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Western Colorado Road Trip

Posted on November 3, 2018 by Bill Leave a comment

Recently I had a meeting in Gunnison, so I made a short trip of it. From Denver I went up to Buena Vista and over Monarch Pass, but this time I went over the old Monarch Pass road, abandoned when the highway on upper reaches of the Pass was widened and straightened. Modern mountain highways are expensive, moving mountainsides and filling low spots. The older roads tended to follow the lay of the land more closely. They were cheaper to build but slower and more dangerous.

I like the old roads, even more if they aren’t paved. Old Monarch Pass follows the recipe. It’s narrow, winds around and goes up and down. It had about three inches of partially melted snow, making for some slick spots and lots of mud, but not the mud that likes to trap unsuspecting cars. I was going slow, so I got to enjoy the scenery and a pretty day. I rolled the windows down, opening up my steel cocoon a bit. Good thing.

I stayed in Gunnison, and next morning I drove up to Crested Butte, one of my favorite ski towns, with some of the flavor of an old mining town remaining, in contrast to the modern European Chalet style of Vail. No McDonald’s, no chain restaurants, and lots of local businesses. I had coffee in a place without WiFi.

Kebler Pass during the Aspen Color

Next was Kebler Pass, one of the best drives in the state. It goes from Crested Butte to east of Paonia, and is mixed gravel and pavement. If you want the best fall aspen viewing in Colorado, Kebler Pass is the place. Huge stands of quakies with good mountain backdrops. The leaves were gone on this trip, but the beauty remains. To the south are the West Elk mountains and and a large, mostly untraveled wilderness area. The Elk Mountains are North and east, some of the wildest peaks in the state.

I was in big, beautiful, rugged country mostly empty of human development. Emptiness and solitude, part of why I love Western Colorado. The road comes out outside of Somerset, a coal mining town between Paonia and McClure Pass above Carbondale. Big coal mines there, mostly shut down. That’s mining in Colorado. Dig lots of stuff, then go broke and leave a big mess behind.

I like Paonia, fruit trees below mountains, no McDonalds, no Walmart, as it should be. There is lots of pretty farm country from Paonia to the turnoff to Grand Mesa outside Delta. The Grand Mesa road climbs to the top of the 10000 foot tall flat topped Mesa. It’s wet country, catching the storms coming across the desert country to the west. My main memories are going fishing there with my father. Lots of lakes, mosquitoes, gnats, and

View From Lands End. Impossible to Photograph the Panorama

cold nights. I did not become a fisherman. The Land’s End road runs west from the highway to the rim of the Mesa. The view is unsurpassed. The San Juan’s to the south, the Uncompahgre Plateau across the Gunnison River valley to the west, and the Grand Valley of the Colorado under the Bookcliffs and the Roan Plateau. You can see into Utah. The road winds off the Mesa to Whitewater. Steep and twisty gravel. I’m saving that part for next time.

I went on over the mesa to Collbran, where I continued my search for the big landslide off the mesa that killed three men running a mile off the mountain. I didn’t find it, but ran round some nice farm and ranch country while looking. When I got home I printed out a map. Duh.

Colorado River Below Kremmling

That night I stayed in Parachute off I-70 in oilfield country. Enough about that. Next day I followed the Colorado River from Dotsero to Highway 40 at Kremmling. Again, I crossed a lot of wild country with a bit of development in spots. The river runs in a succession of canyons and narrow valleys. No spectacular mountains, just lots of good rugged country.

After Kremmling, Highway 40, Granby, Winter Park, and Berthoud Pass to eastern Colorado, and home.

Posted in Colorado River, Kebler Pass, Lands End, Old Monarch Pass, Road Trips, Stories, Western Colorado

Kodel’s Canyon

Posted on February 11, 2018 by Bill Leave a comment

Geologic Time Scale

Growing up in Fruita, Colorado on Colorado’s Western Slope I had rich opportunities for exploration. The area is amazingly diverse, offering the 10,000 foot elevation Grand Mesa to the east, the stark Bookcliffs to the north, and the spectacular red rock canyons of the Colorado National Monument just south of town. All this surrounds the Grand Valley where I grew up. These areas and others were within short driving distance, with the Monument in bicycle range just across the Colorado River.

My friends and I used to take our .22s across the river and assault hundreds of rocks. Our wandering took us across the National Monument boundary into Kodel’s Canyon. Nobody went there in those days so we didn’t worry about having illegal guns in the park. The canyon was smaller than the others, but we had the place to ourselves. The approach is a deeply eroded plain of Dakota Sandstone from the river to the canyon. The Cretaceous Dakota grades off to the Mancos Shale of the Grand Valley floor.

