Three days on Public Lands: Kodachrome Basin, Lower Calf Creek Falls, Boulder Mountain and Capitol Reef.

In a season of disrespect, defunding, and outright selling of public lands, I offer this homage to three wonderful days of exploring the beautiful public lands of Southern Utah. May they ever be protected and cared for. 

I started my three-day trip at the tail end of a two-day rainstorm. By the time I arrived in Kodachrome Basin State Park to the southeast of Bryce Canyon National Park, the storms had subsided, and I was greeted with a cool, cloudy day perfect for a few hours of hiking. Sad to say for this Utah native, but this was my first time visiting. I'm glad I finally came. 

The name of the state park has always intrigued me. When I set off for my Mormon mission to Indonesia in 1975 my dad outfitted me with a Pentax camera and rolls and rolls of 36 exposures Kodak Kodachrome slide film. Dad told me that it had the best and longest lasting color. He was right. I used Kodachrome slide film almost exclusively until digital photography arrive. Many of the slides from Indonesia and my other travels were used year after year in my geography class slide shows and the vibrant, realistic colors never faded. 

From a Wikipedia article of Kodachrome Basin:

In 1948 the National Geographic Society explored and photographed the area for a story that appeared in the September 1949 issue of National Geographic. They named the area Kodachrome Flat, after the brand of Kodak film known for its vibrant color rendition.^[6] In 1962 the area was designated a state park. Fearing repercussions from the Kodak film company for using the name Kodachrome, the name was changed to Chimney Rock State Park, but renamed Kodachrome Basin a few years later with Kodak's permission.^[6]

I first hiked the panorama Trail loop including the Secret Passage and Panorama Point. Second hike was Angel's Palace. 

Look like handprints in playdough, but it's carved into hard sandstone. 

Ballerina Spire

Hat Shop

Secret Passage

View from Panorama point eastward. 

View from Panorama point westward towards Bryce Canyon.

Narrow end of a trail. 

I had hoped to drive out to see Grosvenor Arch, but the nice ranger in the state park advised against it explaining that with the recent rains the soft clay and sandy road would be treacherous, and I would more than likely get stuck.  Stayed the night in Escalante.

 One of my favorite drives is Highway 12 from Bryce Canyon to Capitol Reef.

Much of that road traverses Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (established 1996). A few years ago, on a family outing we hiked to the upper falls on Calf Creek just off Highway 12 between Escalante and Boulder https://beitemmett.blogspot.com/2020/07/roads-less-travelled-by-upper-calf.html. For this trip I decided to hike to the more popular lower falls on Calf Creek. It was a spectacular hike. 

It was a six-mile round trip hike along the flowing stream of Calf Creek. Along the way there were pictographs, hill side granaries and bever ponds to be seen. As I walked, I talked with people from points all over: two groups from Australia, plus folks from Washington, North Dakota, Virginia and New Jersey. I was one of the first cars in the parking lot when I arrived around 8:30 but it was overflowing four hours later when I returned. 

Once under the supervision of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), now a part of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. 

Calf Creek dropping out of the north into the wider Escalante River valley. 

A beaver dam

A beaver lodge?

Pictograph of three beings.

They are in the bottom center of the large smooth rock face.

More beaver dams and ponds. 

Lots of swallows and fish feeding on flying insects. 

Gambel Oak

Beautiful cliff faces streaked with desert varnish.

 A fish

Lower Calf Creek Falls

It was cold water. 

I've always been a big fan of plaid (gotta be my Scottish roots showing), but I have never considered that plaid might be nature-made too. The coming together of the horizontal and vertical stripes makes a striking southern Utah plaid. 

Trees trying it too. 

Still no beavers to be seen.

Pictographs with a little less shade.

More desert varnish plaid.

Somewhere on this cliff face are several granaries of the Fremont culture. 

Next time I'll bring binoculars to see if I can spot them. 

Baby gambel oak acorns. 

Looking down into Calf Creek Canyon from the heights of Highway 12. 

Looking north across the farms and fields of Boulder to snowcapped Boulder Mountain. The drive up and over Boulder Mountain to Torrey and Capitol Reef travels through some amazing Aspen forests. 

