H E R E T I L L NO W an exploration of the American West.
Finally, thank you, America, for being so naturally beautiful in every one of these photos.
Thank you to the 12.2 Ninth Letter staff for the feedback that shaped this book.
Thank you to Matthew Peterson and Joe Carpenter for giving me guidance on this endeavor.
AC K N OW L E D G M E N TS First and foremost, thank you to Emily Ogden for allowing me to use, draw inspiration from, and enjoy your photos from your adventures out West. Additionally, thank you for telling me your stories and sharing your experiences with me.
All images copyright Š 2015 by Emily Ogden
Emily Ogden is a Photography and Graphic Design student and the University of Illinois. She has also been an intern for the National Parks Service during the summers of 2014 and 2015.
H E R E T I L L N O W is an exploration of the American West through the images captured by Emily Odgen and various articles relating to each location depicted.
HERE TILL NOW
a c k n o w l e d g m e n t s /p r i n t i n f o
2
H E R E T I L L NO W
full title
an exploration of the American West.
T A B L HORSE SHOE BEND
E O F C
MEET EMILY
O N T E
MONU MENT VALLEY
GLEN CANYON
N T S
HERE TILL NOW
CHES LER PARK
M E E T E M I LY PA G E 0 6
PHOTOGRAPHER
+ meet the person who captured every image shown and told first hand stories of her experiences
G L E N C A N YO N S TA R T S PA G E 0 8
ARIZONA
+ read Emily’s story from the canyon + Controversial Glen Canyon Dam, article by Brandon Loomis on page 12
40°72 ’ 08 ’’ ″N 89°60 ’ 94 ’’ ″W 37°15’15’’″N 110°52’42’’″W HORSESHOE BEND S TA R T S PA G E 2 0
ARIZONA
+ find out what made Emily nauseous + The Intimate Grand Canyon Experience from horseshoebend.com page 24 + Economic Impact Of Colorado River, article by Jim Trotter on page 26
36°52’46’’″N 111°30’50’’″W
M O N U M E N T VA L L E Y S TA R T S PA G E 2 8
+ Emily explains some differences in US National Parks and Native American National Parks. + Monument Valley: A Stark Beauty, article by Christopher 36°59’″N 110°6’″W
C H E S L E R PA R K S TA R T S PA G E 4 0
EXPLORE THE WEST: FIND YOUR PARK
U TA H
U TA H
+ read how it feels to be completely isolated in the middle of the night + Hiking in Chesler Park, article by Casey Schreiner on page 44 3 8 ° 1 0 ’ 0 1 ’ ’ N 1 0 9 °4 5 ’ 3 5 ’ ’ W
HERE TILL NOW
E M I L
Y O G D
6
E N
LANDSCAPE AND DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHER MORTON, IL
M E E T
7
M E E T E M I LY
HERE TILL NOW
waterfall only flows a few times each year
8
national park
GLEN CA NYON ARIZ ON A
9 GLEN CANYON
1,960 square miles
G L E N We vacationed at Lake Powell resort in Arizona, and we were on the backside of the dam, so I never saw the dam that day. We did a boating trip and hung out by the water. The next day we went to the dam
C A N Y
10
O N A R that was just down the road so it was kind of cool to see how all of the activity we did the day before was because of the dam. Just passed the dam was an immense and beautiful drop off which was Glen
I A
would want to visit Glen Canyon just like they do in the Grand Canyon now. It they un-dammed it, it would all flow into the grand canyon. It would be complicated and controversial.
amazing canyon, but because of the dam it’s not in its natural state. I think in the very distant future it is possible that the dam would be knocked down. But it supplies water to like‌a million people,
Z O N
and the entire resort is built around it so it seems unlikely. If they took out the dam, it would probably become reserved land, and leave the resort inoperable. I still think people
THERE WAS AN IMMENSE AND BEAUTIFUL DROP-OFF.
HERE TILL NOW
Canyon. I had heard before I went there and read in the museum that Glen Canyon is supposedly more vast and rugged than the Grand Canyon... so I was kind of mad. Everything that I was floating on in my vacation could be a super deep and
G L E N C A N YO N located near
PA G E , A R I Z O N A
+ located in southeastern and south central Utah and northwestern Arizona within the Vermilion Cliffs area + carved by the Colorado River +A reservoir, Lake Powell, was created by the Glen Canyon Dam in 1963, flooding much of Glen Canyon. + Excavations began during the summer of 1958 on 16 sites. A thesis emerged that prehistoric people living permanently on the highlands south of Glen Canyon, and on the Cummings Mesa, farmed the Lower Glen Canyon on a seasonal basis, and gathered raw materials. + The majority of sites, mostly Navajo camps, feature lithic garbage or ceramics, or both. 11
37°15 ’ 15 ’’ ″N 110°52 ’ 42 ’’ ″W
GLEN CANYON
+ Most of the cultural remains found are chipped stone tools (lithic materials), including projectile points, scrapers, drills, knives, choppers, and ground stone tools and manos (grinders).
CONTROVERSIAL GLEN CANYON DAM
HERE TILL NOW
BRANDON LOOMIS
12
PA G E , A Z
In the late 1950s, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation built a one-bowling-alley town and a bridge to support construction of Glen Canyon Dam, which would create America’s second-largest reservoir and fuel a postwar boom in the Southwest. Before the dam, Arizona had no Page, no Lake Powell, no neonbuzzed loop of motels for the water skiers and house boaters who would one day skitter across a huge new lake. On Sept. 13, 1963, the last bucket of concrete tipped 583 feet above the Colorado River, spilling both prosperity and perpetual controversy. Glen Canyon Dam was completed, and the newly plugged Lake Powell was on a 17-year rise toward 9 trillion gallons. “It was huge,” recalled Page Mayor Bill Diak, then a Southern California teen who camped here often with his parents just to gawk as man conquered nature. “It was impressive to see those big concrete buckets go over and dump.” Of the waterway to come — the 254 square miles he would explore every summer weekend while raising four kids, the dozens of mysterious and freshly accessible side canyons, the non-native fish that were introduced, the American Indian artifacts that were submerged — “I had no idea.” These are all part of the landscape now for more than 2 million visitors each year. Yet Lake Powell’s story — one of boisterous boosterism and environmental destruction, of a glorious future and a lost past — still flows down an uncertain channel.