Kodel’s Canyon

That Mancos Shale is usually called Stinking Desert by many. It is somewhat infertile unless well drained, and results in mostly barren gray flats. Lots of barren gray flats from central Utah to Delta, Colorado. With water and good drainage to carry the salt away, it can be farmland. We would leave home on the valley floor and climb into the red rock Kodel’s Canyon. At the mouth of the Canyon is the Kodel’s Canyon fault, where the Uncompahgre Uplift shoved all those Older Jurassic red rocks above the Cretaceous Valley.

Looking at the Grand Valley from Colorado National Monument

The bottom of the canyon is smooth rounded granite and schist geologists call basement rocks. They are seldom found exposed on the Colorado Plateau, covered by thousands of feet of sedimentary rocks. The time gap between those old basement rocks and the sedimentary rocks sitting on them is over a billion years. It’s called the Great Unconformity, where all the rocks deposited during that billion years were eroded away. This gap is found in many places worldwide, but there are also many places where the rocks missing in our canyon were deposited and remain to be seen and enjoy. Think the Flatirons, Red Rocks, and the Garden of the Gods, all Cambrian. Those rocks sit on Precambrian Gneiss and Schist 1.7 billion years old.

Those old rounded black rocks are great for climbing and we did it. Today it’s called bouldering. We didn’t have climbing ropes, so we used our .22s as climbing aids. Dangerous? Yes. Fun? You bet.

Among the guys I grew up with, only one had any injury running around across the river. Jerry had a seriously sprained ankle. The two guys with him helped him down to the road and help. He exploited the ankle to excess. At Boy Scouts we always played Capture the Flag after the meeting. Jerry would hobble down to get the flag defying anyone to stop him. I walked over and pushed him down. I don’t think he ever forgave me.

Posted in Colorado National Monument, Fruita, Geologic Time, Geology, Gold Mining, Great Unconformity, Guns, Hiking, Kodel's Canyon, Memoirs, My Story, Rock Climbing, Stories, Uncompahgre Uplift

Wildfire Revisited

Posted on December 8, 2017 by Bill Leave a comment

Ventura Fire

Things are hot in Southern California. Earlier, it was hot in Santa Rosa and the Napa Valley. When there is a high pressure system over the Great Basin and a low develops off the California Coast, the pressure gradient gives rise to hot downslope winds blowing from east to west. The Santa Ana. Wildfires proliferate in the mountainous chaparral country. As the population continues to grow, the urban areas extend into the brush country.

That Great Basin high is also a fire maker for Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona. Here in Colorado, low pressure systems move down the Plains and the pressure gradient creates winds similar to California’s Santa Ana. As with most natural phenomena, it is not if, but when.

It’s gonna burn, folks.

The brush country is that way because frequent wildfires prevent any significant tree growth. When the brush burns, it tends to return in just a few years. With trees, not so much.

Rawah Burn. Over 100 Years, Trees Have Not Returned

I remember backpacking through a 100 year old burn in the Rawah Wilderness here in Colorado. The trees had not returned, and the topsoil was eroded away on the hilltops. Fires in Colorado’s chaparral country such as west of Glenwood Springs burn and in five or ten years the brush is back, ready to burn again.

I have seen this happen in my lifetime. The ridges south of the Colorado River and west of Glenwood have burned at least twice. Lightning causes some of the fires, but once a fire spread from the town dump. The tragic 1994 fire that killed fourteen firefighters was north of the river and just west of Glenwood. The fuel load was greater because the area had not burned for some time.

Storm King

If you go back to the Storm King fire area, you will see the brush returning. It’s not ready to burn yet, but given some time and a few wet years, it will be ready to go again. The town of Glenwood has built up right to the brush on both sides of the river.

Brush Returning

Back to California, the towns have grown up to the brush and those wanting a view are living in the brushy areas. The canyons are more heavily wooded and full of houses. All the coastal mountains from San Diego north are in the chaparral zone. All the urbanization is also in those areas. Quick commute? Live just below the hills in a canyon. Nice view, build your house on the ridge.

Those examples of the urban-woodland interface are not unique to Western Colorado and California. The Colorado Front Range is another example. Fires have burned from west of Fort Collins to south of Colorado Springs.

Waldo Canyon Fire

The Waldo Canyon fire burned into town on Colorado Springs’ west side and into Manitou Springs. The Black Forest Fire was in a different climate zone with Ponderosa Pine , but with lots of brush. That area is wetter, but is also subject to drought and wildfire, just less often.

