McConkie Ranch Petroglyphs
About 1,500 years ago the Fremont Indians used rock art as expressions of their life. Many of these are easy to find on rock walls around the Vernal, UT area. Some of the best examples are on the McConkie Ranch, a private ranch but open to the public. We visited there, and were amazed by the amount and variety of petroglyphs (= means etched in rock, not painted).
Here you can see the mountain path and one of the petroglyphs
One of the many art panels
-- and another one
More characters with objects
“Desert Voices” hike
Another hike close to our camp site is the “Desert Voices” hike. It is a moderate hike, only 2 1/2 miles long, and plenty of scenery. It starts right at the Green River where river runners end their 5 day float down river.
Looking back down the Green River. Our campground is close to the middle of this picture.
Start of the hike and also boat launch and retrieval are for Green River river kayakers.
Along the hike, Split Mountain in the distance
Lots of color this time of the year, even in the desert.
All along the trail are signs of ground upheaval
Desert trees take a long time to grow and have a very stunted growth pattern
Fighting the mice war—-
Maybe we finally have had some positive results in our “mice war”. So far, we’ve eliminated 10 mice from our coach. Sure, there is some concern about the hansa virus (possibly fatal for humans), but we also have concern because they like to chew on electrical wire. That could become a HUGE expense….
Anyway, we bought some mice repellent, which is basically a granule infused with bobcat smell. It makes the mice think there is a natural enemy in the area and they stay away. We’ve sprinkled this around anything that touches the ground and so far we’ve had out first night with no mice in any trap.
Maybe the war has been won….
“Sounds of Silence” hike
There are several very nice hiking trails in Dinosaur National Park. One, called “Sounds of Silence”, is only 3 miles from our camp site. Yesterday we walked it, about 4 miles long and VERY varied terrain. In fact, this variety is what makes this country side so interesting. Take a look at the pictures below.
Start of the trail, rock formations ahead
A look at the trail ahead, Split Mountain on the horizon
Even the desert has its blooms
A variety of colors as well
Some of the trail was in clay hills
We believe this to be a cougar print; about 4" across
Don't slip, it's a long way down!
Some of the trail required scrambling
A very pleasant hike indeed. We’ll have to do it again!
At work at Dinosaur
This was a momentous week for us– both Romola and I went back to work! Well, work: we’re volunteers at Dinosaur National Monument in far eastern Utah. We work for a total of 32 hours per week (that’s 16 for Romola and 16 for me) in the visitor center. Our job is to hand out maps and answer questions. So far, it’s been fun meeting a huge variety of people.
We also have to learn a lot so that we can answer the many questions. That in itself is pretty great, it is extremely interesting to learn about this area and the historically important dinosaur find (more dinosaur bones have been found at this site than anywhere else in the world). Here we are, with out official shirts and smiles on:
Posing in front of the visitor center....
Skeleton of an allosaurus, one of the few items here older than we are
If you’re interested in finding out some more about the park check this link: http://www.nps.gov/dino/index.htm
An uninvited guest
Turns out this area is loaded with — mice. These are deer mice, which are a nuisance but the real problem is that some of them carry a virus dangerous to humans. So it wasn’t fun when we discovered mouse tracks in the home! So off to Lowe’s to fid mouse traps and electronic rodent repellers. We’ll see what happens, but our actions weren’t good for at least one mouse:
Gotcha! Hope there aren't' any more.
Petroglyphs and pictographs
About 1,000 years ago this area was home to the Fremont people, an Indian tribe. They lived in the hills and valleys, and left behind some interesting petroglyphs (rock etchings) and pictographs (paintings on the rock surface). Just up the road from our camp site are a whole series of petroglyphs, so we decided to take a look.
On the way up to the rocks
Lizards (up high) and people were popular images
Another lizard, some more detail
Look closely you can see a large face above a smaller body
We hope to see some pictographs in the near future. Hope they will be just as visible….
Camped at Dinosaur National Monument
The National Park Service provides us with a free campsite while we volunteer. We were pleased to see our campsite; it is in a quiet and scenic location on the Green River. We have a paved pad, clean water, 50A power and a sewer connection. We have reasonable cell phone and poor internet connection (but I’ve ordered an antenna to fix that) so we’re all set.
A view of the camp site from above.
If you look REAL carefully, you can just make out our motor home, more or less in the middle of the picture. But you have to know where to look. That is the Green River that flows by the camp grounds. The Green River is popular for river runners; there is a lot of white water (but not where we are camped).
Parked. Green River, and Split Mountain behind us.
Really, quite a nice place to stay. No trains, planes, boats or traffic to wake you up at night!
A view upriver from our camp ground
Just as I was taking the above picture two nesting geese flew by and I got this picture:
A pair of geese in flight
We’ve done one hike and will do some more; there is a lot of interesting things to see in this area. I’ll post some hike pictures later.
The last trip, and Douglas Pass
We drove from Grand Junction to Dinosaur yesterday. It was a fairly uneventful drive, except that the road wasn’t the best. Fairly narrow 2 lane roads, but passable. We just kept our speed low, no problem since there was no traffic anyway.
Highway 149 North, with Douglas pass in the distance
There were some 14 miles of Douglas Pass to conquer. This was narrow road, in places with a drop off on the side. No shoulders, very tight turns (I mean tight switchbacks) but again, taking it slow it really wasn’t a problem.
The top of Douglas Pass
After Douglass Pass it was a relatively easy drive into Jensen, and then to the Visitor Center at Dinosaur National Monument. We made it! (This is a temporary visitor center while the new one is being built). This is where we will be working as volunteers for 2 months. We have a very nice RV site next to the Green River, more about that in a future post.
Arrival. Tacky, yet homey.
Spring time travel in the rockies
So we’re parked in Colorado Springs, in a park close to downtown. It has a great view, because we are parked on a hill. Flip side, we were quite bothered by the winds we had, which were up to 45 MPH.
Looking up from the RV Park entryway. That's us sort of on the left.
The day we were scheduled to leave for Utah had some disturbing weather forecasts. In the afternoon, winds of 75MPH were predicted. 75MPH! So we decided to beat the strongest winds and head to Gypsum, Co where we had reservations. Well, we made it safely, but winds were enough to make driving more stressful.
We arrived at our campsite, parked next to the Eagle river. What we didn’t realize is that this is a valley that funnels winds right where we are parked. We pulled in some slides and hunkered down and went to bed. Winds were predicted to die down by midnight.
Looking down in the valley. Feel the wind? No? But we sure did....
Walking up the morning provided another surprise, I guess typical for spring time travel in the Rockies. Guess what it was? Here’s a clue:
You guessed it, snow!
This morning it is supposed to “warm up” to 40F. If so, and the roads are clear, we’ll move down to Grand Junction where the weather is slightly better but at least we have access to stores and shopping. Stay tuned…..
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