Tower and Big Feet

Bears Ears XIX

2024-05-29

Ascent:

The plan is to get out early and quickly. We prepared last evening before bed for an earlier start. It may be a long day. We want to take advantage of the cliff shadow’s shade up the long hill.

We are climbing a 1200 foot, two mile cliff side road. It is the old main road to Colorado, which we are told, is now abandoned and in disrepair. As the day rolls on, the old travel route will reveal itself as a challenging 4×4 nightmare.

Somewhere up there are two ancient interests, a distinct petroglyph and a ruin that still displays a tower.

From our camping area, we travel a mile and a half of straight graded dirt, which leads out to the base of the climb. The 4runner has probably forgotten about such an easy surface after being in 4×4 low and high for the better part of a week.

Parking off road in the shoulder’s ditch, we’re taking one backpack, enough water, cameras, shoes and my hat. The road to the mesa is in shade all the way up the slope each morning. We have a few articles of clothing with us for warmth and just in case.

I’m into getting exercise today, getting better with it and getting better conditioned. Better health leads to serious hiking. Hiking leads to health, a cumulative cycle. Today, I’m on a mission, a march up this hill, intending a workout.

The gravely sand turns into a rough surface of combinations of dust, sand and hard bedrock. As the infrequent rains and wind attempt to dislodge and erode the entire mass, a near cobble stone of similarly sized stones have all been broken and flattened into position by the weight of vehicles.

This erosion soon turns into bigger pieces. There are slopes that might lean some top heavy vehicles to tilt and fall on their side. Still, I’m figuring that a stout high clearance 2wd truck could take this.

My breathe increases to the stress, but this is a road carved out of the side of a cliff face and at a specific reasonable grade.

I admire the engineering and the mass of bedrock, as I trudge on. I think of the Federal workers in the 1930’s who may have pioneered this major connecting route.

As I look across a deep canyon, I see an old car lying precariously, rusted  and very much wrecked.

The front is ripped off from a tumble down a steep cliff. I’m dusting off old memories to recognize the year and make of the wrangled metal, perhaps an Olds Toronado, or Buick, or a mangled Ford? I know those tail lights.

Miraculously, the old metal boat of a car stopped just short of an even steeper more slippery smooth fall for another few hundred feet. What a bad night! Drunk? Insurance scam? I hope that the fools survived. Nobody stayed in that car and lived. Fascinated, I begin to reconstruct the fall and trajectory. It is a very short story of immense terror. A ride of helplessness, lost in gravity and inertia.

Circling around, the road turns south, now above the wreck, I can trace the likely route where it traveled off of the road. It is unsettling to look down the edge, where the security of the road was lost.

I soon realize the last of this climb, as the road’s turn curves, switching back again. I now have no more entertaining thoughts that a two wheel drive would make it up this rubble. This section will discourage most drivers.

We stop at the edge of the road. A distinct line marks where the shade abruptly ends. This will likely be the last of shade for a while. The sun will no longer be blocked by the cliff side on top. We savor the cooler air, resting. As we stand and sit on tumbled rocks, sipping water and having a snack, we notice the sun’s line moving closer to our toes. Soon enough, we step across the creeping line into the world of luminance, before it steps over us.

As we have climbed, we have occasionally looked back. A further horizon has been revealed. Now the vista has us looking down on the distant western plain, with winding canyons carved into the solid rock surfaces. This is a vast land keeping so many places that are so rarely walked.

I know that there is a petroglyph panel called “Big Feet.” It’s just off of the road near the end of this climb. We find a turnoff, which leads us to a circle and try a footpath which we hope goes to the Big Feet. It leads to nowhere in particular. It is just a ledge, a path with many footprints. Perhaps, people looking in vain for the rock art.

Looking straight down a dozen feet, there is another path that we didn’t see during our climb. “That must lead to the petroglyphs. Let’s come back when the sun is on them.”

We walk on in search of a tall twin tower, a building that may be a thousand years old. We take other side-roads to no avail, the map claimed that it is around here someplace…close.

There must be plenty of tire tracks from visitors there. Yet, each route with tire tracks leads to a dead end, or fading hillside parking and a fire pit and then, another.

From this I can see the vastness in still other directions. These are vista points, but none lead to ruins.

Alone, just we two brown bodies in the warmth of the sun feel unrestricted, gazing out across the glorious Utah spaces.  

Onward, down the road, we are surprised to see a white pickup truck behind a juniper bush/tree and then two figures. I pick up the pace and start to wrap a kilt around my waist as I walk. “They probably know.”

At the truck, “Utah plates, locals, that’s good.” I think. Two figures are walking down the trail maybe a hundred and fifty feet ahead of me. DF is that far behind, but I can’t wait for her. I need to catch up with the two figures that are oblivious to me. I check the positioning of my kilt, as I struggle to catch up and not startle them.

He sports an extra wide brim sombrero and baggy khaki pants with a western style plaid shirt. None of which appear to fit. She is in a more standard modern hiking garb and also long pants. I make a loud greeting, from a distance,  “Hello there Excuse me.” They take notice. “Is this the way to the towers?”

 “Yep.”

DF catches up. We’ll follow and at their pace.

He veers off of the road. There are no cairns , no markings, just a flat bare bedrock surface, a slope to more.

The jeep trail that we have been following continues in the other direction. Obviously, nobody frequently goes this way. At this time, according to my knowledge, which is only from images on that rough map, this is the wrong side of the main road. I wonder, “He has been here before?”

“This way knocks off a ½ mile of the trip,” he states authoritively, knowing what everyone else is thinking.

I confess my ignorance, “I have been thinking from my map, that it was a few hundred feet off of the road!”

He remarks less positively, this time, “I’m pretty sure that this is the way.”

 I think pensively, “Pretty sure?”

We are climbing down, sometimes getting low, or on all fours.  It is a solid rock conveyance, roughly a funnel. There are a couple of ponds of water, I figure left from a rain weeks ago.

When he can’t find a safe spot to continue around a pond, and mumbles,“Uh oh,” I find my lip to bite, still wandering if this is a fool’s errand.

He finds a slippery slope, grabbing pines, which are diminutive tortured bushes. They break away and off immediately in his grip. His boot slips into the water and his thick pants show a scratch.

Reading the misleading slope of the rock, I see another way, a high route.

As we step precariously on the solid slippery sloping rock, I’m politely maneuvering, hoping to not expose myself to these polite clothing conscious strangers. In my kilt above them, the breeze blows up at us, but they are looking down.

My route gets us through. We make the bottom, relieved by the trees, shade and lush vegetation.

In this isolated canyon, there’s a couple of plant types that I haven’t seen before.

DF and I follow an eventually well-worn path and the voices of our compadres ahead of us.

Around a corner, there is a huge grotto-like rock formation and tucked under it, is a stone building.

To Be Continued, Very Soon….

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