Arizona and Utah have similar country, and fire killed 19 firefighters in mixed brush and timber just outside Prescott. I am waiting for a big fire just west of Denver. It’s only going to get worse. People are moving into the brush country in increasing numbers, if you move to Colorado or California from Chicago, you want the mountain experience. The jobs are in the cities, and the closest mountain areas are brush country. Four Mile Canyon outside Boulder and Ojai, California are examples of what fire does to development in the chaparral.

Young people looking for an exciting career should look into wildland firefighting. It is a growth industry. Oh, I haven’t even mentioned climate change. It will increase job opportunities.

Posted in Chaparral, Climate Change, Colorado Mountains, Diablo Wind, Environment, Fire, Santa Ana Wind, Stories, Western Colorado, Wildfire, Wind

Wildfire

Posted on October 27, 2017 by Bill Leave a comment

Some of the golden hills of California just turned black. This time it is north around Santa Rosa and the wine country. Usually it is the San Gabriel mountains or other Southern California areas. The conditions leading to destructive wildfire are the same. There are essentially two seasons; when it rains and when there is no rain.

This year there was a lot of rain in what passes for winter in all of California. Everything greens up and grows. It means good feed for cattle, and lots of fuel in the fall when it dries out. You are probably familiar with the Santa Ana winds in Southern California. The desert Great Basin east of the mountains cools off, creating an area of high pressure. The pressure creates west-flowing winds, blowing to the coast. As the winds hit the mountains, they rise, cool, then flow down the west side of the mountains, warming as they flow west. Thus the Santa Ana winds, hot dry wind flowing west and drying all that foliage that grew during the rainy season.

In Northern California, the winds are called Diablo winds, after the local Diablo mountains. The high pressure west of the coastal region originates from high pressure following storms blowing into the basin from the stormy northwest. The high pressure again creates west flowing wind howling down the west side of the mountains. The fires are set or lightning started, and burn across the valleys. That means the golden hills, vineyards, and Santa Rosa suburbs.

The fire triangle: fuel, heat, and oxygen. The fuel grew, much heat comes with the wind, which also supplies plenty of oxygen. Add an ignition point, and it burns. The wind and fire blows down canyons, and people like to live in the canyons. When all the space in the canyons is full, people move into the hills. It is called the urban-wildland interface. The entire American West is growing in population, and the new people moving in want to experience some open space. The open space is open because it periodically burns, thus no forest, just chaparral and grassland. And houses. Destruction.

Is climate change partly responsible? You decide. California has always had destructive fire blowing in from the west, but is climate change exacerbating the natural phenomena?

Here in Colorado, we also have destructive wildland fires fanned by downslope winds. Here the winds are from the west, hit the mountains, rise, cool, and roar down the eastern side of the mountains, fanning fires. People are moving into the areas where the fires have always burned, and their houses burn. The Plains east of Denver see huge grassland fires, especially after a wet spring.

Storm King Fire, Glenwood Springs CO

Western Colorado also has wind accelerated fires. Westerly winds encounter the west side of the Rockies, rise, cool, and descend into the area around Glenwood Springs. The country is the Colorado equivalent of California Chaparral. The brush burns got, killing firefighters and threatening towns. It is only a matter of time before things get hot in Glenwood, Newcastle, and Carbondale.

The West is a wonderful place, with open space, mountains, deserts, and a harsh climate. People moving there beware, the conditions are more violent than in the well-watered East. Oh, and don’t forger the landslides and avalanches where it is steep, along with fire. There is lots of steep country. There is steep country just west of all the people living along the Front Range. The fires just might burn into town, just like Santa Rosa.

Waldo Canyon Fire, Colorado Springs

Colorado Springs has seen fire, along with Boulder. Some day a fire may want to go downtown in a Front Range city. It is also likely a mountain town like Evergreen or Estes Park will burn. The Mountain Pine Beetle has left a lot of standing dead trees ready to burn.

Why do I seem to be writing about fire, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other means of destruction? Maybe because I am confronting my own mortality. I just turned 75. I know it is surprising because I look so young.

