September 2024: Family Time and Heading Home

With Son #2 home from overseas and us in Dubois, it seemed natural (at least by our family standards) to “swing by” upstate New York “on our way” back home. That added 1200 miles to our journey, but we’ve gone a lot further than that for lesser reasons, so off we go …

And, as it turned out, Son #1 and his family were able to join us (only a 700-mile round trip for them — again, nothing by our family standards), so it turned into a nice gathering.

All 12 of us gathered for brunch one monring.

And, with that, it was time to start the drive back home. All in, this summer’s trip was 7150 miles of towing over the course of 8 weeks (with an extra 3800 miles on the truck over that period); stops in 17 different states and 2 provinces; explorations of 13 national, provincial, and state parks; and roughly 40 picnics at locations ranging from national parks to state welcome centers.

We were stymied by two wildfire outbreaks and one hellacious wind storm (crosswinds at 50-55 mph) that actually closed I-80 to all “high profile vehicles” due to “extreme blow-over risk.”

And one other noteworthy metric. Most of our “camping” spots are either in national or state parks or commercial campgrounds. But sometimes, the exigencies of travel have us stopping in, well, what one might call ad hoc alternatives.

This was our sixth (or seventh, I’ve lost count) circumnavigation of large chunks of this beautiful country. Have we seen it all and we can stop traveling? Not a chance…

August 20-22, 2024: Dubois, WY

A few years ago, while enroute to Grand Teton National Park, we made an impromptu overnight stop in Dubois (pronounced “dew-boys”), Wyoming. The place was so appealing, we decided to return for a longer stay.

The appeal of Dubois, though, actually starts in Iraq. In 2004, a Marine Lieutenant Colonel, Michael Strobl, found himself stuck in a desk job in Quantico. Feeling like he needed to connect somehow to the ongoing war in Iraq, Strobl volunteered to escort the remains of a 19-year-old Marine, PFC Chance Phelps, back to his home in Dubois. From his first encounter with Phelps at Dover Air Force base, through the transfer to an aircraft in Philadelphia, then by hearse from Billings to Dubois, Strobl found himself surrounded by decent, patriotic, respectful Americans, all of whom showed their appreciation and sympathy for a young man who died simply because his country called him to a dangerous place. When he finally arrived in Dubois, Strobl found himself met with kind words, appreciation, and touching, small-town stories about a young man from the heart of America.

Strobl wrote of his experience in an essay (which I read when it was published and sent along to my sons, both in the Army and one actually in Iraq) and that essay was later made into an award-winning HBO movie, Taking Chance. Strobl’s essay wasn’t about the war in Iraq, it didn’t even hint at whether American should have been there or not, whether the cause was just, or whether the strategy was sound. It was just about the lives that Chance touches as he journeys back home, and the journey of self-discovery that Strobl makes as he escorts Chance back to his family. As Strobl wrote in the essay, “When I first met Chance at Dover, I didn’t know him at all; by the time I got him home, I missed him.”

So, for us, Dubois is not only a place, it’s a reminder of a heartwarming story about the best traits of America.

Anyway, back to Dubois itself. What is the appeal of Dubois? First, the campground itself is lovely and sits right on the banks of the Wind River. So, for a place to take a breather and relax, this place is perfect.

Beautiful shady spots, right on the banks of the Wind River.

Mostly, though, the appeal of this little town is the area. Dubois itself is a charming little western town (year-round population is only about 600), with nice little restaurants and a weekly rodeo. It is only about 60 miles southeast of Grand Teton National Park, and sits right in the heart of the Shoshone National Forest, an area of stunning beauty. Gannett Peak, Wyoming’s highest mountain, sits just south of the City. East of the city is the Wind River canyon, a 2500-foot deep cut in the terrain exposing strata dating back to Precambrian times (more than 2 billion years old)!

The Pinnacle Buttes along US -26, headed to Dubois.
The Wind River Canyon Scenic Drive runs from Shoshoni north to Thermopolis.

But once again, western wildfires starting bearing down on. As we were heading towards Dubois from Grand Teton, signs along the highway warned: “Active Fire Area — Use Headlights — Drive With Caution.” Over the course of the next couple days, the Fish Creek fire grew from 600 acres to over 6000, closing US-26 entirely for a brief period. As I write this (September 5), the fire is still not entirely contained and is up to 17,000 acres.

