Colorado Plateau Parks Tour - Fall 2009

[Ed in Montana]

Sunday, October 11, 2009
We returned yesterday from two weeks of camping on the Colorado Plateau in Utah, Colorado and Arizona, poking around in places we haven’t had a chance to visit in the last quarter century of exploring the area, plus hitting the wineries in western Colorado. What fun!

Eerily similar to our Spring trip to the Mojave Desert, we returned to find a blizzard hitting the Northern Rockies, bringing an end to most of camping season in the frozen North.

First, the facts, then the details (with photos).

Colorado Plateau Tour Trip Report Summary
September 26th – October 10th, 2009
Ed in Montana, Rosemary in Montana (the Expedition Photographer), the giant economy- size black Labrador, the small semi-hyper yellow labrador and MT Rover the Sportsmobile. Plus the Expedition Photographer’s sister, Evan (the wine glass washer), her husband John, both from North Carolina with the rented 27 foot Coachman RV.

TRIP FIRSTS
Longest trip in the Sporty crammed in with the two labradogs.
Longest trip RVing with somebody else.

TRIP STATS
Miles traveled: 2,755.8 Helena, MT to the Grand Canyon North Rim and back.
Diesel burned: 201.45 gallons
Best SMB mileage: 20.66 mpg dropping off the eastside of the 8,500 foot Kaibab Plateau in Arizona.
Worst SMB mileage: 12.09 mpg driving around the 8,500 foot Kaibab Plateau in Arizona.

I thought I would get better average mileage than 14 mpg with the new E range tires, but the SMB was heavily loaded with labradogs, gear and a mountain bike on the back, plus we had several days of heavy headwinds.
Most expensive fuel: $2.899/gallon in Jacob Lake, AZ
Least expensive fuel: $2.599/gallon in Palisade, CO.

SITINGS
Other Sportsmobiles Seen: 4 (Hello Heather, Tom and Lynn!)
Number of tours of our Sportsmobile given: lost count again!
Number of UNICAT MAN truck campers seen: 1 (We always see one or two).
http://www.unicatamericas.com/photos_ex70.html


CAMPING
Best Semi-developed Campsite: Big Bend BLM Campground on the Colorado River northeast of Moab, UT.
Best developed Campsite: Hovenweep Campground, Hovenweep National Monument, UT.
Best camp dinner: Grilled wild Alaskan salmon with a jalpeno fruit salsa made with ripe melons from Green River, UT.
Best red wine of the trip: Palisade Red from Plum Creek Winery, Palisade, CO. Cheap ($12!) but very good for a dry red table wine.
Best white wine of the trip: Luminesce, from Le’ Ecole No. 41, Walla Walla, WA. Slightly pricey but rich and complex.

Number of National Parks and National Monuments visited: 9
Arches National Park
Mesa Verde National Park
Hovenweep National Monument
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument
Navajo National Monument
Glen Canyon National Recreation Area
Vermillion Cliffs National Monument
Grand Canyon National Park
Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

Number of CDs of Ken Burns-Dayton Duncan's audio book "The National parks" listened to: 4 out of 5

Number of State Parks Camped in: 1
Colorado River – Island Acres State Park, CO



WEATHER
Number of haboobs survived: 1 (Why do we always run into dust storms?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haboob
Hottest day: 95 degrees F at Big Bend Campground on the Colorado River, UT
Coldest temp: mid 20s F with a vicious wind chill, Morehouse Campground, Mesa Verde National Park, CO.

MISCELLANEOUS
Most boring Interstate: I-15 in eastern Idaho.
Most surprisingly beautiful side road: State Route 141 through Unaweap Canyon and the Dolores River Canyon in CO.

Number of Species of Fall Wildflowers seen: 4
Number of clear, moonless evenings with good stargazing: 1
Number of clear, moonlit evenings: 7
Number of wineries visited: 4
Number of ruins of Ancient Puebloans seen: enough
Number of things that broke on the Sportsmobile: Only 2 minor things!
Number of photos taken: 565

 

[surfgeek33]

Can't wait for the pics. :a4:

 

[Ed in Montana]

I can see that Surfgeek is a visually oriented SMBier. The pics are coming!

 

[Ed in Montana]

DAY ONE - SATURDAY

DAY ONE SATURDAY
It’s another long drive south on Interstate 15, for the third time this year to explore more of the southwest deserts. It’s been so hot that we packed up at dusk on Friday evening to avoid the heat of the mid-90s during the afternoon. We get on the road before 7AM to drive more during the cool of the morning. This is the first desert trip with both labradogs, so there will have to be a lot of water stops to cool off.