Posted in Climate Change, Colorado Mountains, Diablo Wind, Fire, Stories, Western Colorado, Wildfire

The Empty Quarter

Posted on July 18, 2017 by Bill Leave a comment

Portion of Flat Tops Wilderness

Well, its not a quarter of Colorado, but it’s big and pretty empty. North and west of the Colorado River and south and west of the Yampa River, the only towns of any size are Rifle, Silt, Newcastle, and Glenwood Springs along the Colorado; and Meeker in the middle. Craig and Hayden are on the Yampa. I don’t count Rangely on the White River west of Meeker as a real town. It is just a bunch of oil field junk with a few forlorn people. I recently traveled through the heart of the region.

I am a Western Slope native, so I have been over the relatively well traveled roads. I-70 (previously highways 6&24) and SH 13 from Rifle to Craig. As a kid, I went fishing on Rifle Creek with my parents. The

White River

White River drains the White River Plateau and The Flattops. Piceance Creek drains the Piceance Basin and enters the White between Meeker and Rangely.

Meeker is a pretty town in the valley of the White River. It’s a farm and ranch town with a sad past. The Meeker Massacre in 1879 was the end of the Utes huge reservation lands in Western Colorado. They were shipped to Eastern Utah. The reason was the systematic U.S. Policy of cooping the Indians up or killing them. There are grisly details, but it was just another example of the U.S. Policy of mistreating Native Americans that continues to this day.

Maybe you have heard of Trappers Lake. It is an enclave surrounded by the Flattops Wilderness, a huge area of timberland dotted with many small lakes. The only access is on horseback or backpacking. It’s wet country, catching the storms as they leave the lower country to the west. Hunters, fishermen, and tree huggers are the only travelers.

I never backpacked there, but two friends humped there way in years ago. They talked about the beauty, but mostly about the rain. One of them had one of those convoluted open foam pads with no cover. When the water came into the tent, he was lying on a sponge in a soaked down sleeping bag. They left early.

West of SH 13, along the Grand Hogback,

Grand Hogback Between the Colorado Plateau and the Rocky Mountains

you are on the Colorado Plateau. Go east, and you are in the Rocky Mountains, but not the Rockies you are used to. The hogback is a remnant of the uplift that formed the Rockies. The equivalent on the east side are those red rock hogbacks called the Flatirons, Red Rocks, and the Garden of the Gods.

No big mountains here, just a region of high plateaus. The reason? Volcanism in the form of lava flows. The White River Plateau was uplifted along with the rest of the Rockies, but instead of being eroded into those jagged peaks we are used to seeing, the basalt from the lava flows formed a resistant, flat caprock. It’s not rugged mountains, but it has a beauty all it’s own.

Flat Tops Trail

The is a scenic byway between Meeker and Yampa I took for the first time, At first, it is in the White River valley, then climbs up on the plateau and heads on east to Yampa. The view to the south is where the Flattops drop down to the river. It’s not a gentle slope. The basalt caprock is underlain by the soft White River Formation. The steep slope is subject to landslides, leaving large open, green slopes surrounded by timber. It’s great summer range country for sheep and cattle. It is also some of the prettiest country in our state. I think I met two pickups on the road east of Buford, where the road turns off to Trappers Lake. It’s gravel much of the way, but good gravel.

West of SH 13, on the edge of the Colorado Plateau, is the huge Piceance Basin. It is a Structural basin next door to the Uinta Basin, mostly in Utah. The basins are separated by the Douglas Arch, crossed by Douglas Pass, country where I spent a lot of time in my youth. The arch is a western extension of the Laramide Orogeny, the mountain building period that formed the Rocky Mountains. The edges of mountain ranges usually have foreland basins, areas of subsidence. I am sitting over the Denver Basin. The Piceance is the equivalent west of the mountains. As the mountains rose, the fringes sank, creating huge synclines filled with the erosion products of the mountains. The basins formed huge inland lakes which filled with sediment that became the Green River Formation, famous for its fossils and oil shale.

The Greater Piceance Basin

Because of all that rising and sinking, pockets form, trapping reservoirs of gas and oil. The Piceance is one of the most productive natural gas fields in the country. Rangely’s oil is also from the Piceance. I drove the road running along Piceance Creek, which drains the basin to the west. The area is all about natural gas, with some ranching along the creek. There is a gas plant every few miles, and lots of truck traffic. The basin used to be the home of a huge migratory deer herd, the deer summering in the Flattops and wintering in the basin. The herd is still there, but all the drilling has greatly reduced the numbers. Lots of elk there as well, their numbers increasing somewhat, probably due to less competition from deer.

The area is known as the Roan Plateau, which drops off to the Book Cliffs, an escarpment runnng from Palisade, CO to well past Greenriver UT. It feels like home country to me, with memories of deer hunting in the Douglas pass area. The scenery isn’t as dramatic as the red rock country to the south, but has its own beauty. Plus, it isn’t as cluttered up with people.

