Our Travel Blog
Found a sweet little spot above the Lowery Pueblo in the Canyon of the Ancients National Monument on BLM land and decided to lay over for a rest day. The hammocks went up, we hiked the rim of the canyon, and ghost berries were processed! Someone made a fort!
Another beautiful day in southern Utah and another National Monument preserving the Ancestral Puebloan ruins. The structures here date about the same as the Navajo Monument we visited earlier in the week, but are different in that they were built into canyon-heads instead of under a pre-existing cliff in a canyon.
Time and erosion have taken most of the buildings that were constructed on the sandstone leaving only those built on the more solid rock. When viewing the ruins, you need to use your imagination to fill in the lost buildings that would have connected these remaining structures, creating a small city network of rooftop paths and ladders from the canyon bottom up to the mesa rim.
We found a great dispersed camping spot on BLM land right below Mexican Hat. While there, we chatted with our friend Dan from Arizona (we met Dan remote camping in the Badlands last summer) about places we should visit. He mentioned Valley of the Gods. We looked at the map and it was right across the road…why not?
The 17 mile drive, and another night dispersed camping in the valley, was spectacular. It is called a mini Monument Valley, and to be honest, we liked it a lot better. It was a quiet dirt road with minimal traffic (probably busier during the summer), lots of those red rocks we love, lots of stars and a Sentinel watching over us as we slept.
Thanks Dan for the tip!
The Muley Point road should have intersected the dirt road we took along the Goosenecks, but we never found it. Well, we soon discover why! Muley Point is on the top of the butte, and we were hugging the bottom edge of the butte.
A quick look at the map and we found a 3 mile, 5 mile per hour, dirt, steep, really steep, set of switchbacks up the cliff face of the butte called Mokie Dugway that connected the bottom to the top. We dropped the Wee Rover into second gear and headed up!
Steep, twisting, no guardrail, dirt, drop offs, brings us to Muley Point and one of our best coffee break spots of the trip, and on the way back down we made a friend!
Most people who visit the Goosenecks area of southern Utah stay at the state park, look over the edge to the San Juan River and then move on. Us? We skipped the State Park (no surprise there), found the small red dirt road that ran parallel to the goosenecks and San Juan River, and headed out.
Oh my, what a beautiful drive. We encountered our first tumbleweeds, saw pictographs from the Archaic Period (that’s really, really, really old) up close, and saw more beautiful red rocks. We just can’t get enough of the gorgeous red cliffs and spires.
Yea, its awesome! Picturesque! You could see John Wayne riding across with the cavalry. But, what we will remember is spending an hour or more talking with Genny and Ray in their small shop on the Navajo tribal lands. New friends and a new bracelet!
Quinky Dink: Ray grew up near my grandparents in northern NJ. We reminisced about about the area and a particular place we both visited as kids, Space Farm, and our very different memories of the snakes there.
The southwest is filled with ancient ruins of the Ancestral Puebloans (formerly called Anasazi). The remains date back hundreds if not thousands of years and are being careful restored, maintained or cared for by the government and/or Native American peoples.
The weather gave us a window of opportunity to swing east and north to visit many of these sites around the Four Corners Region. (No snow chasing us at the moment, balmy 60’s during the day and 20’s at night…we can do that.)
The first area we encountered was a small, off the beaten path, place called Navajo National Monument near Kayenta, Arizona. Knowing nothing about this site, we debated detouring the 10 miles to visit. Once again we decided why not, we were very glad we did. We absolutely love these smaller parks.
The site gave us our first glimpse of amazing structures built almost a thousand years ago. They were permanently occupied from around 1250 to 1300 AD at which time the Ancestral Puebloans departed for the south and west leaving sealed rooms filled with corn. Why did they leave? Were they planning to return?
So things have settled a bit with the new motor, literally. The miles of exploring rough dirt roads, washboards, and just general travelling showed up via the oil filter housing snuggling up against a bit of the firewall. More vibration from the diesel began to make itself heard! With mini hack saw in hand, surgery was started. A couple of hours later a nice relief notch was cut, re-bent, and sealed! No more rubbing!
9,000ft, on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Wild camping on the high plateau in the most amazing quaking aspen grove. The soil is so thin that the aspen die when they reach 25ft so there is an infinite supply of wood for our campfires. It has been in the low 20’s at night and our 5 gallon jerry cans froze, but the days are warm enough. But, back to the title of this blog. Our dinner is cooking in the pressure cooker, the sun is setting, the fire is warm, and we are being serenaded by a pack of coyotes just on the other side of the grove! For the past few nights it has been a single coyote singing, but tonight he brought in reinforcements! Magic!
The upside down fire, courtesy of Dave Canterbury of the Pathfinder School, is just what it sounds like. The big logs are laid on the bottom. Smaller logs cross ways over the big. Repeat for a few more layers. Then you build your small twig fire on top. As that burns down the lower layers begin to burn. It’s a great fire in that you do all of the work up front. Once you light the upper fire you don’t have to add wood or mess with anything!