From our campground, smoke from the Fish Creek fire is clearly visible 30 miles away.
From the overlook outside of Dubois, the area of the fire (at this point 6000 acres) can be seen off in the distance.

Fires or not, though, Dubois remains one of our favorite places. So, next trip to Grand Teton (and there definitely will be a next trip) we’ll be stopping here again.

August 15-19, 2024: Grand Teton National Park

As we were driving in to Grand Teton National Park and getting our first views of the Teton Range in the distance, we both looked at each other and said, no kidding, “We’re home.” That pretty much sums up this visit.

What precipitated that reaction was the drama that the Tetons present every time one first sees them. Although technically part of the Rocky Mountains, the Teton Range is much younger than the Rockies (10 million years versus 70 million) and gets its dramatic appearance from a unique geological situation: there’s a fault line that runs along the base of the range, and every few thousand years, there’s some seismic shift and the mountains get pushed up five to ten feet, the valley floor hinges down twenty to thirty feet, and presto-change-o, the mountains grow by 40-50 feet and loom even larger. Do that thousands of times and you get this:

An entire mountain range, lifted abruptly straight up 6000 feet from the valley floor.

It’s just impossible to tire of this view. After half a dozen visits, and countless hours spent taking in this scene, as we are driving around the park we still stop at nearly every turn out and just stare at the vista. It’s irresistible.

The “Cathedral Group” as viewed from one of the turnouts. And yes, we stop here every time we drive by. How can anyone not pause at a place like this?

The other reasons this place is so compelling is the story behind it. The park itself was established in 1929, but included only the Teton Range. Commissioner Horace Albright quickly realized that the valley at the base of the range would quickly become overrun by commercial interests. So in 1930 he went to John D. Rockefeller and said something like, “I know you’ve already done so much for public lands, but if you could purchase some land here, we could preserve it forever.” Rockefeller agreed and asked Albright to put together a plan. Albright came up with a proposal that was about as much as he thought he could possibly ask for and came back, hat in hand, and said, “I know this is a lot to ask, but if there’s any way you could do this …” To which Rockefeller responded, “Mr. Albright, you misunderstood. I want to know how much it would cost to buy the entire valley.” By 1943, much of the Jackson Hole valley had been purchased and donated to the public and became the Jackson Hole National Monument. In 1950, the national monument was abolished and the land transferred to Grand Teton National Park.

And, as Albright feared, the area of Jackson Hole outside of the park, like the town of Jackson itself, became a pit of vulgar commercialism and exorbitant development. According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, the median price of a home in Jackson is now $4.5 million. But the 310,000 acres of Grand Teton remain now just as they were in the 1930s, and an invaluable gift to the American people.

As usual, there’s so much to do and see in the park that we always seem to find something we’ve never done before. As one example, rangers from the Jenny Lake Ranger Station conduct daily guided hikes to nearby Moose Lakes. Surprisingly, we’d never hiked to Moose Lakes before. What does one see at Moose Lakes?

At one point, the cow moose swam off leaving the young calf on his own. When we asked the ranger if the calf was in danger, he explained that a full-grown moose can run at 40 mph and pretty much stomp to death anything that gets near the calf, including bears and stupid tourists.

We did take a day to drive up to Yellowstone. The bison, of course, clogged up traffic in the Hayden Valley:

And we spent several fascinating hours studying displays on the 1988 fires, “the year that Yellowstone burned.” We were there that summer, but even though we could plainly see fires burning seemingly everywhere, we failed to appreciate the extent of the burn until we spent time at this exhibit.

By the end of the summer in 1988, ten separate fires had ravaged over one-half of the park.

Part of the reason for the extensive damage was that the Park Service, along with most federal and state agencies, had followed a practice of suppressing small fires. The effect of that was a buildup of a hundred years of fuel, so when the fires started, it was a well-fed conflagration. The Park Service now recognizes that small fires are part of a natural, healthy forest and allows smaller fires to burn themselves out, especially in remote areas, and actively fights fires only as necessary. Even still, 36 years after we were there in 1988, fire damage is still readily apparent. According to the rangers, it will take roughly 100 years for the forest to recover to the point like it was.