Piceance, Uinta, Roan Plateau, Book Cliffs, all names for roughly the same country. My list now includes going up into the basin proper, known mostly by Ute Indians, ranchers, oil field people, geologists, and aging wanderers.

Posted in Bookcliffs, Colorado Mountains, Colorado Plateau, Geology, Green River Formation, Road Trips, Stories, Western Colorado

Jude Stoner

Posted on August 13, 2016 by Bill Leave a comment

For a high school with less than 300 students in the late 1950’s, Fruita High School had some unique personalities.

A year or two ahead of me was Jude Stoner (not his real name, but close ). He was one of those people with exactly the right name. He wasn’t tall, but was well built, dark, and exuded self confidence. He didn’t participate in school activities, but wasn’t what we would have called a hood. He also was not a stoner.

I don’t know how it happened, but Jude ended up as a hairdresser in Aspen. The Aspen ladies must have swooned over him, a rough-cut, good looking guy doing their hair. In those days there wasn’t much going on in Aspen in the summer, so Jude did other things.

Ruedi Dam and Reservoir

At the time, the Ruedi Dam was being built 15 miles up the Frying Pan River from Basalt. That is not far at all in Isolated Aspen terms. Jude got a construction job on the dam. Good money, keep in shape, have a break from the hair salon. The ideal gig for Jude, as he was an experienced construction hand.

The two most beautiful mountain valleys. In my opinion, are the Frying Pan Valley from Basalt to Hagerman Pass over the Continental Divide. The other valley is the Crystal River Valley from Carbondale to Marble. Jude had a fine place to do a summer’s worth of construction.

Construction workers are a rough cut bunch, not known for tact or social niceties. Construction sites, especially in Western Colorado in the 1960’s, were strongholds of homophobia. Gay men anywhere in the rural West almost always migrated to the cities. Denver, for example, has had a significant gay community for a long time, drawing men from all the neighboring states.

Downtown Aspen 1960’s

Well, here was an Aspen hairdresser doing construction work. The word got out Jude was a hairdresser. Now Jude was kind of a formidable guy, so my guess there was a lot of talk about him behind his back. He had to have been aware of the talk.

One day it happened, one of the real men? on the crew called Jude a “Queer Hairdresser”.

Jude broke his jaw with one punch. No more talk.

Posted in Aspen, Fruita, Ruedi Dam, Stories

Guns

Posted on May 17, 2016 by Bill Leave a comment

I am from Western Colorado-outdoor sportsman central. Hunting big game, small game, ducks and geese, most any things that moves was a way of life. I grew up around guns as my father hunted and fished. I hunted as well, but fishing never appealed to me-too boring.

I was always fascinated by guns. I liked the mechanical precision, the looks, the way they felt in my hands. There was, of course, another set of reasons for my fascination.

Guns are for killing. When hunting, I was repelled and attracted to the act of killing. I would walk along hunting rabbits thinking “Why am I here, I don’t like the killing?”. As soon as a rabbit jumped, the gun came up and I was shooting. More than once I have sold all my guns, swearing off them, only to find myself in a gun shop.

In Army basic training I became welded to the famous old M1 Garand rifle. I still like the damn things, although I haven’t bought one as a civilian. In Germany I got an M14, much like the M1, but holding 20 rounds instead of eight.

.50 Caliber Machine Gun

When I got promoted I was given the responsibility for a .50 caliber Browning machine gun. Completely assembled it weighs about 120 pounds and fires a cartridge about six inches long, with a bullet half an inch in diameter. We went to Wildflecken, Germany, the traditional invasion route for eastern invaders, to shoot the thing across a canyon. It sure was fun. It sure did give me a significant hearing loss.

The real reason for my fascination with guns, however, is fear. I have been afraid for my safety for as long as I can remember. The cause? Probably some abuse I experienced at a young age. I remember making a tent out of a card table and blankets in the living room when I was home alone. I would get under there with my .22 rifle and dream about driving the invaders away.

The gun magazines used to be mostly about hunting arms, now they are filled with articles about protecting your home from hostile invaders. That is right down my alley, even though I live in a safe neighborhood and have never experienced any need for protecting myself with a gun for 73 years. This is a big cognitive disconnect in my life. I think the strategy is to not read that stuff.

