Slept well Tuesday night. The temperature, though cool, was comfortable. Did not need a blanket and that my sleeping bag breathes, rather than retains heat, was good. We were staying this night, Wednesday, at this same camp site, a relief not to pack and set up our tents and gear.
Got up early, skipped breakfast and used Tex under duress. Normally, if someone is using Tex, you try to give the person some privacy and wait your turn 40 or 50 feet away. Well a couple of females held a little conference on the other side of the privacy boulder shielding Tex and me, and they did not stay exactly on the opposite side of the boulder. On top of that, Tex's seat is wobbly and not man-sized, plus other unpleasantries too indelicate to mention.
Joined the group down by the harbor. With three to four to a canoe, Jeff Burke, Kati, Lynne in the back and myself in the front, we ferried across the river to look at Anasazi hand paintings. Beached on a narrow bank, with low hillside and a hobbit like stair, and tied up the canoes.
The word started to go round that Ken was missing. Ken was not with us now and no one had seen Ken that morning. There was quite a bit of concern. After my near fall into the river last night and Murder on the Orient Express talk with Jesse, evil possibilities lurked in our thoughts.
Juniper trees can cut off vital flow to select branches to preserve life in the remainder of the tree. A mature juniper can be six to eight hundred years old, and likely was incubated as a seedling within a nursery of cryptobiotic crust.
- from the back of my map
The Anasazi lived in this region from about 1 CE to 1300 CE.
Did your guide tell you that the Anasazi were cannibals? There is plenty of accumulating archaeological evidence to show that they regularly ate their neighbors. The archaeologists even found a dried human turd near an Anasazi campfire and analysed it for its contents. Human muscle protein flagged in the analysis. Great stuff, but is it Kosher?
- Lynne's brother the Anthropologist
Tamarisk lines both sides of the rivers and fills the canyon stream beds. All the green lining the river, in all the photos, is Tamarisk.
Tamarisk was imported from Asia by local officials, who felt, after hundreds of millions of years of erosion, enough was enough, and aimed to put a stop to the loss of shoreline by the flowing water of the river. Much like the Melalueca in the Everglades.
Tamarisk, not pretty as a juvenile, becomes a hideous adult, straight out of Sleepy Beauty, like the impenetrable plants that barred the way to the castle, but without the thorns.
The native animals and peoples of the Canyonlands lived on the native plants growing by the river. With no natural predators or competitors, the tamarisk has crowded out all native vegetation along all the water ways. Having no value to native animals, and having taken over all the nutrional and water rich soil, the tamarisk have destroyed the lowest level of the food chain of the region.
In the photos below, you can see the tamarisk on the good land down by the river and the native vegetation on higher and drier soil.
The jet boat stopped by on the way down river to pick up the small group a few days ahead of us. The jet boat resupplied us with water, the food we left behind and two fresh latrines. They took away our garbage, empty water bottles and the used Tex. Most groups do not get resupplied, but I guess we were a bunch of pansies.
Returned to camp and decided to make inquiries into the whereabouts of Ken. See the next page Where's Ken.
Our campsite was at the top of a squatty T-shaped projection of land. Canyons were on either side of the T. On the far side of the west canyon was Lathrop Canyon, one of the more prominent Canyon trails on the map, but did not know that at the time.
After lunch, Jesse led a small group up the east canyon. The sun was directly overhead and decided to join the group at the beach, and take the canyon hike when the sun was down a little.
The beach was next to and up river from the harbor. The beach had narrow U-shaped ledges all around, some submerged, giving easy access to the water. Lots of people went for a dip. Rick showered with biodegradble soap. Kati swam around like she was in a heated pool. The best I could do was put my feet in and take a sponge bath.
In the afternoon, Yaacov, Jeff, Jeff, Ken, Luba, Scott and I took the best hike of the trip up. We looped around the east point by Ken's tent, passed Jesse's returning crew and headed up the canyon. Following Jesse's scouting report, we took the left canyon fork.
The hike was great. Fun scrambling over huge boulders in narrow canyon walls. At the top, beautiful views down into the canyons. We could also see the T-shaped topography of our camp site, which was not evident from below.
As we got higher and could see over the ridge behind our campsite, we saw spectacular views of towering canyon walls 5, 10 or 20 miles distant. We were in a canyon in a series of greater canyons.
Most of the group wanted to return down the canyon. Even though we took a couple hours walking up, thought we would be down in less than half an hour. I wanted to explore crossing over the T and see if we could make our way back to camp through the western canyon. Four of our crew headed back, while Yaacov, Scott and I lingered, planning a scouting expedition to the western canyon.
Then we noticed the storm clouds. They were coming fast and we could not tell their strength or exact direction. The temperature dropped and cool air descended on us. Figured being caught in the canyon during a downpour was probably a bad idea. As I like to say, "It is never too early to panic". We decided to run for it. Suprisingly, running down a rock-strewn canyon filled with giant boulders and spots of sand and brush is pretty easy. Amid occassional sprinkles, we soon overtook the four ahead of us, and changed our pace to a quick walk.
We were back at Ken's tent in 15 minutes. The rain passed by and we all would have loved to spend a full day hiking this site.
Back at camp, standing on a towering rock, Rick shouted "Last call for dinner", which turned out to be rotten lettuce brought by the resupply, rice and chicken. I ate 3 sunbeam granola bars.
At dinner we sang happy birthday to Gabe, managing that in English, Hebrew, French, Russian, German and Spanish. All the same happy tune except German, which was one sentence long and sounded like an army officer barking a guttural command to drink more beer.
The kitchen and supplies were secured against the rain with tarps. Barry and Heidi had tied my tent down while I was away on the hike, much appreciated.
At night, took a sponge bath in my tent with some water I warmed at the fire, and joined the group at the jacuzzi, which was next to the beach. Everyone was there. A small latern was in the center of the circle, providing the only light except the thousands of stars. Spontaneous Jewish singing broke out, certainly due to Yaacov, and we all stood up and had a nice, swaying sing-a-long in the havdalah tradition. Gabe finished up by giving us the run down on tomorrow.
Went back to my tent and spent some time writing in my journal. The rain finally came with some force and lasted on and off for an hour or so.
When the rain stopped I heard Rick calling outside my tent. Opened up the flap and he said, "Do you want to play a game of Boggle? You are the only one awake and it's too early to go to sleep."
As much as I would have loved to play a game of Boggle, wanted to finish my journal entry and get to bed somewhat early, so feeling a little bad leaving Rick hanging, I declined.