I-15 crosses the Continental Divide three times just to get out of western Montana, and then cruises through the flat Snake River Plain in eastern Idaho. There’s almost no traffic until you reach the Idaho Falls – Pocatello area, and even then it’s usually not too bad, except when the dust blows from the potato fields. The real traffic nightmare starts in Utah where I-84 coming from Boise merges with I-15 at Tremonton. Traffic doubles, triples and quadruples as I-15 nears Salt Lake City and frequently grinds to a halt for long periods.

Today, we are skipping the worst of this traffic madness, and we take I-84 east from Ogden, and circle around the east side of SLC. This route to Moab is slightly longer in distance, but shorter in time and traffic induced stress.

Still it’s a long 500 mile day when we reach Rockport State Park just east of Park City and set up camp in our reserved site.

Rockport is your typical small reservoir state park, with several small campgrounds and boat ramps. The reservoir must have a lot of fish considering the number of boats floating around out there in late evening trying to catch them.

Setting up camp, I’m still sweating in a T-shirt and shorts at around 80 degrees F. As soon as the sun sets behind the Wasatch Range, I’m shivering and trying to find where I’ve packed my fleece jacket and long pants. Fall in the Southwest, hot days, cold nights.

 

[Ed in Montana]

DAY TWO - SUNDAY

The humans and the labradogs are up before dawn despite the chill, to get ready for the 300 mile run down to Moab and the desert. Rockport State Park is pretty for a reservoir at this time of year, and it’s been a quiet night despite the filled campground.

The rising sun lights up the mountainsides to the west, and reflects off of the large windows from some of the McMansions on eastern edge of Park City.

The Sporty is loaded and running before 8:30AM and we take US 40 south from Heber City. The Fall colors are just starting to show at these high elevations, and we stop at a Uinta National Forest campground just off the highway before it reaches the plateau and Strawberry Reservoir.

It’s a beautiful campground surrounded by aspen, but has way too much road noise from the major highway. We continue on to Duschene, Utah and then up and over the 9,000 foot pass on US 191 and down to start of the Colorado Plateau at Price.

The traffic on the run to Green River on US 191 isn’t too bad, with only a little death passing from crazy people. The number of large motor boats being dragged north at the end of the weekend from Lake Powell is astounding, and I count around 50 of the giant rigs. They must be getting great gas mileage!

Crossing the bridge over the railroad tracks just west of Green River, we barely avoid the obstacles created by a pickup truck losing his load of lumber from his trailer. First, we glimpse a shovel fly off the trailer as the truck passes us going north, and then see two by fours flying in the rear view mirror. What a dangerous mess.

Relieved that the worst of the driving is over we refuel at Green River and stop for some of their famous melons.

I send the Expedition Photographer over to the Dunham melon stand for a quick stop.

Half an hour later, I’m still waiting for her to return, after person after person leaves the stand with their arms loaded with dozens and dozens of melons. Finally, she returns with two ripe cantaloupes and a small watermelon. Onward.

For some reason, the town of Green river has almost no place to walk a dog, so we stop at the rest stop on I-70 near the Moab turnoff. There we see this unique RV.

I know I have seen this smiling RV face somewhere before, but I can’t place it.

A little after 4PM we finally reach Big Bend BLM campground on the Colorado River, northeast of Moab just across from Arches National Park. John and Evan, the North Carolinians, have arrived only a short time ago, after picking up their rented RV the day before in Denver, and have saved us a site. A good thing too since the campground fills up quickly, even on this end-of-weekend night.

There’s one other Sportsmobile in the campground, a green colored 2006 RB. Owned by Heather in Tucson. Heather’s been on the road since March of this year after purchasing the SMB used in Colorado. I’m envious that she has spent more nights already in her Sporty in one year than we have in three years. Ah to be retired!


We catch up on news from North Carolina as I grill some chicken for dinner in the shade along the river, but it’s still pretty hot after a high in the mid-90s. The moon rise over the canyon walls is spectacular.

The sun goes down behind the slick rock of Arches National Park, and high lights the towers along the rimrock to the east of the campground.

It's great to be back in the desert.

 

[Ed in Montana]

DAY THREE - MONDAY
BIG BEND CAMPGROUND ON THE COLORADO RIVER

I’m up just before dawn to walk the giant black labradog, sometimes known as the four-legged stomach. When his biological clock goes off twice a day, you have to feed him fast or else. It’s very pretty walking in the desert in the predawn light and I try not to use my headlamp and ruin my night vision. All of a sudden, the four-legged stomach backs up after sniffing a bush. The large labradog rarely backs up because he’s never intimidated by anything, or maybe too clueless to be scared of anything. I turn on my headlamp and frantically scan the ground for a snake or something, but don’t see anything. Ah the fun of walks in the dark with a crazed Labrador.