To deal with my fear I am now using a mindful meditation technique. I meditate watching my breath. When any fear-related thoughts arise, I notice them, name them “fear, fear”, and watch them fade. I also have the fear thoughts arise at other times, as when driving. I say a short prayer, sometimes several times, until the fear thought fades. I do this many times during the day. It works. The thoughts leave, and they are not recurring with the same frequency. I feel better, and have more energy for useful things. I am not doing this to seek enlightenment, I am doing it to rid myself of wasteful thinking so I can focus on the good.

Posted in 1963 Volkswagen, Guns, Insight Meditation, Stories, Western Colorado

rat in cage two bottles

Posted on April 24, 2016 by Bill One comment

The World Famous Green River Formation, for oil shale, not beauty

About fifty million years ago the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River did not exist. The area was surrounded by the Wind River Mountains, the Uintah Mountains, the San Juans, the Uncompahgre Plateau, and the newly formed Rocky Mountains. This huge area had no outlet to the sea. The climate was similar to our current Gulf Coast, warm and moist. During the six million years we are exploring, things changed. Lakes formed and receded, land rose and subsided, and through all this the surrounding highlands were sending their sediment into the lakes.

The Green River Formation is the result of all the sedimentation. It is up to ten kilometers in depth, thinner at the margins. At first the lakes were fresh water, but later became saline, leaving large deposits of carbonate rocks. The trona deposits at Green River, Wyoming are some of the richest in the world. The margins are sandstone and conglomerate interlaced with the fine silt that filled most of the basin. The formation is rich in the fossils of the abundant life in the lakes. They are world famous for their variety and abundance.

There was an anoxic layer at the bottom that preserved the organisms settling there. The lakes were abundant in blue-green algae. The remains of the algae are the source of the oil shale deposits the region is known for. The oil shale is there in millions of barrels, but it is expensive to extract the petroleum from the rock. It may never be commercially viable, but the formation has been extensively studied as a result.

Green River Formation Map

Standing in my home town of Fruita looking north, the white cliffs behind the Book Cliffs are the Green River Formation. The Roan Plateau is huge, but does not attract visitors like the red rock country to the south. A huge exposure is the highlands west of I-70 from Rifle to DeBeque Canyon.

My interest is from visiting ranchers and hunting in the Douglas Pass area in my youth. Most of our visits were to ranches in the Green River Formation. The elevations varied greatly. The ranches were along West Salt Creek, but there were back country roads that went from sagebrush desert to piñon-juniper to oak brush shaly hillsides with sandstone rims to high country timber with world class mud. In fact, the mud is world class everywhere in the region.

Back before four wheel drive became common, there was a pile of rocks at the bottom of every big hill. Load them in the back of your pickup, go where you planned, and unload them on the way home. There is a network of canyons with side canyons branching off. All of it is fine deer habitat. My favorite places were at the head of a canyon with the wind in my face and a view of the LaSal Mountains and the Uncompahgre Plateau in the distance. Flat, wooded country gives me the creeps.

Access to a lot of the country is difficult. Most of the land is BLM land, but the early ranchers homesteaded the choice land that had water. The private land meant locked gates. We knew some of the ranchers, family friends. Hunting season was a big deal. There were maybe a dozen or more people, hunting during the day and drinking and playing poker at night. The big ranch house had a big kitchen with a wood burning stove along with the stove in the big main room. There was a light plant in the shed next to the house. It looked like no generator you see these days. There were also lots of Coleman lanterns when the light plant failed. Good times and lots of venison. The unheated bunkhouse was upstairs.

Douglas pass was up the main road, gravel in those days. It isn’t that high by Colorado standards, but made up for it with the switchbacks up the head of the canyon to the summit up through that shale. When the shale is wet, it moves. The road trapped the runoff, wetting the soft shale, and most every spring one or more places slid. The mountainside now is braided with old road cuts. It wasn’t much of a main road in the 1950’s, but now there is so much oil and gas development that the road is a paved state highway that the highway department spends money on.

The road crosses the desert above the Highline irrigation canal before it goes into the canyon. It is on the Mancos shale, responsible for all that flat desert in Colorado and Utah that turns to grease when it is wet. There was one hill the road went over then descended into the wash on the north side. That meant the road was on a north facing slope for a distance. That hill was named Coyote, because it could bite and gnaw on you if it was wet. A bit farther north was a ten or twelve foot high rock on the side of the road, all by itself.

The county employee maintaining the road in those days had his grader blade scrape on that rock every time he bladed the road. It would leave a bump, so he would have to drag dirt over to level things out. One day he got fed up and dug that rock up and moved it off the road. It was probably a two day project, but he never had to fight that damn rock again.