FOR AND AGAINST
13 GLEN CANYON
Today, after the Colorado River watershed’s driest 14-year run on record, the reservoir is less than half full. The prospect of a shortage that could cut into Arizona’s take of the river’s water looms. Fans of the reservoir say it’s part of a natural cycle that will soon end. Opponents say it’s time to think about pulling the plug. They’ve never liked how the dam drowned a canyon and changed the river’s ecology, and they see an opening presented by climate change. “Whether it’s extreme droughts or extreme floods, you’re going to lose this (dam) system,” said John Weisheit, a Utah environmentalist who expects both conditions to occur as climate variability grows. His organization, Living Rivers, sings in a growing chorus clamoring to fill Lake Mead first by draining Lake Powell unless the larger downstream reservoir is full. They believe a drying climate won’t keep both reservoirs full and draining Powell would restore a free-flowing river past Glen Canyon and into the Grand Canyon. Paul Ostapuk of Page and a Friends of Lake Powell member sees it differently. Pacific Ocean patterns dictate snowfall cycles that feed the Colorado River, and they have swung wildly
before. Ostapuk finds it ironic that those who swore high water would topple the dam in the early 1980s when huge releases of water dangerously ripped rock from dam-bypass tunnels now are saying drought spells doom. “It’s hard for me to believe that right at 2000, when (Lake Powell was) basically full, that a permanent climate switch happened,” he said. “Don’t give up on the Colorado River. It could come roaring back, and I think people will be surprised how much water comes down.” The river is erratic, draining anywhere from 5 million acre-feet in a drought year to 20 million after an epic winter. Each acre-foot supplies roughly enough water for two households for a year. Without both Lake Mead and Lake Powell, Ostapuk said a water shortage already would be drying up Arizona farms. California has older, superior rights to Colorado River water that would trump Arizona’s during a crisis. “You have to have the ability to catch the wet years, so you can ration it out in the lean times,” he said. “If you’d only had Lake Mead (during the current drought), it would be totally empty. Lake Powell’s what’s getting us through this.” The Bureau of Reclamation concurs. It calls Lake Powell
HERE TILL NOW 14
critical to the mix of water-supply options already projected to fall short — barring extensive conservation and reuse efforts — during the coming half century. “Drawing down Lake Powell would result in reduced yield to the system,” bureau spokeswoman Lisa Iams said in an e-mail. “Losses due to evaporation would increase if additional water currently stored in Lake Powell were released to Mead,” because Mead is at a lower, hotter elevation.” Lake Powell can hold up to 24 million acre-feet while Lake Mead can hold nearly 29 million. Some Lake Powell opponents have recently pointed to studies suggesting that seepage in Glen Canyon’s porous sandstone is siphoning water away. Water politics are far out of mind at Bullfrog, one of three main marinas on the reservoir. Tucked away down a desert road behind Utah’s Capitol Reef National Park, this arm of water teems with speedboats and houseboats. The ramp is a constant procession of pickups and trailers. On a late August afternoon, 18-year-old Garrett Funk of Colorado lashed windsurfers atop a sportutility vehicle trailing Jet Skis. With family and friends, he had boated to the San Juan River and back, a family tradition.
“Pretty much grew up here,” he said. “I’ve been on this lake pretty much since I could walk.” His 22-year-old brother, Geoffrey, recounted their father’s tales of high water in the 1980s, when it was possible to swim under the towering rock formation that is now a highand-dry Rainbow Bridge. He pointed to the white “bathtub ring” about 100 feet up an orange rock wall. “We’ve been coming up here since the water was above that mark,” he said. These days, with the water’s surface at 3,600 feet above sea level — down from a peak of 3,700 feet — it’s a strenuous hike to reach the parking lot from a docked boat. Boating and fishing The low water and what it leaves behind — especially mud flats for river runners to slog past — can create a nuisance, and even a stench in side canyons. Fluctuating water levels force marinas to keep chasing the shoreline — extending boat ramps and, in at least one case last month, moving one altogether. This is part of the routine of a fluid system, said Denise Schultz, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area interpretation chief. All floating structures, including docks,
while depleting beaches river rafters use. Smaller beaches support less windblown sand to root mesquites and other vegetation, or to cover and preserve archaeological sites from erosion. “The Colorado River Storage Project Act passed in ’56, and the big dam-building era was on us,” said Jan Balsom, Grand Canyon National Park’s deputy chief of resource management. “It wasn’t until years later that we realized what was happening environmentally.”
ECONOMIC POWERHOUSE By then, the dam was an entrenched economic engine. Visitors to Glen Canyon National Recreation Area pump some $400 million into northern Arizona and southern Utah, according to Friends of Lake Powell. That figure is similar to a $380 million estimate that Northern Arizona University researchers made in 1999. The dam generates hydropower to supply cooperatives that have 4 million customers spread from Arizona to Wyoming. It generates less power now when the water is low. The dam has eight turbine units, each capable of producing 165 megawatts. A single megawatt is enough
15 GLEN CANYON
are routinely moved even when the reservoir isn’t pushing historic lows. Fishermen love the low water. It forces the fish out of the brushy tamarisk trees submerged during wetter times. “Now, with the lake low, you don’t have to fish in the trees,” Page resident Kevin Campbell said on a recent morning after landing and releasing more than 40 striped bass just upstream of the dam. Stripers. Largemouth and smallmouth bass. Walleye. Crappie. Sunfish. Channel catfish. Lake Powell offers more variety than an Arizona angler could have dreamed of before 1963. Campbell capitalizes at least 30 days a year. “It’s just the scenic beauty of the whole place,” he said. “And the variety of species is a big thing for me.” Below the dam, the aquatic legacy is mixed. Water gushing through the hydropower turbines comes from deep in the reservoir is colder than native fishes such as the endangered humpback chub evolved to withstand. As chubs and other species declined downstream in the Grand Canyon, non-native cold-water trout thrived and created Arizona’s finest trophy rainbow fishery at Lees Ferry. The dam also blocked the sand that had flowed through the canyon for ages, altering fish and wildlife habitat
HERE TILL NOW 16
to power 250 homes at a given moment. But that capacity is available only when the reservoir is full. Plant supervisor Roger Williams said the water pressure now yields 135 megawatts per unit. Another waterlevel drop of 100 feet and the dam would have to cease hydropower production or risk damage to the turbines. By that time, the units would be producing just 75 megawatts apiece. These economic drivers are apart from the development and crops grown through the reservoir’s water deliveries, or its cooling of the nearby Navajo Generating Station, the West’s largest coal-fired power plant. Growing awareness of the damage to the Grand Canyon led to an environmental protection act in 1992, mandating dam releases that take river ecology into account. Since then, the Interior Department has sought to restore something of the river’s past characteristics. Since 1996, and most recently last fall, the department has loosed four huge water flushes from the dam to mimic historic floods and churn up sandbars. The experiments built new sandbars and beaches in the short term but eroded a smaller number of existing ones. In the long term,
routine water releases have eroded the gains. The National Park Service supports frequent high releases, perhaps even annually if rains bring enough sediment — as Balsom believes late summer rains did this year. Interior officials have not said whether they will authorize a high flow this fall. Balsom thinks it could help build on last year’s. “We may actually start seeing restoration of those resource values,” she said. “We’ve never done them back to back, so we’ll see.” The program remains controversial, both for power cooperatives that bypass their opportunity for electricity when the floodgates open and for environmentalists who say only draining the reservoir and restoring the sand will do. Tributaries downstream of the dam supply only about a tenth of the sand that the pre-dam river carried through the canyon.
