Fall Plans

Finally today they've been finalized and figured out. Got fresh oil and my engine light is no longer blinking. Even finally updated my expired anti-virus software. Paid most bills and have some river trips coming up that should help with finances. Have a funny sort of hospital bill I have to sort out but my careful budgeting over the summer should allow all this to happen:

Thurs Aug 26th- hang out with Chris P in Moab. Add extra layers of duct tape to Viking Ship bottom so it's ready to run in the Red Rock Regatta. Go to the shooting range and shoot stuff with the .22. Get it sighted in well for marmot distance. Hang out on KZMU with Chris during his radio show

Friday Aug 27th- Be a rent-a guide on the daily with Western River Expeditions. Possibly start house sitting until Aug 31.

Sat Aug 28th-Red Rock Regatta Boat Race on the Colorado River.

Tues Aug 31-Wed Sept 1- Westwater Canyon Overnight

Sept 1(pm)-2-3(am)- camp out in the book cliffs. Look at stars. Eat over a fire.

Sept 3rd-6th- Rig from Grand Junction and run a canoe trip on the Gunnison River

Sept 8th-15thish- Hunt the Wiley Marmot near Durango and Silverton, CO. Freeze a bunch of Marmot Meat for the winter.

Sept 16th-24th- Drive back to Utah. Explore the ghost towns in the Price area in the book cliffs, possibly going further west into Utah and Juab counties for the ghost towns there. Shoot pictures, record impressions.

Sept 25th-Oct 4th. Go back to Fruita, CO. Rig and Run Desolation Canyon in 8 days with Chris P and Tyson.

Oct 4th-? - Go to Western Utah. Finish visiting the ghost towns in the Western Desert. Climb the Confusion and Wah Wah Mountains. Get a call from Lee in Durango when the ski towns are hiring. Go be employed.

Fall? - securing cheap housing. Eventually go to Denver and get music gear out of storage and bring it to Durango to work on in the winter.

With luck and the favor of the road and river gods this should be an affordable, scenic, productive fall.

I'm gonna need more coffee though.

Kane Creek Residents to Face Possible Eviction

I added some comments to the article about attempts to kick out people living along Kane Creek Road. Needless to say, I'm for the hippies:

http://www.moabtimes.com/view/full_story/9203744/article-Kane-Springs-residents-face-possible-eviction-due-to-violations-of-county-zoning--building-laws?instance=lead_story_leftcolumn

See You in Valhalla!

Or, How I Became a Viking and Helped to Win a Cardboard Boat Race!



A lot of characters I have met this summer through the "Lazy Lizard" hostel in Moab. Insane ones, drug addicted ones, rock climbing ones, river guiding ones, tourists, French tourists, boy tourists, girl tourists, father and son tourists, seasonal volunteer park rangers, seasonal restaurant workers, promiscuous oil geologists, people moving cross country, mountain bikers, people with hyponatremia, all kinds indeed you might say.

Chris P, or "Philly Chris", arrived in Moab about a month before I did. He is a graduate of the Park Ranger Academy and is endevouring to become a park ranger. He knows about tazers and the desert and weapon take-backs. Something I like about Chris is that we both used to work in fancy restaurants on the East Coast, both started to hate it, and both decided to move out West. He used to be a head chief in Philadelphia, I was a head waiter in Washington, DC.

Chris P also impressed me with one of the better car-living in set-ups I have seen: A Chevy Colorado with a topper, where false plywood bottoms have been built over the bed to provide storage space below the sleeping / "living" space above. Slide-in plastic containers under the false floor held food and miscellaneous equipment, and two trap doors at the front of the bed allowed access to upper storage that way. Chris also had the remarkable habit of taking his bed out of the truck each night and putting it on the roof to sleep there, enjoying the breeze.

Sometime around mid-July a lot demographically changed in the hostel. A few seasonal workers, including Chris, had moved out to houses or apartments around Moab. A few more climbers / explorers / hippies who were hanging out for a while left to explore new environs. An unfortunate personal conflict or two prompted a few more to move out.

I came over to visit Chris at his new place South of town. He presented me with this pamphlet from the Library about a Cardboard Boat-Race it was sponsoring. Of course I instantly agreed to devote a significant amount of my summer towards constructing such a vessel, and an emotional debate quickly ensued over whether we should build a viking ship or a pirate ship. Finally, we settled on a viking ship, and set out to consult the internet on Cardboard Boat Building Tips.