Another half-day trip took us down to the National Elk Refuge, just north of Jackson. No elk (they’re up at higher altitudes during the summer), but during the winter there will be 5000 elk, plus bison, plus pronghorn antelope, on the refuge, but many more in the surrounding areas. I did offer to bring my rifle out and help solve the “elk problem.” There actually are managed hunts on the reserve, with spots allocated by lottery.

And otherwise, it was just hiking, sightseeing, and enjoying the unspeakable beauty of the national park. We’re already planning another trip out west, and of course it will include days in Grand Teton.

August 9-13, 2024: Glacier National Park

The tragedy that unfolded at Jasper National Park gave us an additional three days in Glacier, one of our favorite places from our 2016 trip out west.

This version, though, was slightly different. We were staying on the east side of the park, which is not as commonly visited as the west side, and indeed we didn’t explore the east side at all on our first trip. So, first day here found us off to the Two Medicine area in the southeast corner of the park.

Running Eagle Falls, named after Pitamakan (or “Running Eagle”), the only female warrior of the Blackfeet tribe (having led many “successful” war parties (I think that means she killed, scalped, and/or mutilated a lot of settlers)) and the only woman in that tribe given a man’s name.

Two Medicine Lake is scenic, although frankly not as dramatic as what one sees on the Going to the Sun Road.

Speaking of the Going to the Sun Road, we revisited that drive and yes, it’s just as good no matter how many times one does it:

The highlight of the eastern side of the park, though, came when an impulse hit Wendy to drive back into Canada to visit Waterton National Park, the other half of what is Glacier-Waterton International Peace Park. And the highlight of that highlight was Cameron Lake:

The thing about Glacier National Park, though, is glaciers. Specifically, the vanishing glaciers. The National Park Service is completely exercised about the state of glaciers in the park and, by implication, the issue of climate change. “Losing the park’s glaciers could be a lesson about the significance of global warming.” On one display, NPS says Glacier’s glaciers will be gone by 2030.

The issue of global warming is so mixed up with politics and dubious science that it’s hard to know what to make of the current hysteria, especially for those of us for whom this is number 12 (by actual count) of the end-of-life-as-we-know-it scenarios we’ve already lived through (starting with nuclear annihilation in the 1960s, the population bomb in the 1970s, the depletion of oil in the 1980s, a “China syndrome” nuclear winter, etc. etc. etc.). Furthermore, many of the dire projections about global warming, including even disappearing glaciers, have been strikingly inaccurate. Recall, in 2006, Al Gore presented us with an “inconvenient truth”: “Within the decade, there will be no more snows of Kilimanjaro.” Wrong. Turns out that wasn’t an inconvenient truth so much as a convenient falsehood.

Even still, it is apparent that earth began warming in the 1850s, and that warming continues to this day, and that anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases have contributed to that warming. And it is true that global warming has consequences, including some that may be only aesthetically important, but are significant anyway. Like vanishing glaciers. There has been a visible, measurable decrease in the size and extent of glaciers in Glacier National Park. The real questions, though, like what fraction of current warming is due to human causes, how consequential is that warming, what we can and should do about it, the costs versus the benefits of response options, are not only beyond what can intelligently discussed here, they seem to be beyond what can be intelligently discussed anywhere.

So, in the meantime, Glacier National Park was well worth the visit. And I’m sure we’ll be back, glaciers or not.

August 4-8, 2024: Canadian Rockies

As mentioned, our planned trip to Banff and Jasper National Parks took a turn for the worse when wildfires broke out and Jasper National Park and a large portion of the Icefields Parkway were closed (to say nothing of the devastation that hit the city of Jasper). We decided to stick it out and at least visit Banff National Park, and the question was how well that would work out.

The visit was exceptional. In fact, this area of the Canadian Rockies may have supplanted Grand Teton National Park as our favorite place on earth. In fact, in fact, we decided that four days here wasn’t nearly enough and we’re toying with the idea of coming back again next year for two weeks.