The Expedition Photographer crawls out of bed to photograph the great dawn light on the canyon walls as I fix breakfast for the labradorians and the humans. The yellow Rabbitbrush is blooming all around the campground under the red cliffs.

Morning light hits the cliff walls in Arches National park just above the Sporty.

The Colorado River is running around 2,000 cfs here at the boat ramp in the campground.

After breakfast, I go over to see Heather’s SMB at another campsite. Having bought it used, she still has some questions of what things are on the vehicle, like the unmarked high idle switch for the diesel to the right of the steering wheel. I know that one, but the unmarked bright red toggle switch to the left of the steering column is a complete mystery. That will definitely require a call to the previous owner. I tell Heather about the Sportsmobile Forum before she heads south to Arizona and home.

Before it gets too roasting hot, we pack everyone into the Sporty to go hike Negro Bill Canyon just outside of Moab.

The canyon is one of the few areas in the surrounding desert country that features a perennial stream and has a nice trail open to pets.

Hiking along, the labradogs have problems with short sections of slickrock, freezing in place and slipping rather than motoring up or down the pitches. It’s going to take awhile for these Montana mountain dogs to learn desert hiking. The yellow labradog goes beserk over the small lizards that dart over the trail and pursues one into a patch of Prickly Pear Cactus. Luckily she avoids getting pricked by the pear’s many spines.

The layers of Navajo and Wingate sandstone have eroded to form fantastic shapes in the canyon, including future arches.

After four miles we return to the Sporty and call it quits in the heat, and head into Moab for a late lunch. Reaching town, the Expedition Photographer, her sister and John head off to find some food while I stay with the Sporty in the shade with the labradogs. As is common, I end up giving a tour of the Sporty to a German tourist who walks by. “What a great vehicle” he remarks, “It is even the perfect color for the desert!”

The humans return with a jalpeno burger for me, a perfect desert lunch, in my humble opinion. Then I’m off to the bookstore. No visit to Moab is complete with a trip to Back of Beyond Books, which has an extensive selection of desert books on natural history, Native Americans, adventure and off course the desert curmudgeon Edward Abbey.

http://www.backofbeyondbooks.com/

I pick up a few pieces of reading material for the trip, including a new book called “Dead Pool: Global Warming, Lake Powell and the Future of Water in West”. An appropriate volume to read while traveling around the Colordao Plateau.

http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Pool-Powell- ... 0520254775

After a brief stop for more refreshments at the local City Market, it’s back up the river to spend the late afternoon in the heat and wait for the cool of the evening.

While grilling a large Alaskan salmon fillet that the North Carolinians have brought from Grand Junction, we notice the changing of the guard on the Rabbitbrush adjacent to the campsite. While the flowers are in sunlight, several species of bees and wasps visit the plants. After one half hour of shade at dusk, the bees are gone, and replaced by dozens of moths sipping nectar for from the small blooms.

Hopefully, we will be sipping wine tomorrow in Colorado’s wine country just east of Grand Junction.

 

[Skywagon-SMB]

Ed-
Great report!

Rosemary-
Great photos as usual!
Bill

 

[Ed in Montana]

Thanks Skywagon! We didn't do any four wheeling like back in May with Bill Burke, but there sure are a lot of places to poke around on the Colorado Plateau, even after having explored the area since 1983.

 

[Ed in Montana]

DAY FOUR - TUESDAY
MOAB, UT TO PALISADE, CO

Today we are headed over to Colorado wine country via State Route 128 northeast of Moab and I-70. The Expedition Photographer’s sister, (the wine glass washer) has second thoughts about SR 128, mentioning scary drop offs, having driven down it to reach Moab. We are puzzled by this. Is she talking about the same road as we are? SR128 is hardly a bad western mountain road, narrow in a few places without guardrails for sure, but hardly scary. It will be one of the least scary roads of the trip as we will find out.

Misgivings aside, we drive up to I-70 without incident. If you want to see scary mountain roads I think, try Skalkaho Pass from the west near Hamilton, Montana a winding one and half lane mountain road with clueless drivers in oncoming traffic. But I understand this trepidation with western roads. Eastern roads are frequently tree lined and have such things as real shoulders and guardrails. Western roads lack these civilized improvements, and lack the screening vegetation blocking your view of steep drop-offs. I am often amazed riding in the Sporty’s passenger seat on a Montana secondary road starring down at the roadside borrow pit, on how friggin deep they really are. No place to change a tire for sure.

After 1PM we reach our campground for the night, Colorado River State Park – Island Acres, a large mostly deserted state park just north of Palisade, Colorado. It is way too developed for my taste, with manicured lawns, showers, laundry and warnings that only 3.2 beer is allowed (yeah, sure). But it is close to the local wineries, and not over run on this weekday afternoon. We have lunch and pile into the Sporty for the wine tour.

