Nine Mile Canyon

I got up early the morning we were going to Nine Mile Canyon. I was savoring my coffee and reading the news, when I looked out and saw some heavy clouds. I decided I had better check the weather. I had checked the night before, and it had looked good. When I checked again, there was a forecast for heavy rain and thunderstorms in Price. I decided we better start early. Although the road is now paved through Nine Mile Canyon, I wasn't sure what the road conditions might be like or if the road is impassable at times. I went and woke Greg up. We packed up our picnic lunch, loaded the dogs in the truck, and set off for our adventure.

When we got to Price, it was raining steadily. I was still nervous about how the road might be through the canyon. All the info I researched ahead of time said that the road was very difficult when it was wet. I figured we could risk driving out to the canyon, since we knew it was now paved. The mountains were shrouded in rain as we approached the canyon.



We could see a glimmering of blue sky to the east, so we were hopeful that the rain would ease up as we continued into the canyon. After all, there is over 40 miles of canyon, so there was a good chance we would drive out of the rain. The rain lessened as we entered the canyon, which was good, because it made it easier to see landmarks and the scenery.



It is a 27 mile drive from Wellington, where you turn off the highway, to the first major panel of petroglyphs.  After that, it is 20+ miles of wonder and discovery. The first panel of petroglyphs has been heavily visited. There is a lot of scratching and graffiti. We spent a lot of time looking at these, because we had no idea how many more petroglyphs there were to see.









One of the amazing things about the canyon besides the sheer number of petroglyphs, is that you are allowed to approach the petroglyphs. This is a good and bad thing, in my mind. I love to be able to approach the petroglyphs and study them up close. But, people have abused this over the decades, and scratched and defaced some of the petroglyphs. It was especially obvious at the beginning of the canyon. The 30 miles of dirt road discouraged most people from venturing too far. Or maybe it discouraged the types of people who would deface ancient art.

Greg inspecting a group of petroglyphs higher on the cliff face at the first panel



Many of the petroglyph panels are right off the road and easy to access.







Pig Head Rock, the next panel we visited was right next to this landmark.



This panel contains the famous Juggler or Balloon Man







Sadly, there is also evidence of vandalism here. Besides the pockmarks left by bullets, the light colored square on the left of the picture is where someone removed a petroglyph. We could see the chisel marks in the rock. There is also graffiti in the upper right.



The sun came out and it warmed up as we continued to explore the canyon.  There are thousands of panels in the canyon, and we saw a fraction of what is there. You feel like if you take a hike up one of the side canyons, you just may find a petroglyph that no one has seen for hundreds of years.

Greg demonstrating the proper "point but don't touch" technique



There were so many petroglyphs to see









The road through the canyon was built by the Buffalo Soldiers (Ninth Calvary) in 1886. For a time, it was a heavily traveled road, and the main route for the stage and mail. The road runs between Wellington and Myton (if you take Gate Canyon out), and there are visible remnants of the original road in Gate Canyon. There are lots of old buildings in the canyon, including the ghost town of Harper, and old stage coach stations. We did not stop at any of these, but we will in future visits.

Looking east into Nine Mile Canyon



There are also pictographs in Nine Mile Canyon. Pictographs are painted on the rock instead of carved, like petroglyphs. Some of the easiest to access are at Rasmussen's Cave, which is more of a deep recess in the canyon wall than a cave.







I am not sure why this was necessary. It certainly marred one of the best pictographs in the cave.



There are also petroglyphs in the cave. The depressions in the stone at the bottom of the picture are where corn was ground.



There are also lots of ancient Fremont ruins in the canyon, including pit houses, watchtowers, and granaries. These are very difficult to see if you don't know what you are looking for and we didn't. Were we actually seeing what was described in the guides, or were we only looking at a natural tumble of rocks? We spotted one granary high on the canyon wall, but we weren't sure about the watchtowers we were supposed to be seeing. Luckily, the online guide from Climb-Utah.com gives a good description of where and what to look for, as does BLM's online guide. We stopped at the Fremont village at the entrance to Cottonwood Canyon, where the descriptions in the guides made the ruins obvious even to our inexperienced eyes.