SACRED SITES RUINED Where Native Americans are concerned, the dam desecrated more than a canyon or even ancient burial grounds. It flooded sacred sites, both with water and people. The confluence of the Colorado and San Juan rivers was a place
“It’s incredible that nature makes such a thing,” Swiss tourist Mariann Rothe said when she saw Rainbow Bridge in late August. Out of respect for Native American traditions, the Park Service asks people to refrain from walking under the arc. Interpretive ranger Mike Young said that of the 250 or so people he advised of the sensitivity each day this summer, about 50 went to stand beneath the rock. “It is an outstanding view from right under it,” he conceded.
BENEFITS AND COSTS The dam has irked old-time boatmen from the beginning. A few who scraped together surplus military equipment to float the relatively calm water of Glen Canyon in the 1950s had learned and loved what the dam would kill. It was a place both horizontally and vertically far removed from roads. Richard Quist of Salt Lake City fondly remembers rafting the wilderness with his dad, which led to a family rafting business that continues on the Southwest’s rivers. “Everything about it was just a magical place,” Quist said. “Talk about a place to turn a kid loose to wander,
17 GLEN CANYON
of spiritual offerings before it was swamped. “We consider the San Juan River male and the Colorado female,” said Adair Klopfenstein, a Navajo and cultural-studies director for Tuba City, Ariz., schools. “Where these two met, it’s kind of like they mated. Offerings were left for different kinds of moisture and rain clouds. “A lot of places like that were destroyed when Lake Powell came in.” Most prominent among them, and the subject of an unsuccessful lawsuit by those who wanted to keep Powell from filling, is Rainbow Bridge. A sandstone arc standing 290 feet tall and 275 across, it traditionally is considered a “rainbow turned into rock,” Klopfenstein said. “In the same way that we respect and use rainbows in our prayers and songs, “that rainbow we respect, so we don’t pass under it,” he said. Rainbow Bridge is a national monument separate from but administered through Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. In high-water years, it is inundated up to the gap beneath the arc. These days, the water is a half mile away. Tour boats deposit visitors willing to take a short hike to see it. The National Park Service says 200,000 to 300,000 people visit in a year.
HERE TILL NOW 18
to play and swim and hike the side canyons and find amazing things.” It had petroglyphs, pictographs, pit houses and rock-walled granaries from Anasazi days. “There were more archaeological treasures lost in the flooding of Glen Canyon than probably you’d see in a hundred well-stocked museums,” Quist said. The dam brought new, motorized recreation for thousands of people who never would have visited otherwise, he said, but at a painful cost. “It made a hell of a lot better river than it does a reservoir,” he said. Rafters who don’t mind starting below the dam have an argument for corralling the Colorado. The dam evens out the peak flows each spring and keeps the river a little higher through fall, said Korey Seyler of Colorado River Discovery tours
in Page. He has paying customers March through November. Without the dam? He figures he would close shop in September when river rocks emerged. Ostapuk, the Friends of Lake Powell member, said Glen Canyon remains wild, with uncrowded side canyons requiring no permit to explore. “It’s just pure, raw adventure out there,” Ostapuk said. Fifty years after that last bucket of concrete, when Page Mayor Diak stops to look at the dam and the high-voltage lines spreading from it across the Colorado Plateau, he still sees the future. Whether building a dam here was ideal is now pointless to argue, he said. “You can’t live in the 15th century and expect to have the things that we have now,” Diak said.
19
GLEN CANYON
HERE TILL NOW
4,200 ft above sea level
20
HO RSE SHOE BEND, ARIZONA
state park
21 HORSESHOE BEND
accessible via 1.5 mile hike
H E E D I A
You know how things tower above you? well somehow this towered below me. it was almost like i couldn’t see the whole thing because i was so close to it and it was so grand. I felt
HERE TILL NOW
to the overlook and getting there was a big uphill and then a big downhill, more downhill on the way there. On the way back it was crazy steep. we were gasping for breath because
22
O S B , Z
and we could see a speck of color on the bottom. It was a kayak and people were camping down there. The bend is so immense that they looked like pieces of dust...they looked like little speckles. Hiking up
R H E A O
really nauseous when i got to the edge. It’s the most terrifying drop-off I’ve ever seen and there were a ton of people close to the edge. it was making my heart race. we looked down
it was such an extreme angle. It felt crazy. Also on the way back there were cigarette buds covering the trail, me and my mom tried to pick them up but there were just too many
IT SOMEHOW TOWERED BELOW ME.
S O N R N
to even keep trying. It looked pretty much flat for as far as you could see out except for a few mountains here and there, like in the background of the picture.
HORSESHOE BEND located near
PA G E , A R I Z O N A
+ a horseshoe-shaped meander of the Colorado River. + located 5 miles downstream from the Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell within Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, about 4 miles (6.4 km) southwest of Page. + accessible via hiking a 1.5-mile (2.4 km) round trip from U.S. Route 89, but an access road also reaches the geological structure, as it is part of a state park. Horseshoe Bend can be viewed from the steep cliff above. + Overlook is 4,200 feet above sea level, and the Colorado River is at 3,200 feet above sea level, making it a 1,000-foot drop. + The rock walls of Horseshoe Bend contain a variety of minerals, among which are hematite, platinum and garnet.