We met again to sketch a few designs, and settled on a 13 ft long 6-man vessel. Over the next several months we stockpiled cardboard from all over Moab in a shed by Chris and Arland (roomate)'s house. Chris made deals with stores all over town- furniture and glass outlets especially- to get access to their dumpsters. Eventually we wound up with about twice as much as we needed. Especially handy were fountain beverage syrup boxes Chris was able to get from his restaurant job. They made great seats, and also went into the Dragon neck/head.

We all helped with design and measurements but Chris took ownership over most of the project, turning vague ideas into actual markings on actual cardboard.



After breaking the boxes down flat, and removing any staples they had in them, we glued together our sections with wood glue. We used rocks from Arland's landscaping to hold the pieces together while the glue dried. We also duct taped everything together to hold it in place, re-enforce the bond of the glue, and prevent leaks.



Time past. We did a little bit each day, mostly when Chris wasn't working, though to our credit Arland and I put the front up by ourselves... although we did make a brief detour hike to check out flash flood damage to the right hand of Mill Creek before we we got really serious. We spent a lot of time debating bow angles... and finally just kinda cut it so it fit and decided to go with that.



The last week before the race I went go raft the Gates of Lodore stretch of the Green River through Dinosaur National Monument. It was a great trip, though I felt kind of bad about not being there for the final finishing stages of the project. However, what I found when I came back was truly awesome...

The night before the race we finalized our costumes. We had previously watched this great movie for ideas about what Vikings wear, what they talk about, and how they act. However, all the Vikings in the movie lived in Iceland and tended to wear really warm clothes. We were going to have to adapt it somewhat for desert conditions.

I went with furry loincloth, head band, boots and wool socks, sword and shield with a spraypaint stencil version of the swedish Dalahäst (Dala Horse). In this picture I am wearing the viking hat that Chris actually wore the day of the race (and yes, I know "Real Vikings" didn't have horns coming out of their helmets, but that does not change the fact that horns coming out of helmets looks really awesome!)



Finally the big day came. Chris and our team had realized our vision. We had a badass 14 foot viking ship. Just goes to show, sometimes dreams can come true.



We added some cardboard to the trailer to make it longer and softer and drove about 15 mph with the hazard lights on up Spanish Valley Drive to Ken's lake.



By the time we got there, a whisper campaign had already been started. Cars that passed us had brought the word, "There's a Viking Ship Coming!"

We carried it off the trailer and placed it next to the lake. People agreed it was pretty bad ass. I mean... we had a Dry Ice Reservoir in the mouth that was connected to SMOKING NOSTRILS! Some photographers and bystanders took our pictures.



From left to right, the crew of The Dark Crow, Arland, Christian, Forrest, Chris P, Torry, and someone from Chris P's job... I think his name was Eric.

Things moved fast... we struggled to get our crew together and get life jackets on so we wouldn't delay the launch. Some things we had planned on doing we didn't do as the excitement was getting to our heads. Finally, we all got paddles and PFDs on and got into the boat. While Chris P was the Team Captain, it was agreed that the first mate, myself, would be acting Captain while on the water. As I was the only one of our crew to have a commercial Utah Whitewater Captain License, and I have Captained paddle rafts before, this only made sense.

There were a few other boats at the race, though not as many as we had hoped. Also we seemed to be the only adult team there.



However, that did not hinder our enthusiasm (fanaticism?) for victory, which we would accomplish, valiantly.

We launched...



The crowds watched.... though only a few of them were wise enough to bring camping chairs. In this photograph it is clear which vessel is in the lead.



In addition to the "Forward" and "Back" commands, we decided I should yell "Stroke" each time we paddled. This made sense as we hadn't had much of a time to work out a real paddle talk before hand, so it both sounded dramatic and improved our coordination.

At each stroke I noticed the boat seemed to want to veer a little to the right. I am not sure if this is the result of a design flaw or simply due to a lopsided placement of paddlers, with perhaps stronger ones on the left. At any rate I was able to compensate mostly by ruddering and a few broad sweeps on the right, though a few times we did a group "back left, right forward" to get back on track.

Using such paddle raft techniques we were able to turn 'round the half way mark buoy with ease. Here we are just having done so coming on on the home stretch.



Finally all of us made it back. Some boats had disintegrated and sunk. Some had returned under their own power. But only ONE had SIX VIKINGS IN IT AND WON FIRST PLACE!

We let out a victory roar!



