I’m continuing our series into Bears Ears National Monument in southeastern Utah. We’re looking for places to bivouac, set up camps near destinations and then get earlier starts on hikes.
We couldn’t leave our last camp soon enough because of gnats and the afternoon heat. The harsh part of Summer isn’t far off. The plan is to situate in higher elevations and the better weather, climbing to suit our lack of suits. We’ll need a place to stay to get an early start near a trailhead, which leads to a ruin that we intend to explore.
A camping spot is found near a very fun old wooden bridge.
The solid old conveyance is filled with character, there are trees for shade and a dry creeks ambiance, maybe cool air will flow down the wash as evening passes.
The spot should suit our needs, but now we need another spot in proximity to Bridges National Park, our hike for the morning. Fish and Owl sounds like a good spot. There is a Ranger Station nearby. Our information is sparse at this point and they will help.
We’re here in Bears Ears National Monument in southeastern Utah. We have backtracked to Monarch, where we think the Monarch Canyon trail is, after getting misdirected and lost.
An old peaceful looking, Santa appearance of a guy is walking down the two track road with a tall Gandalf-like walking stick. Perhaps Santa is on vacation. He smiles and affirms that we are in the correct spot.
At the trailhead, the off duty wizard has a fun little trailer with a generator humming.
We stop for lunch. While we munch, the New Mexican couple show up. We’re glad that they are not still wandering lost. They comment on the two oddly placed pieces of wood that showed us the way out. They too are grateful. (See the previous post: “LOST Looking for Monarch”)
We slip down the steep sandy slope which walls the riparian area where called the Comb Wash flows.
We let them go ahead, so we can follow at a distance nude. We will take our time and make more distance from them, as we go along and better savor the trail.
We are looking for one of “the Combs” canyons in Southeastern Utah. This one leads up into the grand Monarch Ruins.
We are not sure today. We have notes and a rough drawn map with some mileage written on it. I have done the math to reverse that mileage, as we came from the other direction. The Buttler Wash Road is just a graded dirt route, not even a good place to take a motorhome, or low sedan. There are several side unmarked two track jeep trails branching off of it. They generally head toward the Comb Ridge, where a significant landmark, or at least a canyon can be seen in the distance. Today, we’re not so sure, but we’ll try the most likely candidate, by my reckoning.
When we arrive at the end of this dirt road, there is no apparent trailhead, but as we are eating a lunch snack, a couple with New Mexico plates pulls up in another slot in the overgrown desert bushes. We slip on some coverings and casually stroll over to ask them if their information shows this as the way to Monarch. They give the affirmative. We are encouraged, but in the back of my mind, I can’t see that they have any resources better than ours. They are going off of an internet website on a cell phone. None the less, we decide to tag along, safe in numbers.
They think that a trail down a steep slippery sandy slope is the route. I’ve seen these slots in the sand made by cattle and have doubts, yet we will allow ourselves to defer to them. They seem to know where they are.
I get more doubts at the bottom of this 20 ft. drop-off. The trail is like a tunnel through the thickets.
When I start to have to bend over, it gets suspiciously like a cattle trail, just at about a cows back’s height. Still, this is better than any route that we have found, so far.
We’re in Southeastern Utah, camped out near the Butler Wash, alone and free.
The sand around camp is cool and refreshing on bare feet. Soles meet mat-like substrata. Sound and wind is dead still. The Sun is still behind a hill to the east. The light of dawn tells us that the golden glow is nearly ready to burst out, as it rises. In time, there is a slight breeze, a push by the new warmer air, a micro-warm front. I hear the cottonwood trees rustle lightly. Across the valley, the barren ridge is taking on the luminescent colors of the sky.
Then I notice that rumble in the air in the distance. Will it build, or will it occur and go away. I decide to let the mind quiet. With that exercise, the wind also quiets, once again. I smile at a little voice inside, “Purr-fect.”
Last evening, we took a walk to see where this road leads. It brought us to a surreal landscape on the ridge on top of the cliff to the south of camp. On the way, we saw some other unusual geology on the side of the road and later, from above, it became evident that that was a part of a field of other different unusual forms.
We had been up early, hiked the canyon and visited the Fish Mouth cave and ruins, here in southeastern Utah. Visiting the ruins was enriching. Afterwards, we spent the heat of the day, relaxing and resting from our excursions.
The afternoon was spent listening to the sound of insects, while we rested and waited for the air to cool off again. The sun has been getting more and more uncomfortable in the afternoon. The desert is getting hotter. Without clothing, this warmth feels good, but as the seasons change, it will become to feel like too much of a good thing.
We now know that this being comfortably naked in the heat of the day won’t last long, because the Weather Service says that it will get hotter Thursday.
When the time comes, before dinner, we have decided to explore the area around camp and the road behind us. For miles around, there are no other people. None have been seen driving on the so called main road, all afternoon. It is a desolate looking conveyance which dips so much that it is a motor homes nightmare. There are pockets of deep dust that would swallow the tires of a conventional sedan.