36°52 ’ 46 ’’ ″N 111°30 ’ 50 ’’ ″W
HORSESHOE BEND
+ one of the most photgraphed natural wonders
23
THE INTIMATE GRAND CANYON EXPERIENCE
HERE TILL NOW
HORSESHOEBEND.CO M
24
PAGE, AZ
The trailhead to this easy hike is located just outside of Page, Arizona. It overlooks one of the most spectacular views on the Colorado River, 4 miles south of the Glen Canyon Dam, and 7 miles north of mile zero of the Grand Canyon. As you walk up the path, the trudge up the sandy hill might seem like a nuisance; but it is actually a walk through cycles of time. About 200 million years ago this sand was part of the largest system of sand dunes the North American continent may have ever seen. These “sand seas” are known as ergs. Our enormous erg was eventually hardened by water and minerals into Navajo Sandstone, an amazing uniform, smooth sandstone layer. It stretches from Arizona to Wyoming, and it can be over two thousand feet thick in some places. When you reach the edge of Horseshoe Bend you will be looking down 1000 feet ( 305 meters) of the sandstone to the river. After the Navajo Sandstone hardened, other layers of sandstone, mudstone, and different sedimentary layers piled on top of it. Then, after a couple of million years, patient water in the form of rain, ice, floods, and streams, worked to erode away the different layers.Today the Navajo Sandstone is once again exposed, and its sand is slowly wearing away. So now, what you are walking upon is sand from the Navajo Sandstone, which was from the giant Jurassic erg – recycled sand! As you descend, the path is a little bumpier. It alternates between a whitish gravel, more sand, and some pretty solid, sloping rocks, the Navajo Sandstone. Notice how the rock itself has diagonal striped layers. These are the remnants of the layers of the ancient massive sand dunes before they were petrified into
Make sure you keep an eye on your animal companions as well; they can slip as easily as you. Below you, the Colorado River makes a wide sweep around a sandstone escarpment. Long ago, as the river meandered southward toward the sea, it always chose the steepest downward slope. This downward journey did not always occur in a straight line, and sometimes the river made wide circles and meanders. As the Colorado Plateau uplifted about 5 million years ago, the rivers that meandered across the ancient landscape were trapped in their beds. The rivers cut through the rock, deep and fast, seeking a new natural level. Here at Horseshoe Bend, the Colorado River did just that, and as the river cut down through the layers of sandstone, it created a 270° horseshoe-shaped bend in the canyon. Conceivably, at some time far in the future, the river could erode through the narrow neck of rock, creating a natural bridge and abandoning the circular channel around the rock. Maybe in a few million years, this will be the site of a brand new natural bridge formed the same way as nearby Rainbow Bridge National Monument.
25 HORSESHOE BEND
stone. The whitish stones tell us how the sandstone was petrified. This rock is calcite, or limestone, the same rock that drips itself into cave formations. Back 180 million years ago, this mineral mixed in with the rain and snow to cement the grains of sand together. The process took about 20 million years, but eventually all of the sand dunes were petrified by the calcite, retaining their beautiful sloping dune shapes. Today, as the grains of sand erode, chunks of the calcite also present themselves. As you get closer to the viewpoint, some of the rocks are covered with hard, sandy bumps. These are concretions of iron. Iron, being heavier than sand grains, was attracted to itself in ball shape while the sandstone was being petrified. Now that the sandstone is eroding away, the iron concretions are coming into view as well. When the little concretion balls break free from the rock, they are known as “Moki Marbles”. You’ve made it. Worth the walk, wasn’t it? The view of Horseshoe Bend from the rim of the canyon is extraordinary. (You’ll need a wide-angle lens to get the entire scene in your picture!) If you find the height a little daunting, try lying down on the ground and looking over the edge that way. It gives you a much better sense of security.
E C O N O M I C I M PA C T OF COLORADO RIVER
HERE TILL NOW
JIM TROTTER
26
PA G E , A Z
The Colorado River has long been described as the lifeblood of the American Southwest. Originating as a clear mountain stream on the Western Slope of Rocky Mountain National Park, the river gathers tributaries and strength as if flows through the basin, serving industries, cities and agriculture in seven states. Those states, all signatories to the Colorado River Compact of 1922, include Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico in the upper basin, Arizona, Nevada and California in the lower. Collectively, they comprise the hottest, driest region in the United States. So what would happen should the Colorado River simply disappear for one year? Realizing that sounds like a highly rhetorical question, economists at Arizona State University actually came up with the answers in a study published early this year. Forget about being up the creek without a paddle. This is more like having an armload of paddles and no creek. The Colorado River system is tied to more than $1.4 trillion in economic activity annually, $871 billion in wages, and 16 million jobs. With no river, should it disappear, all that would be off the table, according to the analysis by economists at the L. William Seidman Research Institute at the W. P. Carey School of Business at ASU.
The study also offers numbers based on different percentages of river reduction, which, of course, is less far-fetched. Less so because analyses have shown that annual flows that averaged 15 million acrefeet during the years prior to 2000 averaged about 12 million during the drought-stressed years between 2000 and 2010, a decline of 20 percent. Ground water pumping, other sources, conservation measures and other factors have so far staved off devastating consequences, but drought, warming and population growth are applying steady pressure. “What is completely apparent is that people just don’t know enough about this whole thing, the wise of use water going forward,” James said. “Water is so cheap. It’s way, way, way too cheap. People don’t think about using huge quantities of water, even though we’re in a restrained area.” The least drought resistant states, simply because of where they are located, are those of the lower basin, the study states. “If we were separate countries, I’m sure we’d be having wars over this,” James said. As it is, he said, “You should start thinking about nature is trying to tell you something.”
27 HORSESHOE BEND
One of the lead authors, economist Tim James, sounded a little exasperated as he acknowledged the river isn’t simply going to disappear. He’s also heard other blow-back: Humans are adaptable, there are other sources, there are senior water rights and junior water rights and the juniors would be on their own. The study was sponsored by the business coalition Protect the Flows, which apparently drew some aspersions from agricultural interests. “There are big caveats about what numbers actually mean,” James said in an interview with Rocky Mountain PBS I-News. “People say ‘we’d adapt,’ but the numbers are more like nuclear disaster type numbers. We can’t adapt to catastrophe.” The numbers basically state total economic activity in the region that is dependent on the river. The study showed state of Colorado agriculture using 6.13 million acre feet of water per year, with 31 percent of that total sourced from the Colorado River. Municipalities and industry used another 1.25 million acre feet, with 41 percent coming from the river. The Colorado Gross State Product depending on the river was worth $188.95 billion or 59 percent, while state jobs dependent on the river were 2,147,141.
experiences a desert climate with cold winters and hot summers
HERE TILL NOW
MONUME N T VA L L E Y, A RIZO NA
28
29 M O N U M E N T VA L L E Y
The valley’s vivid red color comes from iron oxide exposed in the weathered siltstone.
M O N U This was on Navajo Nation, its kind of awkward going in initially—not like a US national park. We went in the entrance booth and parked our car. There was a ton of tourists, and by the parking lot there were
further into the park and hike, but most people were there to take their pictures and go. We waited for sunset and then left when it was over.