The weather is certainly changing, with a cold front coming in the wind is blustery, so it is appropriate that we stop at Canyon Wind Cellars for the first winery. Canyon Wind’s vineyard is almost at the foot of the steep palisade just east of downtown Palisade.

http://www.canyonwindcellars.com/

They are hard at work on this Tuesday afternoon, trying to harvest a lot of fruit before the rain hits later in mid-week.

Here’s the tasting room at Canyon Wind. They have some great wines, including a remarkable cabernet franc.

I buy half a dozen bottles, and we load up in the Sporty again. A man parked next to us complements us on our well-behaved labradogs, who have been tied to the SMB bumpers during our visit. Little does he know how the yellow labradog has a hissy fit several times a day when loading or unloading from the Sporty.

We head south on Orchard Road across the Colorado River to find Carlson Vineyards.

Carlson Vineyards specializes in mostly fruit wines, but also has a good Riesling for which they are known.

http://www.carlsonvineyards.com/

We now have the routine down for visiting a winery. The SMB driver (me) stops at the selected vineyard, gets out, carefully opens the cargo door and removes the step stool for unloading passengers. Then, I’m run over by two crazed labradogs wanting to get out, who have to be grabbed and clipped to the SMB bumpers with their leashes. Following this, the wine glass washer and the Expedition Photographer exit. I try to remember not to clip them to the SMB bumpers.

The deciduous trees surrounding the vineyard are turning into their brilliant Fall colors.

Next stop is Colorado Cellars, one of the oldest wineries in the region found down a short gravel road off of Orchard Road.

http://www.coloradocellars.com/

Colorado Cellars has some great wines, including a port wine, which I purchase for a after dinner wine during the winter holidays.

The wine tasting isn’t getting to us, but the loading and unloading is, so we make one more stop back in town at Plum Creek Winery.

http://www.plumcreekwinery.com/Our-Vision.php

Plum Creek Winery has an excellent red table wine called Palisade Red for just $12 bucks. I pick up a couple of these, and it’s back to the state park for the evening. The weather has been getting windier all day, but relents for dinner time, as the Expedition Photographer grills New York strip steaks in the lee of the campsite’s ramada, while I do a load of laundry.

We make sure to sample a few more wines at dinner, before battening down for a very windy night.

 

[Ed in Montana]

DAY FIVE – WEDNESDAY MORNING
PALISADE, CO TO MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK, CO

Didn’t get much sleep last night upstairs in the SMB penthouse with the strong gusty winds. That’s the major drawback of having canvas sides that rattle with each gust. Surprisingly, the temperature is still warm and there are only scattered clouds as we get up at dawn. Except for some of those scattered clouds being thunderstorms with the flash and distant BOOM of thunder along the palisades.

I walk the labradogs along the river trail along the Colorado which is much less muddy at this point than downstream at Moab.

Rabbitbrush is still blooming up here along the river as it was at our canyon camp a day ago.

We pack up and head into Palisade and resupply at the small grocery store. The wine from the Plum Creek Winery was so good last night that we stop again at their tasting room to buy more of their Palisade Red. I tell the tasting room sommelier that we are back for more of their amazing wine. “You have an amazing van!” she replies.

We hurry back into the amazing van as the flash BOOM of lightning in another storm gets pretty close. Soon it begins to pour rain as we drive southwest toward Whitewater and SR 141. Much to my irritation, the driver’s side windshield wiper begins to deconstruct, just when it is needed the most. I haven’t driven the Sporty in the rain for maybe a year or more in Montana, and I think the wiper has dry rotted in the sun. I stop to twist the remnants of the wiper back in place and we are off again climbing up the curves of SR 141 to Unaweep Canyon.

Unaweep Canyon is a surprise with stunning vertical rock walls and incredible Fall colors.

The ruins of the Driggs Mansion from the early part of the 20th century are a striking photo site.

Apparently, Unaweep has been discovered as a great rock climbing area.

http://home.att.net/~stacy.bender/Unaweep.html

And you can see why with all the vertical rock rising above the dozen or so horse farms in this high valley.

Onward to find a spot to pull over for lunch.

 

[LenS]

Ed,

Did you need a campground reservation at Arches?

 

[Ed in Montana]

Len, my wife and I didn't stay in Arches National Park but camped right across the river from the park at the BLM campsites. My wife's sister was planning to camp in Arches the night before we arrived (but couldn't) and had a reserved site with the NPS. Apparently in September and October, the park's campsites fill up by mid-morning, and reservations are necessary.

 

[LenS]

Ed,

Thanks for the fast reply!! The Arches area will be our first STOP after coming cross country from Michigan - 3 days of eating up miles -. We plan on spending 3 nights in that area. I ASSUME there was no problem finding a BLM site. Looks like there are many in the area.