Greg standing at the remains of a pit house. All that remains is a ring of rocks. The ledge across the canyon also has some structures.



One of the structures on the ledge (to the left of the red striped boulder). With binoculars you can see how the rocks are chinked together with clay.



The next panel of petroglyphs we visited was the Great Hunt Scene. This is the most famous panel in the canyon. It is the also the only place in the canyon where we ran into a lot of people. It was Labor Day weekend, but we had only run into about 10 people the whole day, and never at one time. We ended up passing the same people throughout the day here and there throughout the canyon. There was a large group of 30 or so who were traveling together at the Great Hunt Scene. It's hard to miss a convoy of 3 pick ups, especially when one of the trucks had about 9 kids in the back. We didn't see them anywhere else in the canyon, and wondered if they had driven out just to see this panel.

The Great Hunt







We left fairly quickly to escape the crowd (and the little boys who thought it was fun to tease our dogs waiting in the truck by barking at them). On our way out of Cottonwood Canyon, we saw a sign that said "Big Buffalo Petroglyph". We pulled over, but the petroglyphs were not visible from the road. We decided to go ahead and hike over to the canyon wall. We were very glad we did. It was one of the best panels we had seen all day, and we had it to ourselves.















We decided to end our visit with this panel. The sky was darkening again, and we were planning to leave by Gate Canyon, which is an unpaved road. We didn't want to risk any flooding if it started to rain. It was a long day, but well worth it. We are determined to return and stay longer. There is so much  more to see, and so much that we missed.

If you decide to visit the canyon, go prepared. There is no water available and no cell service. The road is paved, but there is still the possibility the road could be impassable due to flooding if there is heavy rain.  Since the road was recently paved, it can be difficult to find places to turn out. The guides aren't completely accurate anymore, some of the landmarks have shifted, and some signs are missing due to the paving. There is a lot of gas and oil exploration and drilling happening in the area, and there is the potential for large trucks on the road in the canyon. Take more time to visit the petroglyphs that are farther in the canyon. We found those to be less marred by graffiti. Bring binoculars. There are lots of petroglyphs visible from the road, and the binoculars make it much easier to see and find them. There is a lot of private property in the canyon, so obey all the posted signs. There is no camping in the canyon, but Nine Mile Ranch has accommodations and campsites, and it is pet friendly. Our plan is to stay there next time.

The petroglyphs tell a story, even if we no longer know what that original story or meaning was. It is still possible to sit and ponder these works of art and story telling in relative silence and solitude.  Nine Mile Canyon is a national treasure. If it was anywhere else in the country, it would probably be a national park or monument, but Utah has so many of these places, this one does not have any special protection. Whether it should have more protection or not and how to do it is a whole other post (or even blog).  Regardless, everyone who can should see this place. It is best experienced in person. Go visit it and be amazed.

Nine Mile Canyon planning

After my impromptu trips to Bryce Canyon National Park and Capitol Reef National Park, I really wanted Greg and I to visit some of the wonders of Utah together.  We have 3 big dogs, however, and that can make it difficult to plan simple overnight trips. So I started looking for day trips we could take with the dogs in tow. After seeing the petroglyphs in Capitol Reef, one of the possibilities I was considering was Nine Mile Canyon, but I wasn't sure it could be done in a day. Luckily, one of my colleagues mentioned that she and her husband had just visited the canyon with their dog. She told me that the road through the canyon had been completely paved, making the trip easier. Most importantly, she told me that the trip to the canyon could be done in one day, albeit a long day. I texted Greg to tell him I had plans for our Labor Day weekend.

Since he was agreeable, I started researching Nine Mile Canyon to plan our trip. I like to do a lot of research before visiting someplace new, so I don't miss anything important. I find that I enjoy my visit more if I research an area before I go. The research lets me know what to see, so I miss less when I am there. It also lets me see a place more in the context of its history. I always learn interesting facts which snap into place when I see and experience a place in person. Greg would probably say that my research is an indication about how obsessive I am about planning.