M E N T HERE TILL NOW
just take the picture. Monument Valley was different than most other parks I’ve been to because it was more like, you go in, you park, you look at the overlook, and that’s it. you can go
30
V A L L a ton of stray dogs. it was really accessible. there was a huge over look—it was kind of—definitely a tourist attraction. There was a big gift shop, there were native americans singing a song
E Y , T A H
and taking donations. There was a storm in the distance so you could see lightning strike in the distance. I asked two Native Americans if i could take a picture of them and they said only if i
U
took a “midnight ride” with them. I said no deal, (unsure of what that really meant) and they told me to come on and come back later. I just said never mind, and they said it was okay to
THEY ASKED IF I WANTED TO TAKE A MIDNIGHT RIDE.
M O N U M E N T VA L L E Y located near
N AVA J O N AT I O N
+ Navajo: Tsé Bii’ Ndzisgaii, meaning valley of the rocks + a region of the Colorado Plateau characterized by a cluster of vast sandstone buttes + the largest butte reaches 1,000 ft above the valley floor. + it is located on the Arizona-Utah state line near the Four Corners area + Parts of Monument Valley, such as Mystery Valley and Hunts Mesa, are accessible only by guided tour. + The valley lies within the range of the Navajo Nation Reservation and is accessible from U.S. Highway 163.
36°59 ’ ″N 110°6 ’ ″W
31 M O N U M E N T VA L L E Y
+ Director John Ford used the location for a number of his bestknown films, and thus, in the words of critic Keith Phipps, “its five square miles have defined what decades of moviegoers think of when they imagine the American West.”
MONUMENT VALLEY: A S TA R K B E AU T Y
HERE TILL NOW
CHRISTOPHER REYNOLDS
32
Zane Grey knew how to make an entrance, or at least how to describe one. As the famous Western writer liked to tell the story, he was on horseback in 1913, riding deep into Navajo country, when a flash lighted up the desert. That flash, Grey wrote, “revealed a vast valley, a strange world of colossal shafts and buttes of rock, magnificently sculptured, standing isolated and aloof, dark, weird, lonely.” Grey had found his way to Monument Valley, before John Ford and John Wayne showed up to make “Stagecoach” and before all those other makers of movies and television and marketers of cars and cigarettes made the buttes a symbol of the Wild West. Even if you suspect poetic license in the timing of that lightning bolt, the man saw the valley raw. Thinking of him last month, I rose before sunrise in a hotel on the Arizona-Utah border, drove to a parking lot and hiked down Wildcat Trail into the heart of Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park. Mark Boster, the photographer who has been revisiting Western icons with me the last several months, had set up on high ground, so I was alone. There was a scent of wet sage, almost no sound but the wind. Then the sun rose, the mesas blazed and dead ahead, the towering West Mitten Butte jumped from pre-dawn obscurity into silhouette. It was tremendous. Only for a moment did I wonder if this was where Chevy Chase crashed the Griswold family station wagon in “National Lampoon’s Vacation.”
park because then too many would come. And then there’s the uranium. From the 1940s to the 1960s, with the approval of U.S. and Navajo leaders, mining companies extracted tons of ore here to fuel U.S. nuclear programs. Then they abandoned the sites, including Skyline Mine on the valley’s Oljato Mesa. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found lingering elevated radiation at Skyline and in 2011 completed an $8-million cleanup, but elsewhere in Navajo country hundreds of abandoned mines await remediation. A tourist might see none of this, but locals know all about it. So the valley is complicated. But it’s also plainly spectacular, beginning with the approach up U.S. Highway 163. You snap to attention at the sight of angular Agathla, a.k.a. El Capitan, first of the buttes, looming like a stairway to the stratosphere. Soon after comes Sentinel Mesa, a sort of Greek Acropolis, if the Acropolis were swaddled in orange by Christo. Most tourists stay a day or two. We stayed four, circled the valley alone and with a guide, under blue skies and gray. We paid respects to Rain God Mesa, the Thumb, Gray Whiskers, the Hub and the Cube; ate enough fry bread to last a lifetime; and stood among the tripod people at sunset,
33 M O N U M E N T VA L L E Y
Monument Valley is part of the Navajo Nation reservation, a 640-mile drive from Los Angeles, 175 miles northeast of Flagstaff, Ariz., about 25 miles north of the sleepy town of Kayenta. The valley’s most famous mesas, buttes and spires stand within the boundaries of the tribal park. And you, my fellow Americans, should go to see them. Why? Because it’s embarrassing to stand in the middle of such stark beauty and realize that most of the other tourists are speaking French, German, Italian, Japanese or Chinese. You should know, however, that this is no national park. Instead of the National Park Service infrastructure, you will find a 17-mile dirt road looping around the valley’s most admired landmarks, a dozen or more jewelry and souvenir stands, two hotels in the immediate neighborhood, and no alcohol on their menus. To leave the loop road, you must hire a Navajo guide. You may notice a weather-beaten trailer, perhaps neighbored by a rounded earthen mound. These are private homes and traditional hogans, without electricity or running water, that house a handful of Navajo families that date back here for generations. Many of them make their living from tourists, but most don’t want a paved road inside the
HERE TILL NOW 34
lining up the Mitten buttes with the same boulders that Ansel Adams used in 1950. Then one afternoon, a roar filled the valley and the clouds burst. Monsoon. Within minutes, Spearhead Mesa had five waterfalls coursing down its face. Sentinel Mesa wore a crown of dark clouds. In the storm, the landscape seemed doubly alive, reds and greens literally saturated, sky riven by lightning, puddles and streams threatening the road. We sprinted for the car and rushed away, scared and thrilled. We stayed one night in the View Hotel, earth-toned, low-slung, handsome on the valley-facing side and homely on the other. It was built in 2008 by the Navajo tribe, and every room has a balcony that looks out on a classic panorama. A puddle left by a passing storm reflects the buttes in Monument Valley. ( Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times ) More photos Then we moved to Goulding’s Lodge, five miles outside the park. It was Harry Goulding (with his wife, Leone “Mike” Goulding) who started a trading post here in the 1920s, and it was Goulding who traveled to Hollywood in 1938 and persuaded Ford to come and shoot “Stagecoach.”