Again your pics are great.

 

[Ed in Montana]

DAY FIVE – WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON
PALISADE, CO TO MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK, CO

Going downhill toward the town the Dolores River Canyon, we stop for lunch at a small rest stop a few miles east of the town of Gateway, Colorado. While walking the dogs next to a small stream I begin to have second thoughts about this. The vehicles are parked under old cottonwood trees that are being buffeted hard by the high winds from the cold front passing through. Old cottonwoods are renowned for shedding limbs and there are already a few small ones on the ground. We decide to find someplace that’s less wooded for a stop in this windy weather.

Driving through the town of Gateway, I’m stunned to see the new ritzy resort on the west side of town. It looks completely out of place in this remote canyon country, like a piece of Aspen plopped down in the desert. It even has an Adventure Center, where guests can sign up for canyon trips. I recall one definition of an “adventure” is a trip gone wrong.

It’s hard to find any place in this lower Dolores River Canyon to pull over, but we finally find a wide place in the road and stop for lunch, without fear of falling tree limbs.

The lower Dolores River Canyon is spectacular red rock canyon country.

Getting back on the road, SR 141 climbs out of the Dolores Canyon and heads up the valley of the San Miguel River, which has a beautiful riparian zone of trees with great Fall colors.

Turning to the southwest after the town of Naturita, we head right into the strong headwind toward Slickrock, Colorado. The Sporty runs along into the wind at 55-60 mph, but John and the Coachmen RV has more trouble dealing with the steady head wind.

Reaching the dot on the map of Slickrock, we are stunned at the size of the small Dolores River, which has been almost completely dewatered by the McPhee Dam upstream. Many years ago, we had floated the Dolores at the time of the Great 1983 Flood (which almost took out Glen Canyon Dam) and we were impressed by the large brawling river and its slickrock canyons. The scenic canyons are still there but the brawling river is no more.

The road switchbacks steeply away from the Dolores, and pops out on the rolling agricultural table land to the west of Cortez, Colorado. There are pinto beans, anasazi beans, sunflowers and wheat growing in the fields along US 491.

Shortly after passing through Cortez, we reach the entrance to Mesa Verde National Park, one of the oldest national parks (the fifth according to Ken Burns) in the country. It’s been a long slow but scenic 200 mile day as we pull into the large Morehouse Campground at 7,000 feet halfway up the steep northern escarpment of Mesa Verde.

We get two nice grassy campsites for the night, but the wind doesn’t let up. If anything it’s getting worse. Grilling chicken on the portable propane Weber, the flame keeps getting blown out by the strong gusts as I stand next to it, dressed in winter hat, gloves and fleece jacket. The wind chill is in the 20s or even the teens as we retire for the coldest night of the trip.

 

[Ed in Montana]

DAY SIX – THURSDAY
MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK, CO

It’s been one of the coldest nights I have ever spent in the Sporty with the wind roaring most of the time and shooting a firehouse of frigid air through the small parts of the penthouse windows that we have left open for ventilation. I stupidly went to bed upstairs without putting on long pants or socks, and I wake up in the middle of the night with my feet freezing in my 20 degree rated sleeping bag. I throw my Goretex wind parka over my legs and that seems to help for the remainder of the night.

It is no fun walking the labradogs around the campground before dawn with the subfreezing temp. Dozens of the small deer inhabiting the campground bolt at the first site of the giant black Labrador, but he pays them no mind, being used to much larger deer wandering around town just outside our fence at home.

Wisely, we emptied our fresh water tank completely the evening before to prevent freezing the small un-insulated feed pipe that runs under the Sporty. As a result I fill up the coffee pot with fresh water at the campground spigot before piling into the SMB to warm up.

After breakfast, we all pile into the Sporty and drive up the mesa to the visitor center for the first tourista stop of the day. The view from the circular visitor center is amazing, stretching tens of miles to the east off of the mesa rim. Mesa Verde is an island in the sky. I purchase a book on the history of this our fifth national park, called “Mesa Verde: the First Hundred Years” and an audio book of Ken Burns-Dayton Duncan’s “The National Parks”. That should provide good listening for the long ride back to Montana.

The Expedition Photographer and myself sign up for the ranger led tour of Cliff Palace, and we pile back into the Sporty and drive to the southern end of the mesa. We pass the turnoff to Wetherill Mesa, the ruins in far southwest corner of the park, which is already closed for the season. I was disappointed to learn that even if it was open, the Sporty can’t go there because of the low rated bridges that can’t hold more than an 8,000lb vehicle.

Reaching the Cliff Palace parking lot, John and the expedition wine glass washer graciously offer to stay with the dogs at the Sporty while we take the hour-long tour. They’ve done this tour many years ago in 1970. The view point gives agreat perspective on the Cliff Palace dwellings below.

