October 1: Camping Out

On the 30th, we left Bluff taking the well wishes of our campground hostess and the Navajo Twins

with us.  We even paid our respects to the Mormon pioneers of the Hole-in-the-Rocks expedition who build the settlement of Bluff City in the  1880s.

We headed back to Blanding to post some blogs and stock up on supplies, but not beer.  We were headed into Cedar Mesa country and hikes into the Grand Gulch Primitive Area.  We would be forty miles from the nearest store or gas station.  And not much closer to any kind of drinkable water.

We had contemplated hiking in Grand Gulch in August, you may remember.  But 100º heat in the deep canyons of Grand Gulch was way more intimidating than the same heat in Moab.  The sign on the BLM Ranger Station clearly read:  There is no water in Grand Gulch.  It takes four miles just to get into Grand Gulch and there is no easy way out.  Grand Gulch is 32 miles long and there are only a few (five?) access and egress points along the way--all hard to reach.

Yet Grand Gulch was a Basketmaker and Anasazi metropolis of sorts.  It is littered with ruins and rock art from 1,000 to 2,000 years ago.  It was a prime target for early explorers and archaeologists like Richard Wetherill and the Hyde Expedition for the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.  These sites (such as remain) can still be visited by those intrepid enough to hazard the rigors of one of the wildest canyons in Utah.  It is one of those places that serious hikers want to list in their portfolios.

Anyway, we saved it for last.  The weather was now cooler, and there was some stagnant standing water after the earlier rainfall.

We wanted to camp overnight at Natural Bridges National Monument.  True, it lacked water, except for the restrooms at the Visitor's Center and a single pump to resupply backpackers within a forty-mile radius.  No fooling:  Natural Bridges has the only water pump on Cedar Mesa.  And no store.  We were well stocked with cans of chili, chips and dip, eggs, and canned spinach.  (A nod to Popeye.)

Unfortunately, the 13 sites at the campground were full by the time we got there.  But the helpful woman at the Visitor's Center cheerfully suggested that the primitive campsites were really "quite nice."

We drove up the  Bear's Ears Road, the dirt track up the mountain to the landmark.  Actually, it turned out to be quite fun.  The site we found was not on the ears, more like the bear's rear.

But we were alone among the Utah Junipers.  (We hoped.)  No mountain lions; no coyotes; no bikers;  only old people.

Up to this point, I am proud to say, we had not built a single fire at our campsites.  I have never understood the male compulsion to build a fire as soon as he pitches his tent or stops his RV, even if the combustible material consists of scrap lumber or cardboard covered with plastic.  (We once camped next to a young man who could not figure out why the branches he had just cut off a living bush would not burn--even when he kept pouring lighter fluid on them.)  But this time, it was cold and we decided to build a fire.  Legal or not, (there were fire-pits at the campsites) we gathered dead juniper wood lying on the ground.  Dry juniper wood makes a great, long-lasting fire, with a sweet smell.  I thought I was quite inventive in using the stones lying around the campsite to build a radiant shield.

We had heat for much of the night.

When we woke the next morning, it was 41º.  It was not August anymore.