Luckily, as I mentioned earlier, we had seen "The Viking Sagas" and were prepared for how to accept victory with grace and honor becoming of a viking. Though sparing of the women and the servants, we forced our defeataed competitors, and any other bystanders who were interested, to wear life jackets, pick up a paddle, and enjoy boat rides around Ken's Lake on the Viking Ship!

Here Forest, one of our crew (sitting bow-starboard), takes such a crowd for one of two post-race victory laps.



The hull remained intact and water proof throughout. The caulking, polyurethane, duct tape and paint did its job!

After the race we retired to Chris and Arlands' for victory Bacon Cheeseburgers on the grill. Several Viking Groupies and Viking Maidens in Training attended. After eating I left to go visit someone in Durango, which became a bit of an arduous adventure in itself! But more on that later....

The real point here is that, Chris, Arland, and I build a FOURTEEN FOOT LONG VIKING SHIP WITH SMOKING NOSTRILS OUT OF CARDBOARD THAT WON FIRST PLACE IN THE FIRST ANNUAL GRAND COUNTY LIBRARY SPONSORED CARDBOARD BOAT RACE!

Chris kept the main trophy and our whole crew got small golden boat shaped ones to keep.

I wonder what we'll build next year- and how many more Moabites will be inspired by our brave example to take the race more seriously and try to beat our record!

Busy Summer on the Western Slope

Things have been pretty busy here on the Western Slope. Cataract Canyon was navigated, a cardboard viking ship was built, the Gates of Lodore were navigated, a cardboard viking ship was raced on Ken's Lake, I found great new places to explore near the Book Cliff badlands where you can see many stars and lightning storms 80 miles away and there are ghost ranches and you can find black widow spiders underneath your sleeping pad in the morning...

... There was a river trip of suicidal "boy scout" Utahns impervious to reason or logic who completely ignored everything we told them and whose leaders took them to roll rocks off cliffs and start fires in violation of fire bans and who almost drowned in White's Rapid... Further proof that ideologies ostensibly designed to protect innocent youth from the evils of caffeine addiction, alcohol, and premarital fornication can actually place their adherents at greater risk for traumatic injuries as such people have no outlets for impulsive, energetic behavior. In this case, it is a few beleaguered river guides, BLM rangers, various squashed lizards and plants and cryptobiotic soil colonies, peoples of the third world to whom "missions" are dispatched, and anyone else unlucky enough to cross paths with such a group of sexually repressed spoiled teenagers raised on a diet of irresponsibility and wanton destructive impulses who must pick up the pieces and pay the price for damage inflicted...

The cardboard Viking Ship was finished, looked marveolous, and took first place at the first annual Cardboard Boat Regatta in Moab. Head to tail the thing was about 14' long and was constructed of several layers of cardboard, polyurethane, duct tape, and paint. The full story is to come but I must at least share one picture of this beauty in the water



Miles and miles of road were crossed and crisscrossed as I juggled my responsibilities as first mate of a viking crew, assistant river guide of a canoe outfitter, Utah river boat captain rent-a-guide, volunteer adaptive raft guide, private boater, explorer, and hostel kitchen guy. In the past two months there's been more remarkable experiences- many of which have been photographed as well- than I've had time to write about. Today I find myself in Durango, CO with the first relaxing morning I can remember in a while, and I can only begin to go through the backlog of photos. And there's still more geology and water use history I'm trying to read up on, a desolation canyon trip to plan, a proposed month of ghost town exploring to budget, oil that needs to be changed, etc... etc...

Maybe I will find time later this summer or in the fall to go over these stories in greater detail. Until then here are a few snapshots of what can be experienced in a summer on the Western Slope...

A hidden natural arch over a wash in the Morrison Formation just above the Gunnison River



A cave I explored



A sunset in the La Sal Mountains the day I summitted Mt Mellenthin, the second highest mountain on the Colorado Plateau, with Kate and Sarah from the Hostel



Some images of Cataract Canyon



(Campsite at Spanish Bottom just below the confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers)



(rowing an oar raft through Cat)



(Cataract Canyon... the day we ran the rapids flash floods upstream had turned the water to chocolate orange)







Here's a few images from Gates of Lodore, more will be posted soon. Not very great pictures, as it is cameraphone quality...