After I could drive, I ran around that desert quite a bit. I learned how to drive a two wheel drive pickup in that greasy stuff from my father. He was the telephone man in Fruita, responsible for maintaining the toll line as far as Cisco, Utah. That meant navigating two ruts through the cheat grass and sagebrush. He could put a two wheel drive pickup into places that were a challenge for a Jeep. Rocks in the back, chains if needed, put it in second gear and putt along. He seldom used the granny gear or used the gas pedal. Those old Chevy sixes would just lug their way along.

I am as guilty as any back country explorer for spending most of my time in the Rocky Mountains or the Utah red rock country, but the Mancos Shale and the Green River formation are calling me. I just need to see if my tire chains are in good shape. I think I will go over Douglas Pass, loop around and look the Piceance Basin over. From Rifle I will go down to Plateau Creek (my father and grandfather said platoo crick) and up to Collbran to look at the big slide.

Posted in Colorado Mountains, Colorado Plateau, Colorado River, Federal Land, Geology, Green River, Green River Formation, Landslides, Oil Shale, Pipelines, Stories, Uncompahgre Uplift, Utah, Western Colorado

Time

Posted on March 27, 2016 by Bill Leave a comment

Time

Time is relative. It is all a matter of perspective. It is said that realized beings like Jesus or the Buddha lived entirely in the moment, which connects them with the timelessness of being. For mortals such as I, it is sometimes difficult to have a perspective greater than the next few hours. Carol and I do a weekly plan, setting our schedule for that span of time. For people in the corporate world, time usually means the bottom line for the quarter. Children see summer vacation as lasting a long time; for us old people, it’s over in a flash.

I seem to have several time perspectives. In my spiritual life, I attempt to be in the moment and in the eternal. In meditation, however, I find myself planning the next day or reviewing childhood events, not in some exalted state. My everyday life tends to be day by day, checking the weekly plan if I remember to. Often I can’t remember which evening I am supposed to cook.

I have developed something of a longer perspective on life as I age. I am shocked to realize that a lot of people were born in this century, which for me is a relatively short time. Y2K wasn’t that long ago. I can remember Senator Joe McCarthy and the Army-McCarthy hearings when the country was experiencing a right wing resurgence a lot like now. That time ended, as will this one, probably in November. I was in the Army when Kennedy was shot. Obama is in year eight of his presidency; we have watched his daughters grow up. As teenagers, I wonder if they think their dad is hopelessly clueless, even if he is The Man.

Newspaper Rock, Utah

My history professors talked about developing a historical perspective, to take a long view about human events. To some degree I succeeded. I can connect the pagan deities of Mesopotamia with elements of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. Four thousand year old Greek myths influence our current thinking. Because of the American Civil War, I dislike grits, sweet ice tea, deep fried fish, y’all, and that strange flag. Most southerners are wonderful people, but I am not one of them. But, I feel a connection with the people who illustrated their world on the sandstone canyon walls of Western Colorado and Utah.

So, where are we? From “Do I have to go to the bathroom?”, to what’s to cook tonight, to the doctor’s appointment Thursday. From there, it’s my lifetime and all that has gone on, even to those kids born in 2009, when my pickup was built (with a faulty airbag).from there it is the span of human history as recorded by symbols such as writing, the digital cloud, or rock paintings. Then I go to archeology and the origins of humankind.

Next is yours and my favorite subject, geology and the universe. Time changes, from hours to days to weeks, years, lifetimes, and all of human history, all mere blinks in the span of geologic time. Four billion years ago our planet was a ball of very hot rock. 2.7 billion years ago what is now Denver was part of an island arc similar to Indonesia headed for a collision with Wyoming. Lots of things crash in Wyoming.

65 million years ago this place was a sea bottom, with shale accumulating that runs from South Dakota to central Utah. Denver has gone from a hunk of hot rock to an island, a sea floor, a place being buried in the stuff washing out of the Rockies as the glaciers melted, to a place with a lot of people and their accumulated toxic waste and a lot of used plastic.

The planet and the universe will go on, with humankind gone, mostly as a result of their own folly. What does it all mean? Maybe what is important is the time I took this morning to watch a big hawk fly over the DU campus looking for a little critter to eat.

Posted in Colorado Mountains, Extinction, Geology, Stories, Time, Wyoming

The Colorado Plateau Part Two

Posted on September 21, 2015 by Bill Leave a comment

Colorado Plateau Country

There is a lot of beautiful country on the Colorado Plateau, but there is the other side. The term many use is the stinking desert. My home town has an annual rainfall of about eight inches. Before the Utes were run out and ditches were dug, the Grand Valley was a sparse desert. The irrigation projects made much of the valley green, but north of the Highline Canal is the desert. It is a fairly barren desert, not like the Sonoran Desert with its green saguaro cactus.