Our enthusiasm is a little surprising since the trip did not start out all that well. Assuming we could use our standard M.O., we decided to pop on over to the Banff National Park Visitor Center. Except the visitor center isn’t in Banff National Park, it’s in downtown Banff and one doesn’t “pop over” to it. We tried to drive there, got parked in slow-moving traffic for an hour, not surprisingly since there’s nowhere else to park, gave up, came back to the campground, took a shuttle bus back to downtown, only to find that the visitor center isn’t a “visitor center” like we’re used to but instead a counter with a few mostly unhelpful staffers and essentially no maps, no trail guides, no recommendations, and little value to the visit. And all of that was made worse by the fact that the town of Banff is like Jackson, Wyoming, or any other “resort” destination in a “scenic” location: block after block of trendy bars and restaurants with streets jammed elbow-to-elbow with mostly foreign tourists.

Good grief. Jasper is closed, most of the Icefields Parkway is closed, we’re on our own to figure things out, and we’re wondering … what to do, what to do?

We needn’t have worried. This whole area is breathtaking. Pretty much just follow your nose and you’ll be fine.

Getting up on the first morning, this was the view from our campsite:

Tunnel Mountain forms the backdrop to our aptly named campground: Tunnel Mountain Village.

So, off we go to hike to Johnston Falls. That hike proceeds up an essentially impassable canyon, except that Parks Canada has made the impassable passable by building a cantilevered walkway bolted to the sheer rock walls of the canyon.

And Johnston Falls itself was worth the hike:

But, a waterfall’s a waterfall. That’s not what made the day special. That happened when we started up the southern portion of the Icefields Parkway that remained open. [Most of the pictures that follow are clipped … click on the picture for a full view.]

Bow Lake, fed by the Bow Lake Glacier.

So, after a L-O-N-G day of hiking and touring, we decided that Day 1 was definitely a success.

Day 2 started out fine, with more scenic views, but wasn’t our favorite after we got stuck at Lake Louise, another locale stuff with, literally, thousands of mostly foreign tourists jammed into a teeny space.

I think this place is called “Morant’s Curve,” but it doesn’t matter. There are literally hundreds of scenic areas, all with dramatic peaks, turquoise waters, and lush forests.

By Day 3 we were back to hiking and touring in our usual way, this time into neighboring Yoho National Park in British Columbia.

Emerald Lake. And no, this is not Photoshopped. This is actually what the scene looks like. It’s called Emerald Lake because it actually is emerald green (due to the rock flour suspended in the water).
Even on the far side of the lake, without the lake to provide the foreground for a photo, the views are breathtaking!

This day not only reignited our enthusiasm for the area, it awakened us to a reality we hadn’t considered: Yoho National Park wasn’t even on our list of places to go. In fact, we hadn’t even heard of Yoho National Park. Which got us wondering, what else is there in this area that wasn’t on our list?

By Day 4, we realized that, even with Jasper National Park and most of the Icefields Parkway closed, presuming to “explore” Banff National Park and the surrounding area in four days is silly. So, we picked a couple locations for easy hikes and decided to save the rest for the next trip.

From the overlook at Peyto Lake.

Just one more thought about this area. Since the days when we first met, Wendy and I have enjoyed picnics. We don’t go to pubs or fancy restaurants, we don’t indulge ourselves on the finest delicacies from the world’s best chefs, we just like to sit in the woods, and have a sandwich and an apple, and enjoy the world around us. But in this place, “enjoying the world around us” takes on a dramatic flavor that makes a picnic much more than just that.

The Canadian Rockies really is our new favorite place on earth, and we really are working on a way to get back here again next year.

For today, it’s off to Glacier National Park, which is also our favorite place on earth. Then it’ll be off to Grand Teton National Park, which is also our favorite on earth. Then Dubois, Wyoming, which is also our favorite place on earth. So many favorites, so little time …

July 2024: O Canada!

So, the plans in my mind were simple: after a brief stop in British Columbia, we’d have eight days in Banff and Jasper National Parks, with ample time to explore the Icefields Parkway, hiking and touring throughout the area, taking in the scenic drives, and adding to my photography portfolio.

