| Submitted by: Evelyn C. LeeperUnited States |
| Submission Date: 15 February 2005 |
|
 |
|
) I hope they sent a note to Steven Spielberg
thanking him for all the interest (and business) he has drummed up for the
area.
After this, we drove another 20 miles (32 km) to Dinosaur National
Monument, arriving about 12:45 PM. Since we arrived during the lunch hour
and the season hadn't really started yet, the ranger just waved us through.
This didn't really save us any money (usual admission is US$3 per car, and
as with most parks and monuments of any size, allows admission for seven
days), since we'll be buying a Golden Eagle Pass (US$25 for a year's worth
of admissions) as soon as we find a National Park or Monument that will take
our money.
The main attraction at Dinosaur National Monument is the quarry, where
thousands of dinosaur bones have been found. Located where there once was a
sandbar in the Green River, this spot was where the bones and dead bodies of
dinosaurs that fell into the river were washed up and collected (sort of
like trash collecting against a fence because of the wind). The result is
the largest trove of dinosaur bones ever found, including the most juvenile
skeletons. Most of the bones are isolated fragments, but several complete
or almost complete skeletons have been found. Originally (in 1922) the
bones were exposed by blasting (Belzoni would have been proud!) but now much
precise and less destructive methods are used.
If all you are coming to see at Dinosaur National Monument is the
quarry, however, you will have a somewhat short visit. While the quarry is
interesting, and of great scientific importance, it's not something that can
fill a lot of time. (We spent more time at the Field House in Vernal than
we did at the quarry.) It's possible, of course, that in the summer when
there are a lot more people visiting, there may be programs, lectures, and
films that weren't running now.
In any case, we also took the time to take the self-guided 'Tilted
Rocks' auto tour of the Monument, which encompasses a lot more than just the
quarry. (It is called 'Tilted Rocks' because that's what happened to the
sedimentary layers that eventually exposed them and the bones they
contained.) This took about two and a half hours and covered just about
every aspect of the area. We saw petroglyphs from the Fremont people of 800
years ago, prairie dogs (some of which were tame enough that they came up to
us and begged for food|), the geologic formations that shaped and were
shaped by the Green River, and the cabin of Josie Bassett Morris (1870?-
1964), who lived here without electricity or modern transportation until she
died of a broken hip sustained when she fell off her horse. While the cabin
showed she was not unwilling to take advantage of modern civilization--she
had wallpaper and a brick fireplace--she obviously drew the line at getting
a generator. (I suspect that getting lines run up here might have been
difficult.)
One thing we noticed while walking around at some of the stops along
this tour was the quiet. In the box canyon neat the cabin, where Josie kept
her livestock, it was so quiet you could hear the insects buzzing. It's
rare that one gets far enough away from 'civilization' to hear such quiet
(is that an oxymoron?). (The Monument has a hike called 'The Sound of
Silence' which is supposedly even quieter.)
The weather for all this was just about perfect: sunny temperature
around 70 degrees Fahrenheit (21 degrees Celsius), just a touch of a breeze.
I thought that it would be nice if it were like this the whole time, but
unlikely, and I was right.
We also saw the Green River, with a plaque by it commemorating the trip
of John Wesley Powell down it and the Grand (now the Colorado). Powell was
a Civil War veteran who was part of the first party to travel down these
rivers and through the Grand Canyon (which retained its name even when the
name of the river through it was changed). The force of the river was such
that they could not return upstream, so the question facing these explorers
was whether there were portages around the various rapids and falls. If
they got to one they could not portage around, they would be stuck there
until they died of hunger. Luckily for them, this didn't happen, though at
times it was a close call. (Powell had lost an arm during the Civil War,
but from his writings and sketches, one gets the impression that this didn't
slow him down much, and he did his share of rock climbing while on this
trip.)
After this we returned to Vernal at 4:45 PM to the 7-11 Ranch
Restaurant (no relation to the convenience that I could tell) for dinner.
They had a 'chuckwagon,' which was a small buffet of ribs, chicken, beans,
potatoes, salad, and dessert, and cheaper than their meals, so we had that.
It was fairly mediocre, but then I doubt one can get exotic cuisine in
Vernal.
We finished dinner about 5:30 PM, filled up on gasoline, and headed for
Moab. Calculating from the AAA TripTik, it was 210 miles (340 km) (along
Routes 40 and 191), so we figured we'd get in about 9:00 PM. However, we
discovered that AAA had left a page out of the TripTik, and it was really 34
miles more (55 km) than that--34 twisty miles through Ashley National
Forest. The scenery was nice, but that got us to Moab closer to 9:30 PM,
where we discovered there were no rooms left at most of the motels we saw.
We were ready to give up and press on toward Mesa Verde, finding someplace
along the way, and return to Moab later in the trip, when a desk clerk at
the Ramada told Mark of a bed-and-breakfast that he thought still had a
room. And so it did. It was a somewhat small room which shared its
bathroom with one other room in half of the renovated garage, but was quite
cheerful and the bed-and-breakfast (the Purple Sage) was run by a very nice
woman named Sabrina. (And at US$50 per night was considerably cheaper than
the couple of rooms that were still available in motels).