I knew very little about the canyon, except what I had read in a few of my Utah books, and what my co-workers who had visited had told me. I knew there was lots of ancient rock art to see, the canyon is known as the "World's Longest Art Gallery", and that the canyon was remote. Although it is called Nine Mile Canyon, it is actually over 40 miles long. Surprisingly, there wasn't a lot of detailed information online. I tried to find a hardcopy guidebook to the canyon instead. As famous as everyone said the canyon is, there had to be guidebooks. There wasn't. A couple of books and a couple of self-published brochures was all. The book with the most details and best reviews was out of print. Although it was available through a few sellers, I did not purchase a copy because there was not time to have it shipped before the weekend. There are probably copies available at the local visitor centers in Price, but we were going to go on Sunday, and I wasn't sure they would be open (they weren't). I have become used to having most information available online, but there just isn't much on Nine Mile, except for a couple of websites.

The websites with good information on where to see the petroglyphs were BLM's site (http://www.blm.gov/ut/st/en/fo/price/recreation/9mile.html), Castle County's site (http://www.castlecountry.com/Free-Map), and Climb Utah's site (http://www.climb-utah.com/Misc/ninemile.htm). Climb Utah actually ended up having the best information for us, although we supplemented it with BLM's info from their self-guided tour. Castle County's information would have been good as well, but it was available online only in a full color pdf to print, and our printer was out of color ink (which I discovered too late in the evening to get more ink cartridges).

Climb Utah's online guide and BLM's online guide both list the sites by mileage. You zero your odometer at the canyon's mouth, and then stop at the various mileage marks to see the petroglyphs, ghost towns, and Fremont ruins.  Perfect and easy. Less than 24 hours before we were going to leave, I remembered something important. The odometer on Greg's truck doesn't always work. There is a short in it somewhere, so that it does not always display. How were we going to know where to stop in the canyon, if the odometer went glitchy on us while we were there?

Luckily, Climb Utah's guide also included GPS coordinates along with the mileage. I would just have to enter the waypoints into a GPS unit. Both Greg and I have GPS units, so it shouldn't be an issue. I wasn't sure where mine was. I hadn't used it since my trip to Alaska in 2004, and I had moved over three times since then. I remembered exactly where it was three moves ago, but I had no idea where it is now. I was hopeful Greg knew where his was. When I asked, he had no idea where his GPS unit was either. We spent the afternoon tearing through all our camping and fishing gear trying to find one of the GPS units. We found a lot of other stuff we had forgotten about, but no GPS units.

I was getting frantic. I was worried that we would miss a lot of petroglyphs without some sort of way of knowing how far into the canyon we were. From what I had read, it appeared a lot of the petroglyph panels and Fremont ruins were somewhat difficult to find. I had no idea how well marked they were in the canyon, or if they were even marked.

We debated about whether we should purchase another GPS unit. Both of ours are over 10 years old, but we just don't use them as often as we did because of our smart phones. On the other hand, we spend a fair bit of time in areas without cell service. I would also likely use it as a backup when I am in remote areas for work. I have my SPOT satellite communicator, which records my GPS location, but the unit itself does not have a display to tell me where I am. We decided to go ahead and get one. I told Greg that after we purchased a new unit, we would undoubtedly find our old units after the trip.

So I found myself driving to REI a couple of hours before it closed to pick up a new GPS unit. I then spent the most of the evening trying to figure out the new unit, and how to put in waypoints. There was no easy way that I could find on such short notice, so I ended up spending a couple of hours manually entering close to 40 GPS waypoints.

In the end, it was well worth the time and effort. A good friend always emphasizes the importance of the 7P's (Proper Prior Planning Prevents P*ss Poor Performance). It is a concept I agree with, especially when traveling in remote areas. In this case, it made a huge difference to our trip and our enjoyment of the canyon.

UPDATE: While writing this post, I suddenly remembered where my GPS unit was. I went upstairs and looked in my electronics bin stored in my closet. Sure enough, there it was.

Impromptu trips to Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef National Parks

Twelve hours after we returned from our Greys River trip, I had to go to southern Utah for work. I was grumbly at 5am the next morning as I got in my truck to leave. I couldn't figure out what I was thinking scheduling something like this so soon after I returned from my relaxing weekend. But sometimes we think more about being good soldiers than we do about consequences. Nonetheless, I was committed and so departed early.

