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.
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