So we finally got settled in about 11:00 PM, and promptly fell asleep.
Minimum elevation: 4390 ft (1338 m).
Maximum elevation: 7995 ft (2437 m).
Distance driven: 465 miles (748 kilometers).
|
Jet lag is still working for us: we were up in plenty
of time for our 7:30 AM breakfast of peach melba French toast.
We left about 8:00 AM for Arches, but stopped at Visitor's Information
in Moab to pick up information about restaurants, events, and such.
Amazingly, it open this early on a Sunday--but then, that's when they *need*
to be open. Apparently the town fills up with tourists every weekend, so
Saturday and Sunday are key times. We also stopped at the Back of Beyond
Bookstore, described on the Net as the bookstore having the best selection
of books on the area. While it's possible that a major bookstore in Salt
Lake City might have more, it was still quite an impressive selection.
Because it had so much, they sub-divided the topic, which made finding
things tricky. I didn't see Powell's description of his river trip or
Twain's ROUGHING IT with the history. It turns out Powell is shelved in the
'Rivers' section and Twain is in the fiction (!) because that's where people
look for him. We bought four books: Sir Richard Francis Burton's CITY OF
THE SAINTS (which was in the history section), Robert Casey's JOURNEY TO THE
HIGH SOUTHWEST (highly recommended both on the Net and by Fred Lerner),
David Lavender's GREAT WEST, and Allan Robert Powell's UTAH GUIDE. For a
tourist it's a great bookstore, but it's also true that their selection of
non-regional books (fiction and so forth) was fairly minuscule and tended
towards the lighter reading people on vacation would prefer. (Sabrina says
that the owner will order anything you want, so that helps a bit. Still, I
would miss the browsing experience.)
We finally got to Arches about 9:00 AM, bought our Golden Eagle Pass
(usual admission is US$5 per car), and went in. So far we've saved US$8 on
one park and one monument, and still have at least eight to go (and the
Grand Canyon would be US$10 by itself), so we will get our US$25 worth.
We had planned on signing up for the walk through the Fiery Furnace,
but luckily it was full for today. (Generally it fills up the day before;
you can book up to 48 days in advance, but you have to book in person.) I
say 'luckily' because after doing a two-hour 'easy' walk, it was clear I
wasn't ready for a three-hour 'strenuous' walk, especially in the heat of
the day.
But we did join the nature walk at 10:00 AM, which lasted about an hour
and consisted of a ranger talking about water and its place in the Park's
ecosystem. He quoted Henry David Thoreau as saying, 'The greatest workers
of stone ... are a little water and a liberal amount of time,' and pointed
to the formations around as evidence.
One of the most interesting (and most critical) things he talked about
was the cryptobiotic crust (also called the cryptogamic crust). This is a
crust that forms over the desert soil and consists of moss, lichen, and
various microbes. It forms long tendrils that go down into the soil which
absorb water like a sponge during a rainfall and make it available for
gradual use by the plants nearby. It also fixes nitrogen in the soil. If
it is damaged (by people walking on it, for example), it takes many, many
years to regenerate. Attempts to replace it more quickly with other water
absorbers works, except that they don't solve the nitrogen problem. The
message behind all this was not to walk anywhere but on the trails. I wish
I could say this was successful, but even though all the trailheads have
signs telling people this, some people just ignore them and walk wherever
they feel like. This is why people talk about closing part of the parks to
the public: the public can't be trusted not to destroy them.
The ranger also explained about 'desert varnish,' the dark-colored
coating on some of the rocks. It is formed by a microorganism bonding water
that falls over the rocks during a rainstorm to the manganese in the rock.
And while everyone knows the red color of most of the rocks is due to the
presence of iron, most people don't realize that the green color is too,
except for this it is unoxidized iron.
After this walk we talked for quite a while with one of the other
tourists. He was from Boca Raton, Florida, and ran an Elderhostel course on
cinema there, so we talked a lot of movies.
We drove through the Park, seeing as much as we could from the road
with a few short walks (such as around Balanced Rock), and then decided to
walk through the Devil's Garden. Our first mistake was starting this about
1:00 PM, the hottest part of the day. (Actually, that was my second. It
had been chilly when we got up so I had worn a long-sleeved knit shirt.
When we got to Arches it was already pretty hot, so I changed into my denim
shirt, but that was still pretty hot.) My other mistake was carrying too
much (bag with extra batteries, compass, walkie-talkie, etc., none of which
I needed). We saw Tunnel Arch, Pine Tree Arch, and Skyline Arch, but by the
time we got to Landscape Arch, I was pretty hot and tired. Now, Landscape
is up on top of a huge hill (at least a hundred feet [thirty meters] high),
and while there was a path, there was no way I was going to climb up there.
Besides, the longest natural arch in the world looks better from a distance
when you can see it all than close up when you lose the scale. And I
certainly didn't want to hike out any further, since the trail got rougher.
So we returned about 3:00 PM, having spent two hours on this hike. |
|
| Copyright © - "Evelyn C. Leeper" |
|
 |
| Other travelogues by the same author: |
|
|
|