What our plans did not include was a terrible tragedy striking Jasper National Park and a large part of the Icefields Parkway. A couple weeks ago, a fire broke out in the western portion of Jasper National Park. As of today, the fire has consumed over 96,000 acres and is still out of control. The town of Jasper has been evacuated and one-third of its buildings have been destroyed. All campgrounds are closed. The northern segment of the Icefields Parkway northward from Athabasca Falls is also closed.

Unfortunately, dry conditions, high heat, and high winds are fueling the fire.

Tens of thousands of acres are now charred.

We were in Yellowstone in 1988 during the terrible fires there. We visited again in 2020, and the forests had not yet recovered. In talking to rangers, we were told that western pine and fir forests take as much as 100 years to reach full maturity, which means that not even our great-grandchildren will be able to see Yellowstone the way we saw it. Unfortunately, it looks like much the same will be true for Jasper National Park.

Obviously, we’re disappointed about not being able to see Jasper National Park, although we’ve rearranged our schedule and will spend some additional time in Glacier National Park instead. The nice thing about traveling with the equivalent of a small apartment in tow is that it’s fairly easy to go somewhere else when necessary. We’re not sure what all this means for our trip to Banff National Park. I guess we’ll find out in a day or two.

But saying we’re disappointed seems petty and selfish. The tragedy in Jasper for those who live there and depend on the park for their livelihoods is heartrending. Canadians can be a pretty hardy lot … hopefully they’ll figure out a way to keep going.

July 29-30, 2024: Orange Routing to Dinosaur National Monument

This post will address our experiences at the Dinosaur National Monument in Utah and Colorado. Eventually. But first, a short foray into the intricacies of the Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1982 (STAA). That act, among other things, established the “National Network” of roads that are suitable for large trucks. All of the interstate highways are included, as are numerous federal, state, and even local roads that can be safely traveled by long, tall, wide, and heavy trucks. If one buys a road atlas designed for use by truckers, these STAA routes are all highlighted in orange.

Over the years of traveling with various RVs, we’ve learned that the best way to avoid a white-knuckle drive down some RV-eating state or county byway is to stick to the STAA (orange) routes. After all, if it’s good enough for a big 18-wheeler, it ought to be OK for us.

And sticking to orange routes has served us well. Until July 29, the day we took Colorado Route 139 from Loma northward to Rangley, a distance of approximately 70 miles, up and over Douglas Pass (8268 feet). CO-139 is an orange route, so it should have been fine. I got a little concerned when previewing the route, though. Our mountain driving guide noted that the CO-139 northbound assent to Douglas Pass has “6 miles of 6-8% grade with a 25 mph speed limit and numerous 15 mph switchbacks.” Bad enough, but then there’s also this: “About 2-1/2 miles from the summit there’s an 1/8-mile segment of 10-12% grade.” Actually, that section has a road sign that says “14% grade” and the grade occurs in a hairpin turn with a posted speed limit of 10 mph. What the mountain driving guide didn’t reveal, but we quickly discovered, is that in addition to the grades, Route 139’s pavement is in terrible condition, with giant potholes and pavement patches done by poorly trained gorillas, and with essentially none, nada, zippity-doo-dah shoulders. Or, more accurately, the edge of the “pavement” consists of foot-deep ruts that would rip the wheels and axles off of a trailer. And once over the pass, it’s “3 miles of steady 7-8% grades with numerous 20, 25, and 30 mph curves.”

Needless to say, not a fun drive. We stopped once to let the transmission cool down. The transmission temperature briefly hit 235-degrees, which is definitely overheating (although the gauge never hit the yellow line). And while stopped, we learned that the brutal jarring of the trailer had caused one of the window shades to fall off and most of the kitchen contents to be strewn around the cupboards.

Anyway, we made it. I think. We’ll see whether the transmission survived as we continue the trip.

Back to the story. So what of Dinosaur National Monument? The “quarry exhibit” just north of Jensen, Utah, is amazing.