Mancos Shale Soil

The soil, if you can call it that, is fairly infertile, high in salts, and high in toxic selenium. It’s called the Mancos Shale. The Mancos Shale, called the Pierre Shale east of the Rockies, runs from South Dakota to central Utah. It is an ancient sea floor, Cretaceous in age, of the inland sea covering much of North America. Shale is mud rock, laid down as the sea advanced and retreated over millions of years.

The lower part of the Bookcliffs and the valley floors are Mancos Shale. In its natural state it is a scrub grassland, supporting small populations of deer, antelope, prairie dogs, sage grouse, cottontails, and some Bison. When the Northern European Americans arrived, they saw grazing land. The sheep and cattle came. The ranchers did well for a few years, but their expectations were unrealistic for such a dry area. Soon, most of the good grass was gone, replaced by cheat grass and sagebrush.

The area between Delta and Grand Junction is a prime example. My father, born in 1903, lived in Grand Junction after 1918. He told me that at that time, there were extensive stands of tall bunch grasses. They are gone. That desert is one of the most barren stretches I am aware of. It is hilly, so irrigation water went to flatter areas. It is close to towns, so lots of ranchers grazed their stock on the land.

Much of the Mancos shale country is BLM land today. In the old days, the Land Office and the Grazing Service leased land to ranchers. There were allocations on the number of head allowed on each segment, but there was little enforcement. The grass mostly disappeared. Thus, the stinking desert.

I-70 from Palisade to the west of Green River, Utah is on the Mancos. Highway Six from where I-70 veers south almost all the way to Price is on the Mancos. Travelers on those highways have the bare Bookcliffs and the bare desert floor to look at for over 200 miles. Their impression was what tended to keep the canyon country to the south relatively isolated. Locals had all that magnificent country mostly to themselves.

Art in Salt Creek Canyon

The a uranium and oil and gas booms of the 1950s built a large network of roads and opened the canyon country up for tourism. Those flat deserts remain empty, along with the mostly shale country of the Bookcliffs and the Tavaputs Plateau to the North.

When I went to Arches in the 1950s, we drove down two tracks winding through the sand. This year during the height of the season, cars were lined up literally for miles. Canyonlands National Park is also crowded, people lined up. I remember going there and often seeing no one.

From Green River to Hanksville is mostly flat, dry desert, with 70 miles from the highway turnoff to the Maze District Ranger Station in Canyonlands. The greater part of Navajo country in southern Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona is fairly flat desert. Monument Valley is flat desert that happens to have some rocks sticking up. Have you ever driven from Albuquerque to Flagstaff on I-40? Flat desert.

Henry Mountains

The Colorado Plateau does have some other features. Mountains, tall, green, and wet, supplying water to the desert. Three ranges of mountains, the La Sals near Moab, the Abajos, known to locals as the Blues, and the Henry Mountains, near to nowhere. The La Sals are the tallest, over 12,000 feet. The Abajos and the Henrys stretch to 11,000 feet. They stand in contrast to the red rock country surrounding them, and provide a welcome relief. People go there in summer to cool off and enjoy the wildlife.

Geologically, the mountains are Laccoliths, formed by a neck of molten magma rising to a weaker junction between two layers of sandstone. At that junction the magma moves laterally, forming a mushroom shaped dome of igneous rock in the domain of sandstone. The overlying strata usually erode away, leaving the igneous core. The Henrys are the type location for Laccoliths, being the subjects of the earliest study, and displaying the domed shape.

Salt Creek Canyon

The three ranges are important to ranching, providing water, hay farming, and a summer range, with the stock wintering on the desert. Salt Creek, draining north from the Blues, has a canyon with year-round water, arches, and Ancestral Puebloan ruins and rock art. The canyon also provides access to a park in the midst of the Needles District of Canyonlands. I like that park because it was never grazed. It provides a look at the land before cattle came, trampling or eating everything, mangling stream banks, and bringing alien species like cheat grass. No I won’t tell you where it is. Go look for yourself.

Posted in Arches, Bookcliffs, Canyonlands National Park, Colorado Plateau, Colorado River, Environment, Geology, Green River, History, Memoirs, My Story, Southwestern Archaeology, Southwestern History, Stories, Utah, Western Colorado

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