We descend the metal stairs and a short ladder to the level of the ruins, and await the ranger, a Mr. Castillo, to catch up after locking the gate above us.

Ranger Castillo is well versed in the latest archeological theories of the comings and goings of the Anasazi, now known as the Ancient Puebloans, and does a great job answering questions from the touristas. Did drought famine or warfare drive the puebloans from their cliff homes? No one is sure. It’s possible that they just moved for obscure religious reasons.

My personal theory is that they moved to avoid foreclosure after their adjusted rate mortgages reset on these cliff dwellings. And the rooms full of human bones that have been discovered near some ruins nearby? Well, those are the ancient puebloan bankers of course.

I keep my theory to myself, and examine some of the surrounding architecture, such as this classic T-shaped window or doorway.

The climb back up to the mesa top is an interesting series of wood ladders anchored in a crack in the mesa’s rimrock.

Back at the vehicle John and the expedition wine glass washer regale us with the tales of the dozens of tourists walking by, petting the labradogs and remarking on the Sportsmbile. It’s hard to remain anonymous with a Sportsmobile. While we are there, one man asks an odd question, “Is that a Mercedes?” he asks. “No it’s a Ford,” I reply. Without the Ford logo on the billet grill in front, many people can’t recognize the van as a Ford product. I have the urge to spray paint ITS A FORD on the front hood just to cut down on the number of questions asked about it.

After a picnic lunch we drive around to see the rest of the ruins on this part of the mesa, and are rewarded with good views down the canyons to the south.

One of the more puzzling ruins is Sun Palace, an unfinished building on the mesa top that was abandoned half way through construction.

The whole mystery of the abandonment of the dwellings is fascinating and the recent book by Craig Childs “House of Rain; Tracking a Vanished Civilization Across the American Southwest” goes into great detail about the subject.

http://www.amazon.com/House-Rain-Tracki ... 926&sr=1-1

We make one more stop the museum at park headquarters, and do a quick walk past the Spruce Tree House ruin.

I consider the stops in the park to be pretty crowded for this time of year, but I am amazed to see that the giant parking lot at park headquarters to be less than half full. Everything is relative, I guess.

Arriving back at the campground after a long day at 6PM, the weather has warmed up a little and the vicious wind of the night before has almost stopped. Still, it’s pretty chilly for the desert as we grill hamburgers for dinner.

Unfortunately, John’s rented RV is having a battery problem; the house battery appears to be dead and the generator won’t start up to charge it. He decides to run the engine to see if it can charge the house battery before the night’s freezing temperature sets in.

 

[Ed in Montana]

DAY SEVEN – FRIDAY
MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK, CO TO HOVENWEEP NATIONAL MONUMENT, UT

After another freezing night, we fill up the Sporty’s empty freshwater tank and head for lower elevations. This morning after taking showers at the campground headquarters, we roll down from Mesa Verde and stop in Cortez for fuel and food. Cortez is a nice medium size town (it would be large town in Montana) serving the surrounding agricultural area on the Great Sage Plain. Leaving town toward the south, we pass a stand selling one of the local ag products, roasted chilis, but it’s on the wrong side of the road at a busy intersection, so I reluctantly keep driving.

South of town near the airport, we turn west onto the McElmo Canyon Road and head toward Hovenweep National Monument. McElmo Canyon is a beautiful mix of small farms and the occasional vineyard surrounded by slickrock walls. I didn’t realize that this was another small wine producing area, so I don’t know what types of wine are being produced here. I’m determined to get to Hovenweep early and take a hike, so we don’t stop and investigate the local vineyards.

The road passes by the old Ismay Trading Post on the Navajo Reservation and climbs out of the canyon onto the open grassland on the low mesa toward the north.

Shortly after 1PM we reach Hovenweep National Monument and its small campground. Hovenweep is a very rare unit of the national park system, one of which that the government has spent money upgrading the facilities in recent years. The national monument boasts a new visitor center built in 2001 and a very new and tidy campground. The campground has around 25 sites, but none are designed for monster class A RVs, making it small and intimate. We pull into one of the larger sites that will get some shade from the ramada with the Sporty.

The small national monument is located on the gently sloping sage-covered Cajon Mesa, just on the edge of the juniper forest. Shallow arroyos cut through the mesa top and most of the ruins are located near springs at the head of the canyons. After lunch, we decide to take the hike around Little Ruin Canyon next to the visitor center.

Hovenweep is one of the few national park units that allows dogs on their trail system, so we leash up the labradogs and start out on the trail west from the campground. Within a quarter mile, we reach the first ruin on the lip of the shallow canyon, Stronghold House.