In 1909, Earl Douglas, a paleontologist from the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, traveled to southwest Utah in search of dinosaur fossils. The area had previously received a geological survey, so he thought the exposed layers might be a productive area. He never could have imagined what he saw. As we walked around, he glanced up at an exposed wall of a gulch and there, in full view to the naked eye, was a nearly complete, perfectly exposed section of an Apatosaurus tail! As he started to scrape away the soft soil, he found even more bones. Over the course of a dozen years, his crew eventually excavated over 700,000 tons (!) of materials. In fact, his team obtained so many fossilized skeletons that the Carnegie Museum decided enough was enough and relinquished its claim to the quarry.

But here’s where our country’s public land policies are at their best. When work at the quarry stopped, there were still hundreds of bones visible on the quarry face. Douglas, in conjunction with the Smithsonian Museum and others, decided that this was such an amazing sight that the American public had to be given the chance to see it. So the National Park Service built a building over the quarry and opened it to the public. That is now the Dinosaur National Monument “Quarry Exhibit.”

This is just one section of the quarry face showing dozens of bones still in place. It’s estimated that there are at least 500 dinosaurs entombed here. No one knows exactly how so many remains all came to be located at the same place. The most common theory that a number of dinosaurs died in the area (perhaps from a drought) and at some point heavy stream flows washed all of the remains downstream into one location, where this pile of dinosaurs came to be fossilized.
This old fossil (the one on the right, not the one wearing shorts) was actually discovered essentially perfectly arranged with nearly all of the bones of the skeleton in place!

Besides the quarry wall, the museum has dozens of exhibits and displays. But the point is this. A paleontology find like this quarry, off in the middle of nowhere, and fully understandable only by experts, could have remained something restricted to scientists and visible only to the public in textbooks and PBS specials. Instead, we built a museum over it and opened it up to the public. What a great country.

The other half of Dinosaur National Monument occurs north of Dinosaur (aptly enough), Colorado. It was reported to be 31 miles of a scenic drive, culminating in a dramatic overlook of the Green River canyon. Um, no. The 31 miles was actually just a drive through high plains ranch land. Pretty enough, in its own way, but certainly not a “scenic drive.” And the dramatic view of Green River canyon was, well, distant and barely visible.

So, bottom line, the Colorado side of Dinosaur National Monument wasn’t really worth it and isn’t on our list of recommended stops. The Quarry Exhibit is a definite yes; the Colorado side is a definite meh.

Next we have a couple days of drive-days up to Flathead Lake State Park in Montana. Further reports to follow.

July 27-28, 2024: Arches and Canyonlands

We’ve been to both Arches and Canyonlands National Parks back in May of 2017, and the question is whether a repeat visit would feel more like a “been there-done that” experience, or just as good as the original. It was definitely the latter.

There are two reasons why this visit lost nothing of the appeal of our first. First, there’s so much to do at these parks (at most any national park for that matter) that each visit can can provide a wealth of new experiences. For our visit to Arches, for example, we missed the hike to Landscape Arch back in 2017. So off we go and that experience alone was enough to make the visit worthwhile.

At a 306-foot span, Landscape Arch is the largest natural arch in the United States, and the fifth largest in the world (after four in China, which are probably fake).

One has to wonder, “How does that dang thing stay up?” As it turns out, that’s exactly the same thing the Park Service wonders, which is why they’ve closed off access and don’t allow anyone near it. That sucker is definitely coming down soon, and not “soon” in “geological time,” “soon” like maybe next Thursday (one large slab fell off in 1991 and two more fell off in 1995).

The second reason visits to these parks never grows old is that even for the sights and scenes we’d done the first time, they’re somehow new and different when done again.

Two buttes on the road to Canyonlands, named the Monitor (right) and Merrimac (left) Buttes.

We’d no doubt driven by these buttes dozens of times, but this trip the scene just struck us and we pulled over, enjoying the sight as if it were the first time.

Same whole-new-experience with a hike out to Grand View Point Overlook:

Just on the other side of that butte is where the Green River and the Colorado River come together.

And even ditto with the Shafer Trail Overlook:

Yes, that is some idiot in an F-150 driving down the Shafer Trail to the White Rim Road. (And no, it’s not me … it’s a different idiot.)

Ditto with the Green River overlook:

This picture is almost identical to one I took seven years ago, but somehow this one felt “new.”