The Gouldings ran their desert outpost for decades, tending to filmmakers, peddling curios, steadily adding rooms and services. Spend a few minutes among the old photos and movie posters in its little museum and you’ll see the old guest register in which John Wayne wrote: “Harry, you and I both owe these monuments a lot.” Check the new guest register and you find that of the last 115 guests who arrived before Aug. 26, 76 were from abroad. Are Americans outnumbered because we’d rather wait for cooler weather? Because Europeans are more curious about Native American culture than we? I don’t know. I tried asking a few Navajo, but we always ended up veering to another subject. Ned Black, 44, paused at his jewelry stand to tell me he tries to be happy all day, but “it’s hard to be happy all day. You don’t know who you’re going to come across.” Charles Phillips, a 36-year-old guide, stopped for provisions before carrying us off on a demanding four-hour off-road exploration in a battered Chevy Suburban: “I’m gonna get me a drink before we go. Gonna get me a Budweiser,” he said, a twinkle in his eye, testing us. A minute later he was back with a Powerade. (Phillips was working with
two broken ribs, because the week before a horse had thrown him onto a rock. Laughing hurt, but he still wanted to.) I was ready for more sly wit from Linda Jackson, who operates the cafe trailer at John Ford’s Point. “Sarcasm. One of the free services I offer,” said a sign next to the counter. But Jackson instead told us a heartfelt story about the day her 32-year-old son, Ericson Cly, died. He was struck by lightning, she told us. Right here at John Ford’s Point. On an August day in 2006. We told her how sorry we were, looked at the dirt, looked at the sky, looked at the memorial marker that stands nearby. Then we made another loop through all that harsh beauty.
TIMELINE: WIND, WATER, MIGRATION, MOVIES
35 M O N U M E N T VA L L E Y
Nature and people carve a lasting impression on Monument Valley. About 50 million years ago: Wind and water start shaping Monument Valley, eventually causing sandstone monoliths to emerge. Before 1400: The Anasazi occupy Monument Valley, along with other corners of the Southwest, and build many cliff dwellings and food-storage sites. Then they vanish.
After 1400: The Dine (pronounced Di-Nay) take up residence in and around Monument Valley. Other native tribes take to calling them the Navajo, as do the Spanish and then the Americans, marching westward. 1863: Eager to take their land, the U.S. government orders the relocation of all Navajos to a reservation at Ft. Sumner in Bosque Redondo, N.M. Enforcing the order, Col. Kit Carson passes through Monument Valley but fails to capture chief Hush-Kaaney (a.k.a. Hoskaninni), who remains a leader in the area for decades. 1868:A larger Navajo reservation is established, and an 1884 expansion includes Monument Valley. Eventually the reservation, also known as the Navajo Nation, includes about 27,000 square miles of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. 1913: Author and sportsman Zane Grey arrives in the valley as a storm is approaching. In 1922’s “Tales of Lonely Trails,” Grey writes that his first view “came with a flash of lightning. It revealed a vast valley, a strange world of colossal shafts and buttes of rock, magnificently sculptured, standing isolated and aloof, dark, weird, lonely.” 1925: Harry Goulding and his wife, Leone (nicknamed Mike), establish a trading post on a view location near the northwest rim of the valley. The same year, director George B. Seitz
HERE TILL NOW 36
brings a film crew to the valley to make the silent black-and-white feature “The Vanishing American.” Based on a Zane Grey novel, the movie comes and goes. 1938: Eager to bring money to the Depression-ravaged valley, Harry Goulding goes to Hollywood bearing photos of Monument Valley and bluffs his way into a meeting with famed director John Ford. Soon after, Ford’s cast and crew arrive in the valley to make “Stagecoach.” 1939: “Stagecoach” revives the western genre, gives Ford’s career a new direction and makes John Wayne a star. Ford goes on to make numerous movies in the valley, including “My Darling Clementine” (1946), “Fort Apache” with Wayne (1948) and “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon,” also with Wayne, (1949). Early 1940s: Uranium mining begins on Oljato Mesa at the western edge of the valley and continues into the 1960s, leaving a legacy of elevated radiation, pollution and controversy. 1953: Goulding’s Lodge expands to include a motel. 1956: Release of Ford’s “The Searchers,” shot in the valley with Wayne. (In 2008, the American Film Institute named “The Searchers” the best western ever.)
1958: The Navajo Tribal Council establishes Monument Valley as a tribal park. 1960: Release of Ford’s “Sergeant Rutledge,” shot in the valley. 1963: Nearing 70, John Ford releases his last Monument Valley movie, “Cheyenne Spring.” The Gouldings sell their lodge to a college, which later sells it to its current owners, the LaFont family. 1969: Peter Fonda leads the cast and crew of “Easy Rider” through the valley. 1975: Clint Eastwood directs and stars in “The Eiger Sanction,” using Monument Valley’s Totem Pole formation in rock-climbing scenes. 1983: In “National Lampoon’s Vacation,” Chevy Chase crashes the family station wagon in the valley. 1990: Traveling through time in “Back to the Future III,” Michael J. Fox finds himself crossing the valley in a silver DeLorean. 1991: With the law in hot pursuit, Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon race through the valley in “Thelma & Louise.” 2000: PBS airs “The Return of Navajo Boy,” a documentary that ties a Monument Valley family’s health problems to nearby uranium mining. 2008: The View Hotel, a round fireplace dominating its two-story lobby, opens, the first hotel inside
houseboats and watersports at Lake Powell. To visit Horseshoe Bend, where the deep green Colorado River suddenly turns 270 degrees at the bottom of a big red gorge, you drive 4 miles south of Glen Canyon Dam on U.S. 89. Park and walk 3/4 of a mile over a scrubbrush hill to the edge of a cliff. Be careful — there are no guardrails or fences. And be glad: It’s free, and the view of the twisting river is jaw-dropping. At sunrise or sunset, the play of land, water, light and shadow is doubly dramatic and challenging for a photographer seeking that perfect exposure. Upper Antelope Canyon, which is part of Lake Powell Navajo Tribal Park, is carved in large part by monsoon runoff and is up to 120 feet deep with just a ribbon of blue sky above. The filtered light, rich colors and varied textures of the crevasse’s sandstone walls create remarkable effects — one moment, frozen flames; the next, stretching taffy. You can’t enter without a guide, and you can’t enter at all if a lot of rain is expected upstream. (A 1997 flash flood in Lower Antelope Canyon killed 11 tourists. The week before our Aug. 29 visit, monsoons closed the area for two days and added several feet of silt to the canyon floor.) Since 2011, Navajo leaders have imposed a
37 M O N U M E N T VA L L E Y
the tribal park. It’s owned by the Navajo tribe and managed by a Navajo family. Goulding’s has grown into a compound that includes a trading post, hotel, restaurant, campground and museum, with vacation-rental apartments nearby. 2011: An $8-million Environmental Protection Agency clean-up is completed at the Skyline Mine, a former uranium mine on Oljato Mesa, less than 2 miles from Goulding’s Lodge. 2012: Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, now 91,696 acres, reports 422,932 visitors. 2013: Johnny Depp, playing Tonto in a remake of “The Lone Ranger,” sits astride a white horse with co-star Armie Hammer at John Ford’s Point in the valley. Antelope Canyon and Horseshoe Bend are dramatic subjects for photographers. Curving sandstone, filtered light and vivid sky prove majestic. Take a tripod. Monument Valley is great place for a photographer to look up. Antelope Canyon and Horseshoe Bend, 125 miles to the west, are great places to look down. The canyon and the bend — a narrow slot canyon and a deep, broad stretch of the Colorado River — are at the edge of Page, Ariz., a tourist town that serves as a jumping-off point for
HERE TILL NOW 38
two-hour limit per canyon on all visitors. Depending on which of several permit-bearing guide companies you sign up with, guides can also take you to longer, narrower Lower Antelope Canyon and other areas. Fifty-minute tours start at $25 to $35, but that doesn’t give you much time to shoot. We used Adventurous Antelope Canyon Photo Tours and paid $106 each for a 31/2-hour tour. Guide Raymond Chee took us through Upper Antelope Canyon and a narrower area, accessible by ladders, known as Rattlesnake Canyon. If you’re claustrophobic, don’t attempt these tours. If you like semi-abstract nature photography, bring a sturdy tripod and expect to make long exposures. Before you head to Page, check the status of U.S. 89. Since a landslide on Feb. 20, a 23-mile stretch of highway has been closed between Page and Bitter Springs (to the south). As of the Travel section’s deadline, Arizona officials had no timetable for reopening the road. Page remains accessible from the north by U.S. 89 (via Kanab) and from the south via U.S. 89T (during daylight hours) and Arizona State Route 98. Navajo Adrian Jackson with his trusty horse, Pistol, awaits the next group of tourists eager to snap pictures at John Ford’s Point.