Main Road
We are around a half mile back on a tributary to that that appears to go to nowhere in particular. There is no concern to keep nearby cover-ups around, let alone any clothing. We can go for an unburdened walk as far as we care without concerns.
We have arrived at the second ruin site of the hike and it looks extensive. Among it, there are a series of granaries in a different style of construction.
Smoke soot blackens the ceiling of the overhang that has sheltered these communities’ efforts since the beginning.
We’re about to leave civilization again, Blanding, Utah. We have waited all day for the mobile wood fired pizza trailer to exude the aroma of a classy tasty slice, or two, or three.
There is no seating for this restaurant. We’re sitting on the door stoop of a nameless building, a hollow store with windows that reveal only a waiting opportunity for a mercantile idea. The evening sun beams in, exposing old dusty carpet and a path leading to dark shadows beyond.
Before us, framed by old sidewalk concrete, sits a typical flat oil soaked cardboard carton, Americana, with the familiar golden color of roasted baked cheese.
Soon, a fitting notion of appropriate desert will find us around the corner at the end of a too slow line for a chocolate covered frozen banana.
Earlier that day, there was some quick business finding the proper common tool at one of the best stocked Ace Hardware ever. Right next door happens to be the ice-cream shop. DF indulges my gluttony now and then, as I falter at the consumption of a rather larger than expected bucket of Huckleberry, she helps me out with a very small plastic spoon. Civilization is tempting.
We had spent the afternoon wandering in a wonderful dinosaur museum. After those encounter’s with ancient tracks in the bedrock, we have found another aspect of history to be fascinated with. It is fun.
The prehistoric critters are stunningly huge.
A flying bug’s remnants look enough to have ability to carry off anything that a large raptor might.
We had expected less, but the place is quite serious and we now have more valuable information to apply to our walkings. We leave with a better sense and understanding of the terrain that we are visiting.
We are leaving, going into raw nature, after a couple of days of nice small town people, pleasant tidy newish homes on incredibly wide streets and its one intersection light, a four way stop. We pass our refuge with its hot water showers and chilled fruit flavored Pellegrino and then that ominous sign warning a foreboding 121 miles to the next services.
In contrast to the comfort of the community, there is a sense of adventure, freedom and health on this, the open highway. As we cruise, we wriggle out of our protection against the consequences of uniform conformity. From opened windows, the dry air circulates around us, sensually cooling and caressing, as bare skin adapts. A barrier is lifted allowing natural symbiosis, an intimate mutualism in a close reunion.
We find a campsite perhaps a mile across a valley from where, tomorrow, will be our morning’s first hike.
The big cave, looking as if an open fish mouth, looms in the distance. We have a light healthy snack and climb into our cozy open air cocoon when the sky turns dark. Another short reading out loud to each other of Edward Abbey’s “Desert Solitaire” and we drop off, during a last look up at the blanket of stars.
With the top off of the tent, the dawn comes up in luscious/delicious hews. It contrasts lovely with the green cottonwood leaves, which now hang still.
I’ve heard these leaves several times during the night. Any gentle breeze will dislodge their songs. These tenacious beings possess various strategies for fertility. Now, it’s not so much the fluffy white fairies that launch and float amongst us, accumulating, settling like snow, which will last years and be blanketed with fallen leaves. But in this night, fall tiny masses of what sounds like raindrops. Awoken by their sound, I look outside of our net nest looking for clouds. Puzzled, I find stars, no emerging downpour, no problems to deal with alarmed in the middle of the night.
My partner’s presence places a warm feeling in my heart, so I roll over to gaze upon sleeping DF. She is not so much a peaceful sleeping beauty tonight, but blissfully conked out. Camping and hiking keeps us busy and our recovery time is dear.
We’re in south-eastern Utah. We are leaving the ruin of an ancient complex, which still boast a tower. As we climb out of the canyon, I look back one last time.
The petroglyphs called “Two Feet” are ahead of us.
I gave directions to the “Two Feet” petroglyphs to the couple that helped us find the towers. I warned, telling the story of our misleading pathway, there. As we are heading back on the main road, we hear their white truck coming up the main road in the distance. Once again, we scramble to cover up. DF is in just a shirt and me, a kilt wrapped around my waist, as we greet them. They have found the petroglyphs. They smile, telling us that they knew they were on the wrong level, when they saw our distinctive toe shoe’s prints.
We’re in Southeastern Utah. We have spent the morning climbing up a long ascent on the cliff side of Comb Ridge. We had been looking for an ancient tower in vain, but luck gave us some guidance from two strangers. We have just gotten our first glimpse of the structures in this remote canyon, as our story continues.
There is a huge spillway above that makes a waterfall in wetter weather and behind the imagined waterfall is a tower built into the rock. This is the two story structure that we have been looking for.
The Free Range Naturist 