Wendy and I talked about how it could be that something we’ve seen before can be “new” and “different” when we see it again. What? One obvious possibility is that our aging brains have forgotten what we’ve done and so as far our our neurons can make out, this really is brand new. The more likely alternative, though, is that there’s a difference between a memory of a place and a current encounter with the same place, and no matter how vivid the memory, it can never compare to a present experience. Recalling an experience can never be the same as having the experience, and for that reason our trips to Arches and Canyonlands were indeed brand new. Who knows? Maybe we’ll be back in a few years for a new experience again.

July 26, 2024: Ears and Needles

Having arrived in Moab, we followed our usual course and went to the visitor center at Arches National Park, asking the ranger for his suggestions on the best ways to spend our 3-1/2 days here. After discussing a few of the options, he said, “If you can spare a day, you really ought to visit The Needles District of Canyonlands. It’s worth it.” That possibility was on our list anyway, so on Friday, July 26, off we went.

To get to The Needles, one has to drive 40 miles south of Moab, and then 35 miles west on State Route 211. Far from being just a long drive, however, State Route 211 presents its own, fascinating story.

Route 211 passes through the what is now the Bear Ears National Monument. National monuments, because they are created by Presidential fiat, are often controversial, but this one is a doozy.

After decades of maneuvering by Native American groups and self-appointed conservationists, on December 28, 2016, even though it was after Donald Trump had won the 2016 election and Obama had only days left in his term, President Obama designated 1,351,849 acres of land in Utah as the “Bear Ears National Monument,” making it the third largest national monument in the continental United States. (For what it’s worth, the largest national monument is also in Utah: the Grand Staircase / Escalante National Monument at a whopping 1,870,000 acres. One way or another, the federal government owns 63.1% of the state of Utah. Things could be worse, though; it’s 80.1% in Nevada.)

In any event, almost immediately after Obama made the designation, opponents (including Utah’s governor and legislature) started working on ways to undo Obama’s parting decree. President Trump got the message and promptly commissioned an evaluation of the designation and then, barely one year later, reduced the size of the monument by 85% to 201,000 acres.

When Joe Biden won the 2020 election, the original proponents starting working on ways to undo Trump’s undoing of the original designation, so in October 2021, President Biden restored the designation to its original boundaries.

If Donald Trump wins the 2024 election, one can confidently look forward to the undoing of the redoing of the undoing of the doing. And for those of you who wonder what kind of land use policy is reflected in this back and forth, all I can say is, “welcome to America.”

Back to the trip …

The first thing one encounters on the path to The Needles is “Newspaper Rock.” Indeed, we were told that Newspaper Rock is a must-see en route to The Needles.

I understand that these kinds of petroglyphs are very important to native cultures whose ancestors did the work, but other than as a sort of family notebook, it’s hard to see the broader significance of such primitive doodles.

Newspaper Rock didn’t do much for us. I asked the ranger why such things are considered important and he said that the carvings were 2000 years old and told passers-by where to find game, water, encampments, and so on. Meh. Compared to other cultural compilations of knowledge from 2000 years ago (like the Library of Alexandria, for example) a few stick people doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, but I guess if it’s your grandma, it’s a different story.

Where Bear Ears National Monument does start to get interesting, though, is in the geological formations that line the roadway.

Bridger Jack Butte and the Six-Shooter Peaks. Very reminiscent of Monument Valley.

And after the drive through Bear Ears, the real treat was The Needles, an array of sandstone spires that were formed when a giant salt dome pushed up the crust of the earth, split it into a series of parallel cracks, and then erosion erased everything down from the cracks.

It’s hard to capture in a photograph, but these spires pretty much go from horizon to horizon.

We did a few hikes (Cave Spring and Pothole Point) and drove down to the Big Spring Canyon overlook. I toyed with the idea of driving to the Colorado River overlook, a 7-mile dirt road that leaves from the Visitor Center, with long stretches of soft sand, and is described as “technical.” Well, I’m a pretty technical guy, and I have a 4-wheel drive truck (admittedly with street tires), so I asked the ranger if he thought I could negotiate the route. “Are you very experienced?” he asked. “No.” “Don’t.” So much for that idea.