Five days a week, a young Navajo named Adrian Jackson pulls on a red shirt and cowboy hat and drives up a dirt road to John Ford’s Point in Monument Valley. Then he spends the day sitting atop a horse named Pistol, trying to look epic, meeting travelers from around the world and helping them take pictures of one another sitting atop Pistol. Navajo Adrian Jackson sits atop Pistol at John Ford’s Point. Jackson charges $5 for tourists to sit on his horse and to take pictures with a backdrop that legendary movie director John Ford used in several of his epic westerns. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times) More photos After Cly came Adrian’s grandfather, Frank Jackson, who did the job (again in red shirt) for about 40 years before his death in 2009. That’s when Albert Jackson, Adrian’s father, inherited the business and invited his son to handle the horse much of the time. Adrian Jackson, 24, didn’t always have this in mind. He went to college for a while in Phoenix to study electrical engineering. But he’s back, applying his considerable charm when a Goulding’s tour van rolls up and tourists climb out, savoring the landscape when it’s quiet. “It’s pretty cool,” he says, “when the fog comes in and starts covering the rocks.”
Often while Jackson works with the horse, his girlfriend, Myra Watchman, is nearby selling jewelry or tending to their 2-year-old daughter, Amaya. As for Pistol, 29 years old, succession plans are in place. Jackson estimates that Pistol is the fifth horse to do the job, which requires supreme
equine calm. (Much of the time, the horse stands on a narrow outcropping above a 50-foot drop, with an unskilled tourist on its back.) “After Pistol is gone, we have three horses who are going to alternate. So they won’t wear out so fast,” Jackson said. “They’re a lot of fun to train.”
39 M O N U M E N T VA L L E Y
HERE TILL NOW 40
The Chesler park trail is a loop, so you don’t go back the way you came in.
CH ESLE R PA R K , U TA H 41 C H E S L E R PA R K
The trail is 13 miles
C H E S
of year. I didn’t really like being totally isolated. no cell phone service, totally remote park, so there was no way to contact anyone except for my radio/walky-talky. I felt really isolated.
I went out to take night sky photos—this is a 13 mile loop trail. I hiked half way out and camped. I took photos at night and there was no one else. I was totally alone, but it was so beautiful and there was a beautiful sunset. The
L E R P the tip is bigger than the base. the geology just feels so foreign. I left at like 4 pm (I made a lot of stops to take a lot of pictures so it takes me a long time to do anything) and I got to the campsite around 7:30-8. It gets dark at 8:30 at that time
HERE TILL NOW
next morning I woke up and where the joint trail starts there is a really narrow trail (its a crack in the earth) and you’re enclosed on both sides by two really tall rock walls and you’re shoulder to shoulder walking through because you
A R K , can barely make it in there. I was alone and there was a pole or log in the ground connecting the drop off to get down. You kind of had to just shimmy down, but I had a 30 lb. backpack on. I had to drop my bag first and
42
U T A H THERE WAS NO WAY TO CONTACT ANYONE.
hold onto the log to slide down—luckily its a loop so i didn’t have to get back up—you get out to this beautiful landscape and you feel like you’re not even on Earth. there are these pinnacles— they look kind of like mushrooms because
C H E S L E R PA R K NEEDLES DISTRICT
U TA H
C A N YO N L A N D S N AT I O N A L PA R K + a park within the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park. All of these locations are in Utah + the Needles district is located east of the Colorado River and is named after the red and white banded rock pinnacles which dominate it + the tunnel-like structure pictured is actually a crack in the earth, and leaves little room for navigating the trail +most of the arches in the Needles district lie in back country canyons and require long hikes or four-wheel-drive trips to reach them. 43
38°10 ’ 01 ’’ N 109°45 ’ 35 ’’ W
C H E S L E R PA R K
+ The rivers within the park and the remote Maze district each only account for 3 percent of park visitation.
HIKING IN C H E S L E R PA R K CASEY SCHREINER
U TA H
HERE TILL NOW
HOW TO GET THERE This trail starts at Soda Spring just below Elephant Hill, which is almost as far west as you’ll be able to drive in the Needles District in a passenger car. From Monticello, UT, head north on US 191 for 14.4 miles and take a left onto UT-211 West. In 37.2 miles (after paying the entrance fee for the National Park), turn left and in 0.3 miles, take another right. You’ll pass the campground and head toward the Elephant Hill Access Road, a narrow and winding 3 mile dirt road that occasionally becomes a single lane. Keep your headlights on and drive slowly, watching for cars coming in the opposite direction. The road is passenger car accessible and has a parking area at Soda Springs.
44
TRAIL CONDITION Good. This is a popular route and the trails are well-worn, if not always wellsigned. However, there are lots of trail junctions and use-trails - and plenty of places where a wrong turn could get you lost. Be sure to bring a map, know the route, and pay attention on the trail.