Little Ruin Canyon is not like those big, deep canyons coming off the south side of Mesa Verde. It is much smaller and no more than about one hundred feet deep. But the impressive two to three story towers make it seem spectacular, like something out of The Lord of the rings.

Speaking of the Lord Of Rings, here is something “hobbit sized”, Eroded Boulder House.

On the opposite rim of the canyon is the Twin Towers.

Most of the trail is on slickrock, a gritty sandstone cap forming the canyon rim. The dogs are walking along fine most of the time, but I begin to notice that they are getting sore feet.

We reach the head of the Little Ruin Canyon at Hovenweep Castle and admire the fine stonework that went into constructing Square Tower some 700 plus years ago.

The dogs are definitely getting worn out from the slickrock, so we decide to head back via the visitor center and the road to the campground.

In contrast to the last three windy and cold evenings, it is warm (in the 60s) and fairly still. I grill four pork sirloins with southwestern spices (cumin and chili powder) along with a couple of fresh green chilies. The expedition wine glass washer creates an excellent coleslaw with apple cider vinegar and sweet red peppers for a side dish, as the colors begin to change at sunset over Sleeping Ute Mountain to the east. The view from the Sportsmobile’s front penthouse window is stunning.

Unfortunately, the weather report we noticed at the park visitor center may be correct for another freezing night, and the temperature begins to drop like a rock. By bedtime, it is in the mid 40s and headed down, so I reluctantly empty the Sporty’s freshwater tank again to prevent freezing as the moon rises to the east.

 

[Ed in Montana]

DAY EIGHT – SATURDAY
HOVENWEEP NATIONAL MONUMENT, UT TO NAVAJO NATIONAL MONUMENT, AZ

It’s 34 degrees F when I get up to walk the dogs before dawn, but it is warming up fast. The nearly full moon with clear skies last night was beautiful, lighting up the surrounding landscape and giving me almost enough light to read a book in the SMB penthouse without turning on a light.

The warm still morning finally allows me to cook the thick sliced bacon outside we’ve been carrying around since Palisade, Colorado, without greasing up the interior of the Sportsmobile. I get a wood and charcoal fire going in the fire grate while the Expedition Photographer makes buckwheat pancakes inside the Sporty.

After a leisurely breakfast outside under the ramada, we decide to split up for the day, with the rented RV folks going up to Blanding, Utah to visit the Edge of the Cedars State Park and museum, while we explore the rest of Hovenweep some more, before meeting at Navajo National Monument for the evening. We have been to Edge of the Cedars several times, and it has one of the best collections of Ancient Puebloan pots and crafts in the entire Southwest.

Before we can drive up to the units of Hovenweep NM, we have to stop at the visitor center for a map and directions. The Park Service doesn’t hand the maps of the other units out without telling visitors how to find them by vehicle and on foot. We are going up to next unit to the north, containing three areas of ruins, two of which accessible from a short hike. We drive north for ten miles and turn east onto a sandy rocky road. After two more miles, we park and get ready to hike to the Horseshoe and Hackberry ruins.


It’s another interesting slickrock trail following the rim of a couple of shallow canyons and the labradogs seem to be doing well with their sore paws from yesterday. Horseshoe turns out to be another circular tower overlooking the canyon, with incredibly detailed rock and mortar work.

The ancient stone masons used smaller rocks to fill in chinks in the mortar, and possibly to give it a more decorative look. On the trail to Hackberry, we pass a good example of the cryptogamic soil (a mixture of bacteria and blue-green algae) under the Pinyon Pines.

Hackberry Ruin is a rectangle tower set in the Pinyon Pine Forest.

It is starting to get really warm in the sun, and we hike back to the Sporty to water the labradogs, before driving over to Holly Ruin. It takes a little four wheeling to get the last hundred yards to Holly, but we decide not to get out and hike again in the heat. Now it’s time to head southwest toward the San Juan River.

We decide to have lunch at the Sand Island BLM Campground on the San Juan River, the start for many of the river trips along this stretch of water. We haven’t been here since 1986 when we floated the San Juan in our inflatable kayaks.

I have to carefully keep the labradogs on leash while on the boat ramp, to prevent them from swimming out into the strong current and starting a river trip of their own without a permit.

There are two other Sportsmobilers having lunch here, Tom and Lynn from Anchorage Alaska. The two gentlemen are ferrying their rigs down to Phoenix for the winter season. One of the guys bought his rig used in Florida earlier in the year, drove it home to Anchorage, and is now driving to Arizona. That’s a heck of a lot of mileage in one year!

The labradogs rest in the shade of the picnic table while we have lunch.

Back in the Sporty, we drive through the spectacular canyon scenery around Mexican Hat and up into Monument Valley on the Navajo Reservation. It’s another three hours to Navajo National Monument without stopping. There is too much to see and too little time.