As usual, the advice from ranger we got when we first arrived was exactly right. With a day to spare, The Needles is a must-do destination.

July 2024: To Palo Duro Canyon

As noted, traveling to parks “out west” means a lot of traveling. Like, thousands of miles. To get to the first stop worthy of a stop (Durango, Colorado) is 1600 miles of cross-country endurance, which translates to 6 days at our relaxed pace. So, to pass the time, we will often listen to books on tape. A few years ago, we listed to Undaunted Courage as, not coincidentally, we meandered northwest along the Lewis and Clark route. In a similar way, this trip found us listening to Empire of the Summer Moon, a story that culminates at the Palo Duro canyon near Amarillo, an intermediate stop on our route west.

Hold that thought …

When we were young, depictions of American Indians typically took one of two courses: they were either noble natives, who lived at one with the land, peaceably communing with nature while they did joyful dances beating their tom-toms; or they were vicious savages who rode out of the sunset, screaming like the crazed killers they were, and scalping every white man they met, except for those they tied to ant hills to bake in the sun. Never mind that neither depiction was very accurate, or even that trying to generalize the traits of “Indians” as a class makes as much sense as trying to describe the character of Prussians, French, Italians, and Brits as one class of “Europeans.”

Even still, I could never totally jettison the image of vicious red men lurking behind every rock in the Western landscape. I sometimes felt a little bad about harboring such an unfair stereotype, but that guilt was considerably lessened as we listened to Empire of the Summer Moon. It turns out that the Comanches lived up to every bit of that stereotype, and more. They lived in a culture that lived for war, first by attacking the neighboring tribes they encountered, and then by turning their finely honed skills on white men as settlers encroached on the Comanches’ territory. Using their unparalleled skills as horsemen, they would descend on a settlement, killing and scalping the men, raping and mutilating the women, and taking the children as slaves.

The Comanches were so fearsome in battle that for over 150 years, they essentially dominated most of the Southwest in an area that came to be known as “Comancheria.”

Here’s where Empire of the Summer Moon comes in. In 1836, Comanches descended on Fort Parker and, after doing what Comanches do, took a number of the children as slaves, including a nine-year-old girl, one Cynthia Ann Parker. Over time, Cynthia Ann assimilated into the tribe, and eventually married the chief Peta Nocona. In around 1850, Nocona and Cynthia Ann had their first child, Quanah. While all of this was going on, the Parker family was desperately searching for the kidnapped children. That story is what is loosely described in the John Ford film, The Searchers, starring John Wayne. In any event, Quanah grew to become a fearless warrior, and, in the Comanche manner, his prowess in battle caused him to be selected as the chief of the band.

Fearsome warriors or not, the growing white presence, and pressure from the U.S. Army, was taking its toll on the Comanches. In 1874, a number of Comanche Indians, along with members of the Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Kiowa tribes, had taken shelter the Palo Duro Canyon.

The Palo Duro Canyon, just south of Amarillo, is the second largest in the United States, roughly 40 miles long and from 1 to 20 miles wide. In the 1870s, it was right in the heart of Comancheria.

The 4th U.S. Calvary, under the command of Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie, moved against the encamped Indians. Although under intense fire from Indians in the slopes above the valley, Mackenzie’s troops effected a complete rout of the tribes. Indian casualties were light, but they lost all of their winter stores, and their encampments were burned, and, even worse, 1000 to 2000 of their horses were shot. The effect of the “Battle of Palo Duro Canyon” was that the Comanche wars were over. With no food, no shelter, and no means of movement, Quanah Parker realized all was lost and persuaded the Comanches that further fighting was futile. In 1875, Quanah and his band of Comanches surrendered at Ft. Sill.

Wendy and I spent the day touring around Palo Duro Canyon State Park, and even attended a wonderful little musical in the park amphitheater that recounted the history of the region. Interestingly, the guy who portrayed Quanah Parker in the musical was actually one of his direct descendants. In our view, our stop in Palo Duro Canyon, even though just a waypoint on the journey to our “real” stops out west, was time well spent, and listening to Empire of the Summer Moon and then visiting the place where the grand story reaches its final conclusion, made this part of the trip especially worthwhile.