Of course there can be costs to this great, wandering, transient lifestyle... I'm slightly over budgetted for where I'd like to be going into the fall, though I think I can be flexible to accomplish most goals. Running all over two states to guide trips is fun and well and gets me into great places and I get to do something meaningful with pretty interesting people, but business this year is not where it should be and a blow-out just cost me about $180 for two new tires and fresh oil I was due for anyways... and even though I drive under the limit the price of gas is a mighty painful cost for all this scenery. On the positive side there are winter employment prospects- always welcome. Still two or three months of good weather left where sleeping outside every night is pretty comfortable and the roads are unhindered by snow.



Soon to come: tales of Lodore, the Book Cliffs, the Victory of The Dark Crow at the 2010 Moab Cardboard boat race, Cataract- AGAIN, and.... ???

The Circumnavigation of the La Sal Mountains, Pt 2

THE CIRCUMNAVIGATION OF THE LA SAL MOUNTAINS PART 2

So... when we last left the story, I had been basically screwed by this Hostellian who said he'd pick me up or have someone else pick me up at the boat ramp at 5 and at least have his phone on during the day. The guy flaked. I got to walk all the way across town carrying a bag of stuff I'd need for the hitch and a 7 gal water jug that I put a few gallons in.

The fact that this guy flaked out meant I got a later start than I would have a liked and as a result the hitch hike went all through the night, from about 7pm to 10 am when I finally reached the car.

Though he did flake out, at least this hostellian, when he finally arrived back at the hostel from his hike, gave me a ride to the edge of town where the Shell station is. He was even nice enough to then drive me BACK to the hostel, and then BACK to the edge of town, when I tried to get out of the car and realized my cell phone had fallen out of my pocket and into Jsun's trailer while I was hanging out there for a minute enjoying the air conditioning.

After about 15 minutes I get picked up by a single mom in her late 20s who is Traveling back to La Sal with her three kids and a dog. I didn't expect a car with a single mom and three kids in it to be the kind to pick up hitch hikers but apparently the kids took a vote and decided I didn't look too scary. Allright! It is also pretty sweet she was going to La Sal because no one really lives there. So I got to downtown La Sal which is really just a post office and a general store and a ranch or two. I started walking East.

Not a lot of cars drive along this road. It's getting late.

A pickup comes by and stops and there's an old timer in it. He and his brother used to work in the Uranium mines back in the day and now he lives by himself in a small house off the state highway just before HWY 90 starts to go down hill into the Paradox Basin. I helped him keep a look out for deer on the road. I think we must have seen about 6.

I get dropped off and it is getting dark. I do some walking. I realize it is dark and no cars are coming so I get some leafy branches together to sleep on and open the bag for layers. Probably should have brought a sleeping bag but didn't count on the hitch being so nocturnal back in Moab when I was unloading the duckie while it was 100 degrees outside. Crap. I'm missing a sock. BUT- I have a plastic bag with bagels in it. I take the bag and fill it with that wheat grass that grows wild and make it into a sock and put my sandal back on over it. The thing works and keeps my foot pretty warm.

After about 2 hours of sleeping I wake up cause it is cold. The road here is cutting through the Southern rise of the La Sal Laccolith and it's pretty high eleveation on a cold desert night. Damn. Eat a bagel and some peanut butter and start walking to keep warm. Walked for about 4 or 5 miles. Walked into Colorado. Started to see a bunch of irrelevant signs, like the sign that says to dial 511 for travel information on a stretch of country road that has no cell phone coverage. I've lost at least a thousand feet of elevation and I lie down to sleep some more.

It's about 3 am.

One totally random pickup goes by. I hear it, and stick my thumb out. It passes.

Damn.

Lie back down.

After a while hear a sound kinda like an engine, but it's going the wrong way.

It's a truck driving in reverse.

Why the hell is a truck driving in reverse here?

Passes me pretty far.

Minutes later a familiar looking pickup drives by. I stick the thumb out and load the stuff in the back and get a ride.

This ride comes to me courtesy of two late shift Uranium miners from Naturita. These guys, like a lot of uranium miners, live in Naturita rather than Moab. These guys have about a 55 mile commute EACH WAY from Naturita to Uranium mines just south of La Sal. That is a hell of a commute. But you got to understand, unless you are buying heavily taxed and expensive beer at the state liqour store that has bad hours, all the beer you are going to get in Moab is only 3.2% alcohol. If you live in Colorado and commute 55 miles each way to your job, you can buy real, full strength beer anywhere and any time you like. This is especially important if you and your coworker live together and require at least a 12 pack of beer each night for your drive home.

