Wordless Wednesday: A Virtual Hike to a Petroglyph Site at Dinosaur National Monument

Along the Cub Creek Road Auto Tour

I finally tore myself away from the beautiful dawn,  to see the even more impressive landscape of the monument. I got to the official entrance just after sunrise and bought  a  guide to the Cub Creek Road Auto tour. I was delighted to see that they were available, even though no one was around to wave me in after looking at my federal senior pass. 

The very first stop was just down the road and was a site of a 7000 year old shelter that also contained pictographs. It was only a short walk from the parking area to on a flat trail to see pictographs and petroglyphs that were probably made by people of the Fremont culture who inhabited this area about 1000 years ago.

I didn't really read enough while I was on the tour to understand all the geology there. I found that the Green River was much higher and that rounded river stones, made by tumbling through a stream, occur even on mountain tops.  Mountains have grown here and then been cut back down by the erosion of water.  The Green River was once much higher than it is now and is responsible for those rounded stones.

It is hard to take a quick trip through this area without many stops for pictures and to just gaze in awe at the amazing landscape, sometimes decorated by trees flashing their brilliant autumn colors of bright yellows, golds, and reds. It would take even more time (and knowledge) to decode the geological history

Just another view

View of the Green River from a lookout point over Split Rock Campground

Guess these folks wish they had a view

Lots of gold around here

An outcrop of the Morrison Formation - dinosaurs are found in these layers - reminds me of Spanish dancers

So many colors in these rocks. 

Where driving is amazing

Rocks and foliage were in matching colors

The auto tour ends at the homestead of Josephine Bassett, a local legend. She settled here in 1914.  Hopefully, I'll get around to telling you her story.

Some leaves felt like stained glass when backlit by the sun

Trail to a Box Canyon at Josephine Basset's homestead

Walls of the Box Canyon

Closeup of part of the Box Canyon

I ended up taking several hours to drive the 24 miles of the tour.  There was so much to see.  And there were some other short hikes to pictographs and petroglyphs. (I'll take you with me on one of those hikes in a later post. )But twice I found the trail closed because of falling rock.  I came back in the late evening to hike the Desert Voices Trail.

A New Day Begins at Dinosaur National Monument

The Harper's Corner of Dinosaur National Monument is on the Utah/Colorado border.  This area was added to the original Dinosaur NM to keep the confluence of the Green and Yampa Rivers from being destroyed by a dam.  Cindy lived in this area, so I got up early with a plan to arrive at the original part of the monument, the site of the quarry,  some 40 miles away, before sunrise.

I crossed the Green River then drove beside it as the sky lightened. Soon I saw the kiosk that marks the boundary of the monument.  I stopped there, just as the sky started turning pink and yellow, grabbed my camera, and started walking down and along the river.  A light wind blew delicate clouds across the sky and the river murmured to the few logs it ran into, across, or around. 

Soon I was hearing one of my favorite sounds - sandhill cranes feeding.  I was able to enjoy them almost out of camera range as the day brightened and new photo opportunities appeared as the light changed colors and clouds moved about.

Finally I dragged myself away from this one spot and drove on along the river bend to the official check-in site. I had to make a few more stops along the way so the several hundred yards-long trip took another quarter of an hour.

Finally I was able to get to the beginning of the Cub Creek Road Auto Tour which starts just past the official entrance the Monument.  But you'll have to wait until my next blog to see that. 

A Visit to Canyonlands, Part I: Getting There

I suffered either a blond fart or a senior moment, which cost me a visit to one part of what turned out to be my favorite stop on the way home, Canyonlands.

Canyonlands is divided into four sections by the Green and Colorado Rivers. The two most visited sections are Island in the Sky and The Needles. I saw signs for Canyonlands on the way to my BLM campsite on Hwy 313.  I was probably less than ten miles away when I decided to follow the directions on my GPS, even though they took me in the opposite direction for more than two hours, finally taking me south and west of Moab.  So I'll have to go back to see Island in the Sky.

But the Needles turned out to be my favorite stop of the places I visited in Utah: Dinosaur NP, Arches NP and Canyonlands. The only problem I had was that I really wanted an off road vehicle to be able to visit even more of it.  I was limited to a 5 mile auto tour and some hikes.

But I accidently gave myself a lovely treat when I missed the first road to the park and ended up taking a much more indirect and interesting route through  part of the  Manti-La Sal National Forest.  As soon as I left the town of Monticello, I started a rapid climb. The road was so steep, I set my GPS to tell me the altitude. My altimeter told me I was climbing about four feet per second from an altitude of about 6000 feet to almost 9000 feet.  The trees and shrubs were turning colors in great swatches of golds and reds, within a matrix of dark green conifers. I had to stop a lot just to take the magnificent views in.

Then I came through a pass and started back down.  I stopped at an overlook and saw Canyonlands below me with awesome rock formations (small mountains) of various shapes and colors below me.  I wound back down another twisting road that gave me closer and closer views of Canyonlands.

Then I turned onto a smaller road that went  through an awesome canyon with gorgeous slick rock and magnificent trees in bright fall colors. The road was narrow with few places to pull off.  I was reduced to taking pictures through the windshield,  a very bad practice taught to me my friend, Bob.

When I got to the entrance to Canyonlands, I asked the Ranger if there were any campsites left. She told me I could have the handicapped site since I would be the last camper.

To be continued.