One advantage of starting work really early, is that you get done early in the day. And was I ever glad that I was done with work early. I knew I was going to be near some epic southern Utah country for the first time, but I didn't realize that I would be driving right through it. I would be traveling on Highway 12, one of the most scenic roads in Utah, on the way to my next destination. Once I hit Red Canyon, I knew I had to slow it down and take the time to sightsee. There was going to have to be some impromptu side trips.

Red Canyon



I knew I would be driving by Bryce Canyon National Park. I debated whether I should stop or not. I decided that I should not miss the opportunity to see Bryce Canyon. You never know when the next chance there will be, if ever, to see a place. So I turned off of Highway 12 to visit the park.

Bryce Canyon NP entrance



I also decided when I was there to get my Interagency Annual Pass, also know as America the Beautiful--The National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass. The pass covers entrance fees at National Parks and other Federal recreational sites (National Wildlife Refuges, National Forests, BLM, etc.) It is worth the $80--visit just 4 National Parks in a year and it will pay for itself.

After I arrived in the park, I decided to park and take advantage of the shuttle bus to see the most popular sites. Since this was a quick, impromptu trip, I did not have a lot of time. The signs at the entrance kiosk also indicated that many of the parking lots were already full, and I did not want to spend what little time I had trying to find parking.

I hopped on a shuttle bus at the Visitor Center, and headed to Bryce Point, the first stop. Even before you get off the bus, the views are jaw dropping. The further you walk out to the point, the more impressive the views become. Unlike the Grand Canyon, with its sweeping vistas, Bryce Canyon is immediate. The odd shapes and brilliant colors bombard you with their proximity.









It was crowded there, but everyone was really nice and happy to be there, including me.





The altitude can be deceiving. I was surprised it was as high as it was. Good thing I was prepared with water and sunscreen.



Bristlecones!!! One of my favorite trees resides in Bryce. I love how the gnarled wood evokes the gnarled stone.



From Bryce Point, I took the shuttle to Inspiration Point. The shuttle bus driver mentioned that it was a one and a half mile easy downhill hike to Sunset Point, and that the shuttle could be caught there as well. That was all the arm twisting I needed to get out and do some hiking around the rim of the canyon. I did not bother going to the overlooks at Inspiration Point, I just started down the trail knowing there would be plenty of overlooks with fewer crowds. I was not disappointed.
















I reached Sunset Point, and I thought hard about taking one of the trails down into the canyon. I really wanted to walk among the hoodoos. However, I still had a bit of driving to do to reach Escalante, where I was staying that night, and my camera batteries were dead. More importantly, my footwear wasn't really up to any serious hiking. Next time I am wearing hiking boots instead of sandals. Reluctantly, I hopped on the shuttle back to the Visitor Center. I felt I barely saw anything at Bryce Canyon in the few hours I was there, but what I saw was amazing. I know I want to return.

The next day, I worked in the morning near Escalante, and then it was time to drive home. After I had so much fun at Bryce Canyon NP, I wanted to stop at Capitol Reef NP. But Capitol Reef was a bit further out of my way. On the drive, I again debated about whether or not to stop.  As I approached Torrey, I decided that I would at least drive to the park entrance. Otherwise, I would wonder what I had missed.

As I approached the park entrance and saw the mileage markers, I decided that I should just go ahead and do a quick drive through the park. I had less time today, because I was expected to be back at a certain time, but I figured I could and should spend my lunch hour exploring Capitol Reef. The lighting wasn't very good for photos, but I got a few. I enjoyed my hour in the park. Unless you take the scenic drive (I didn't have the time), the park is free to drive through.




I took the following two pictures with the True HDR app on my iPhone. The app really worked well in the tough light.





Near Fruita



Petroglyphs





Reluctantly heading out of the park




I started my long drive home. I was really happy that I had taken a few hours to see both parks while I was there. Even short visits to some places are worthwhile, and these places touch the soul even during a brief visit.