Of course I'm a little nervous to be riding in this big gas guzzling truck with two drivers drinking beer on a tiny road in the middle of nowhere where it is really easy to accidently hit deer at night. And I can assure you than when you drive home from work at 3 AM for 55 miles on a country road no cops are ever on you are going to drive a lot faster than the speed limit. But, it is pretty cold outside and no other cars are coming. I have a beer.

Like a lot of manly men who have male roommates it seemed to be necessary from time to time for these guys to make known their dis-approval of the homosexual lifestyle. Interestingly enough, I had lost my water bottle at the house of the guy whose duckie I borrowed. He politely let me borrow his instead, which just happened to have one of those "equality" stickers from the Human Rights Campaign on it.



Well it was dark so they didn't notice and thus I didn't have to find myself walking.

We got to the intersection with 141 around 4 AM. Happy to be there, as that was the most remote leg of the journey.

Not a lot of cars going northbound from Naturita at 4am though.

Around 5:30 cars started coming. Quite a few. Obnoxiously though every single one seemed to be turning left onto HWY 90. Every single one was a pickup truck with guys in it wearing safety clothing. More Uranium Miners.

When you haven't really slept the night before and you had to hike in 100 degree weather the day before because your ride screwed you over you're probably really tired. So you're going to lay down by the road and rest. And its cold so you're wearing all your clothing including your PFD which helps to insulate your core more. Then you're going to hear a car come and really quickly you're going to get up, take your PFD off so you look a little less weird, stick your thumb out, and look really friendly. Do that like 10 times in a row when you are really really tired and you're going to get sick of it.

So I said to heck with this intersection and hiked a few hundred years North on 141 up the hill.

Now if I heard a car it would definitely be going North on 141. I was pretty tired at this point as was dosing off. So I'd hear the car and then have to really quickly scramble to get up and stick my thumb out. Finally at least the sun had come out and was warming up the earth. That made it nice.

I get this ride finally in a little back sedan.

Hard to hear this guy talk because his voice is messed up from being exposed to Agent Orange during his 3 tours in Vietnam. That's also why he's got cancer in most of his organs and his kids have birth defects and he hates the government and just wants to be left alone to smoke pot. At least he was courteous enough to let me know before hand that the car wasn't registered and his driving license was expired. But hell, he's going the right direction, and probably could make the turns without going off the cliff.

It's a beautiful ride through Wingate Sandstone and Mining Country along the Dolores River. The river carves a deep canyon along the road.





Countless old uranium mines in the Morrison Formation line the hill sides above the road. I do some geology and history interpretation along the way.

We pass Uravan. Uravan is a word made out of the words Uranium and Vanadium. There's this stuff in the Chinle and Morrison sandstone called Carnotite Ore.



It is yellow and has radium and vanadium and uranium minerals in it. About 15% of the uranium in the first three atomic bombs came from the Colorado Plateau (most came from Canada and the Belgian Congo). A small mine and mill where Uravan would later be produced some of it. After the War the AEC was formed and did a lot to help create a domestic uranium industry. The company that would later become Union Carbide built a company town and called it Uravan. The had many houses, a swimming pool, a doctor's office, and library, a post office, and of course a big mill and several mines in the area.

Uravan used to look like this:






When the bottom fell out of the Uranium market in the 70s and 80s, they noticed that the years of processing Carnotite in Uravan left the city pretty radioactive. By then most had moved out, and they decided to disassemble every structure in the entire town. Today Uravan looks like this:



There is a bit of an interpretive display talking about how after the mining now the area is being returned to nature that sounds pretty cool huh?



Yeah... Totally.

Finally. It is 10 am and I am back at the car at the resort in Gateway. The Circumnavigation of the La Sal mountains is complete. The people at the resort were very nice and had let me park there. I bought expensive gasoline and some coffee from them and then went back to



Utah the way I had come. This time was more leisurely and fast and I stopped here and there to take pictures.

The paradox valley was nice and there was a storm brewing



The La Sals near La Sal.



There you go. I was able to circumnavigate the la sal mountains. But I couldn't have done it without a river runner who has an equality sticker on his water bottle, a flakey hippe, a single mom, an old guy, two homophobic uranium miners, and a cancerous veteran. Once again Teamwork gets the job done. How I do appreciate these little hitches here and there and the cross sections of Americana I get to meet. Takes all kinds to make a world, I reckon.