CAMPING INFO
45 C H E S L E R PA R K
There are least six small, primitive, walk-in campgrounds along this route - and you’re within spitting distance of at least three more depending on how far you’d like to explore the Elephant Canyon region. The closest developed campground is at Squaw Flat, and is also first-come, first-served. The privately owned Needles Outpost is just outside the park’s entrance and offers reservable campgrounds along with gas, food, and showers. When I was here I used the Needles Outpost as my home base and had a very pleasant experience, although a quick search on Yelp or TripAdvisor will give you some interesting alternate experiences. If you’re in the mood for some terrain and rock formations that will make you think you’re on another planet, this loop in the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park via the Chesler Park and Joint Trails needs to go on the top of your to-hike list ASAP. This 10.4 mile loop takes you into some of the most seemingly unnavigable terrain in Canyonlands, through a series of impossibly shaped canyons surrounded by otherworldly, meltingice-cream rock formations through a broad, grassy meadow that seems to come out of nowhere … then drops
you underground into the Joint Trail, where you’ll have to squeeze through shoulder-width cracks in giant boulders. This is one of my all-time favorite trails, and I’m pretty certain the entire time I was hiking it I had a giant grin on my face. I’m willing to bet you’ll have a similar experience. The trail starts at Soda Spring at the Elephant Hill Trailhead, reached after driving over a navigable but still semi-harrowing dirt road for 3 miles. The trailhead is clearly marked, and you’ll probably hear 4WD ATVs revving their engines as they continue on the challenging drive to Devil’s Kitchen Campground. Don’t worry about noise, though – the trail and the 4WD road head off in different directions. You’ll start off on a rough dirt and slickrock trail that initially looks mostly similar to other trails in the region. But as the trail climbs and snakes through some of these rock formations, it will eventually deposit you on top of them – and that’s where you get your first idea of just how weird everything looks over here. The trail continues climbing, and by the half-mile mark you’ll see rising hulk of Elephant Hill … as well as a glimpse of the seemingly impenetrable Needles formation that you’ll be hiking right through in just a few miles.
HERE TILL NOW 46
Most of the first mile and a half of the trail is spent following a faint trail in the dirt or chasing cairns from rock to rock…with the occasional narrow staircase through some boulders thrown in for good measure. At the 1.5 mile mark, you’ll also hit your first junction with the veritable spider web of trails that criss-crosses the entire region. Stay to the right to continue hiking toward Chesler Park as the trail descends into a wash in about another half mile. Just north of this wash is the first backcountry campsite on this route (Camp EC1 – permit required), and to the south is the trail to Druid Arch, an impressive sandstone formation at the end of another narrow canyon. It’s a worthy side trip but if you head to it from here you’ll miss the entire Chesler Park section, so instead continue hiking to the west as the trail climbs back up out of the wash. The trail makes a relatively steep ascent climbing out of the wash. There are some steep drop-offs and tight switchbacks but nothing that’s inherently dangerous as long as you watch where you’re hiking. At the 2.4 mile mark, stay to the left to climb up through two large spires and venture into the Needles. This is one of the highest points on the hike, and a great place to stop
to look around at the terrain you’ve already hiked through. And finally – at the 2.5 mile mark – you’ll walk through the Needles formations and see Chesler Park for the first time – a large, broad valley filled with scrub, chaparral, and grasses and surrounded on almost every side with towering multicolored rock formations. You’ll want to take a minute to soak it all in. From here, the trail descends inside of Chesler Park and makes a clockwise route that begins by hugging the rocky northeastern perimeter of the valley. You’ll pass another backcountry camp site in this northeastern section (CP1), as well as getting to explore some cracks in the rock formations that allow you to gaze back at where you started your hike. Follow the trail as it bends to the southwest, cutting directly across the grassland. As you hike across the broad plain, be sure to look to the west where, on a clear day, you can see across the Colorado River deep into The Fins of the Maze District. From here, in the open space of Chesler Park, you’ll have some phenomenal opportunities to soak in the full beauty of the valley. At the 4 mile mark, stay to the right to hike on the Joint Trail. But if you
way – but if you take a wrong turn here you’ll hit a dead end fairly quickly. When the trail breaks free of the boulders around the 4.5 mile mark, you’ll find yourself once again meandering through the rock formations and low washes of the Needles formations. The single track eventually turns into a broad, very rough 4WD road and at the 5.84 mark you’ll reach a small picnic area along the 4WD road. It has a bit of shade, some picnic tables, and an outhouse, and makes for a nice break before continuing the Chesler Park Loop. The trail leaves the 4WD road just 0.4 miles after the picnic area, at which point you’ll find yourself climbing and walking across the slickrock bottoms of the rock formations that make the northern boundary of Chesler. Just before the 6.5 mile mark, ignore the trail to Devil’s Kitchen Camp and stay to the right to continue back toward Elephant Hill. You’ll gain a fair amount of elevation on the return as you clamor up, over, and through the Needles – but it’s not terribly difficult and, as you’ve noticed by now, the scenery is phenomenal. At the 7.7 mile mark you’ll rejoin the northern end of the Chesler Park Loop. Return back through the saddle and stay on the Chesler Park Trail on your way back to the trailhead.
47 C H E S L E R PA R K
were looking for a side trip to Druid Arch, this is the place to take it – but be warned, backtracking back to the Joint Trail would be a 5 mile round trip. It’s more realistic, I think, to do the Joint Trail and Druid Arch as separate trips – or from a base camp inside Chesler Park. Back to the Joint – the Joint is an incredibly fun mile and a half stretch of trail that descends below Chesler Park and squeezes its way through enormous boulders – sometimes only with a shoulder’s width between them. It’s one of the best trails in the entire Park, and one of the best things about it is you can’t even see it until you’re right on top of it. Once you get inside the Joint Trail, this hike becomes an entirely different experience. The strange multicolored rocks and wide open vistas of canyons and mesas all fade away into the distance as you descend into a few-foot wide crack between two giant boulders. You’ll walk along the sandy bottom here – occasionally climbing down some short wooden ladders or scrambling around boulder formations. The width of the Joint Trail is variable – sometimes it feels like you’re in a giant cave, while other times you’ll have to shimmy sideways to continue on the trail. Keep an eye out for cairns marking the proper path along the
G O O D 足B Y E
Hardcover perfect binding by Courtney Podgorski.
Printed in the Digitial Output Lab at the Art + Design Building of the University of Illinois.
Typeset in Stevie Sans Book, Stevie Sans Bold, and Josefin Sans Bold.
Designed and curated by Courtney Podgorski, a graphic design student at the University of Illinois.