches, Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon and Zion as well as numerous national monuments. 200-300 million years ago this area was an ocean which deposited various sediments for millions more years. When the oceans receded, creeks and rivers and wind and ice took over and have been wearing away the rock formations ever since, leaving behind thousands of canyons, cliffs, bluffs, buttes, plateaus, mesas, chimneys, spires, pinnacles, alcoves, arches, natural bridges and other wonderful rock formations. Just about all of this is unspoiled federal land of one kind or another with superb hiking from day trips to extended backcountry trails.
Amongst all this splendor is Lake Powell. In the 60's they dammed the mighty Colorado River (again) in Page, Arizona just before where the Grand Canyon actually begins. This resulted in the waters backing up 186 miles into Utah forming Lake Powell. It also backed into 90 major canyons creating a shoreline of almost 2000 miles and forming the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. This area is almost all superb paddling. Towering red, sandstone cliffs rise everywhere forming a constant backdrop.
Bullfrog Basin and Hite Crossing are the general access points on the northern part of Lake Powell with access to the Colorado River and Dirty Devil River and their deep canyons. Wayweap Bay near Page, AZ is the primary access to the southern waters of the lake with totally different types of rock formations. Lee's Ferry, a little further south is the kickoff point for the famous Colorado River whitewater raft trips.
If you're looking for a paddling change of pace with truly excellent scenery give the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area a try. You can go out for a day or a week or two and not be bored. Check out the weather though. It was very windy in April and beginning to warm up in May. I dunno if I'd want to be here in the summer time with high temperatures. The sun is very, very strong. Page, AZ has several outfitters and kayak rentals places. All of the marinas rent houseboats and powerboats.
My vision of the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona had always been of a fairly narrow canyon and when you looked over the edge, the canyon floor would be barely visible one mile below. I also pictured steep, sharp switchbacks leading to the canyon floor similar to fire escapes on a tenement building. Not so. While it is a mile deep, it is also 10 miles wide. And it's not a straight drop from the rim to the floor. Rather, there'd be a 1000 foot drop, a bunch of buttes and ridges and stuff way down there at that level with more canyons below and more buttes and ridges with more canyons below that. The Colorado River looks like a thin green ribbon way below and some of the famous rapids show up as tiny white splashes. The fact you can see them at all from a mile up is probably indicative of their size and strength. The official Grand Canyon is also 277 miles long.
Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah was even more spectacular, if not on such a grand scale. Bryce Canyon's claim to fame is the hoodoos. A hoodoo is a pillar of rock up to 100's of feet tall, usually of interesting and fantastic shapes. Hundreds of these pillars rising up off canyon and valley floors and supposedly cast a spell on those who view them, hence the name, hoodoo. I spent two leisurely days doing the tourist thing and hitting the viewpoints. The third day I hiked the Rim Trail for even more great sights.
Bryce Canyon, Grand Canyon and Capitol Reef are all above 7000 feet. For my part, I wouldn't hesitate to visit them in the warmer months because they should be 10-20 degrees cooler than below 7000 feet where it would probably be in the 100's. I'll visit Canyonlands, Arches and Zion again in the cooler months. Glen Canyon (Lake Powell) is something of a problem in that the winds are blowing in the cooler months and the sun is really strong at all times. If its too windy, there's still some great hiking to be had there too.
The first three elk I saw were all lying by the side of the road... road kill. The first live elk I saw was a young bull at the Grand Canyon (South Rim)... And it had antlers almost three feet long sloping back over its head and smaller ones pointing forward. I didn't think they'd have antlers or at least not very big ones in May. He just grazed around my campsite, not more than 100 feet away. I watched him for 15-20 minutes until it really became to dark to see him clearly. The camera was in the front of the truck and I was in the back but it was too dark for a picture anyway. I saw a female a few days later amongst a bunch of mule deer.
The first prong horn antelope I saw was also road kill. Later I saw another but it was too far away to see many details. Still later I saw another but wasn't close enough to see if it had horns. I saw my first Golden Eagle munching on the carcass of a mule deer along the side of the road. I hate to think of such a noble bird surviving on road kill. I drove past it and swung back on the other side of the road. It didn't like that and took off. I snapped off one picture as it was in flight a couple feet off the ground but it didn't take. Later I saw some strange thing waddling down a back road. It too turned out to be a Golden Eagle but by the time I found the camera it was gone.
Mule deer are pretty much like white tail deer except they have white butts and a black tail whereas the white tail has a tan butt and... a white tail, at least the underside is white. I saw one coyote tear across the road with several large dogs in hot pursuit. Later, another one trotted across the road in front of me. It was light tan and the size of small German Shepard. I've been traveling in big horn sheep country but don't really expect to see one.
So far no mountain lions, big horn sheep, wild mustangs, Mexican gray wolves, buffalo, California condors, wolverines, bob cats, rattlesnakes, sidewinders, coral snakes, Gila monsters, tarantulas or scorpions.
A health problem has slowed me down for the past two months. I shouldn't have done any paddling at all but who could resist Lake Powell? My hikes have been pretty tame and will probably continue that way for another month or so. Meanwhile, Utah is the place for tourists who enjoy spectacular scenery so I'll make the most of it until it becomes too hot.
And so my second year of traveling comes to an end. I sold the house and everything and quit my job and hit the road June 15th, 1999. I'm looking forward to lots more interesting stuff in the coming year; the US northwest, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, Sea of Cortez and lots more.
The website has been updated with trip reports and photographs. I uploaded pictures from about 15 rolls of film and I was being conservative. Have a good summer and I'll be in touch sometime in the fall.