We pull into the small campground at Navajo NM at 4:30PM. The campground is half full and it is cool and windy again at this 6,000 foot altitude. The Expedition Photographer cooks pasta with Italian sausage for dinner as the rented RV folks catch up and grab a campsite.

Walking around the campground while dinner is cooking, I watch the incredible sunset off of the west rim of the mesa, as the sun goes down amid black storm clouds. Another big cold front is moving in and the desert smells like rain.

 

[Ed in Montana]

DAY NINE – SUNDAY
NAVAJO NATIONAL MONUMENT, AZ TO PAGE. AZ

I’m greeted by a cool and breezy morning walking the labradogs before sunrise around the small campground. The yellow labradog is reluctant to do her business without any green grass to be found under the juniper trees surrounding the campsite, so we walk further over toward the visitor center on the trail. Directly ahead of us a small coyote runs onto the trail and takes a dump, before scampering off. Obviously, this canine cousin doesn’t have any problems with the lack of grass.

After breakfast we return to the small visitor center which features a nice collection of puebloan artifacts and a Navajo woman weaving a rug using plant based dyes. The trail to the Betakin ruin starts out the back door of the visitor center. It’s an odd trail made of concrete poured over huge slabs of sloping slickrock, and leads to a small overlook.

The Betakin ruin is in a large alcove a quarter mile away across Tsegi Canyon.

It’s hard to see much detail of this cliff dwelling from this distance, but you can sign up for ranger guided tours at some times that go directly to the ruin via the trail in the canyon bottom.

It would be nice to spend more time checking out the changing light along Tsegi Canyon, but we need to pack up and get down the road to Page, Arizona.

Just before we leave, a large group of motorcyclists from Germany pull in and do a quick tour of the visitor center and tourist trail. They are visiting national parks around the Colorado Plateau followed by their sag wagon, a small van, and staying in motels. I wonder how many Americans have the vacation time to tour national parks throughout Europe. Not many I would think, since Americans work more and take less vacation time off than any other country other than Japan.

The Expedition Photographer takes over the driving for this short stretch downhill and across the mesas to Page. Back on US 160 for a few miles, the highway parallels the Black Mesa and Page Railroad line, a railroad that transports coal from the local strip mines to the Navajo Generating Station at Page. The train is electric powered from overhead lines, using electricity from the generating station, an interesting setup.

We turn northwest off of US160 onto Navajo 98, and what was a steady headwind is now a vicious crosswind. This could be a scenic drive, but we can’t see much with the amount of dust blown up by the increasingly strong wind. The Sporty handles the heavy crosswinds pretty well, but the folks in the rental RV have a much harder time of it staying on the road.

After several miles, we catch up to the German motorcyclists pulled over next to their sag wagon taking a break from the dust storm. How these poor people ride bikes safely in this nasty weather is beyond me.

Finally, the tall stacks of the Navajo Generating Station come into view over the horizon as we reach the outskirts of Page. We have reserved a couple of spots at the local RV park so that the rental RVs electrical problems can be checked out before heading back out into the sticks on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Pulling into the RV park at 1:30PM, I immediately begin having second thoughts. The wind is still roaring with gusts up to 50mph plus, and the campsites are awash in heavy windblown dust. There’s no place to walk the dogs and I’m concerned about even putting the penthouse top up in this sort of wind. To make it worse, we get assigned to a spot that some idiot is still parked in, even though checkout time was 11AM. Finally he moves out and we park and reconnoiter.

The rental RV folks get plugged in and have shore power, but we decide to bail and find a motel to get out of the dust and wind. Driving around Page, we find a Best Western that even has green grass surrounding the motel, a real treat for the yellow labradog.

We spend the rest of the day washing clothes, getting take out from a local Mexican restaurant, and examining the view of Glen Canyon Dam from our motel window.

 

[saabman]

I wonder how many Americans have the vacation time to tour national parks throughout Europe.

The French and Germans work 35 hours a week, but of course they have a system that allows them to work more hours a week and then recuperate the overtime in holidays... this is probably why they have more time...

How many weeks does the average American citizen take per year?

Great report love the photos :b5:

 

[Ed in Montana]

Thanks Saabman!

Americans take less than two weeks (ten business days) for vacation on average each year. A lot of people get a bit more, but never take it. It is a workaholic society encouraged by corporations that take advantage of a non-unionized work force. The United States, aside from being the only developed country without a national health care system, is one of the few developed countries without a minimum amount of required annual vacation time. Don't get me going too much on this issue; it's one of my favorite rants!

As a professional geographer and a Sportsmobile owner, I feel that I am required to take a lot of vacation and explore geography.