This 1983 map shows Dixie National Forest land in Green, BLM land in yellow (much of which is now GSENM), Capitol Reef NP is purple, white is private lands--mostly small agricultural towns like Escalante and Boulder in the lower right quadrant. These towns once relied more on forestry, ranching and resource extraction, but now are more tourism based. The blue is state land--mostly the scattered squares of school trust lands. When Grand Staircase was created school lands within the protected area were exchanged for federal lands (national forest and BLM lands) elsewhere making more concentrated parcels of school trust lands to the north and west of Dixie National Forest. 

Highway 12 over Boulder Mt can be seen running north to south on the eastern/right side of Dixie National Forest between the white colored areas of Boulder (center right) and Torrey (top right)

Views from and on Bouder Mt. 

Once in Capitol Reef I headed to the Gifford House but they were sold out of pies. Instead, I walked past the remnant orchards and trees from the early Mormon settlement of Fruita along the Fremont River trail and up to a lookout point. 

Fremont River

  

Looking northward from the trail end back to the orchards and park center at Fruita.

After a night in nearby Bicknell, I drove back to the park and up the Grand Wash to the trail head parking for my morning hikes up to Cassidy Arch and then up the Grand Wash to the Narrows



The Grand Wash, still in shade. 

It was a steep rocky climb up out of the wash to the upper shelf where Cassidy Arch was located. 

Thanks to the many national park employees who maintain such a nice trail with impressive stair work.

The trail follows the shelf about mid way up the face on the left. 

I got a spot in the trail head parking lot. Two hours later and cars were parked all along the road

First view of the arch--top right corner.

The only way to get to the base of the arch is to repel down. Most people like me chose to just walk out on the top.

The arch is on the left face of the big red sandstone field in the center of the photo. 

Steps in stone. 

Cassidy Arch. 

More from Wikipedia: Cassidy Arch is named after local railroad bandit Butch Cassidy, who reportedly had a hideout in nearby Grand Wash Canyon while on the run.

Glad to have my hiking poles to help spare my knees on the steep hike down via well-made and cared for stairs and trails. 

Three miles round trip from the turn off in Grand Wash. 

I surprised myself and still had enough get-up-and-go to hike furthur into the Grand Wash. It was about a mile to the narrows where I turned around. Our family hiked into Grand Wash from the other end on Highway 24 to near the beginning of the narrows on our pandemic road trip but turned back before getting to the Narrows because of a rainstorm. 

Lunching squirrel. 

I lunched in the shade of this overhang. 

The Narrows. 

Cassidy Arch from the Grand Wash Road. 

Information about uranium mining in the Capitol Reef area and questioning the need to extract resources from such a beautiful landscape. This issue tied in nicely to an amazing book I had been listening to as I drove and hiked. 

Here is a summary from the publisher:

In May 2016, Fort McMurray, the hub of Canada’s oil industry and America’s biggest foreign supplier, was overrun by wildfire. The multi-billion-dollar disaster melted vehicles, turned entire neighborhoods into firebombs, and drove 88,000 people from their homes in a single afternoon. Through the lens of this apocalyptic conflagration—the wildfire equivalent of Hurricane Katrina—John Vaillant warns that this was not a unique event, but a shocking preview of what we must prepare for in a hotter, more flammable world.

Fire has been a partner in our evolution for hundreds of millennia, shaping culture, civilization, and, very likely, our brains. Fire has enabled us to cook our food, defend and heat our homes, and power the machines that drive our titanic economy. Yet this volatile energy source has always threatened to elude our control, and in our new age of intensifying climate change, we are seeing its destructive power unleashed in previously unimaginable ways.

With masterly prose and a cinematic eye, Vaillant takes us on a riveting journey through the intertwined histories of North America’s oil industry and the birth of climate science, to the unprecedented devastation wrought by modern forest fires, and into lives forever changed by these disasters. John Vaillant’s urgent work is a book for—and from—our new century of fire, which has only just begun.

As I hiked along Calf Creek and up to Cassidy Arch and drove over Boulder Mountain, I couldn't help but think about how the extraction and use of resources, primarily fossil fuels, has changed our world for both our betterment (think rare metals for our cel phones or gas for our cars) and to our detriment (think global warming and hotter and bigger fires that have wiped out Fort McMurray, Lahaina and Palisades). I also thought about recent efforts to defund National Parks and to fire their guardians, about executive orders rolling back environmental protections, and about legislation seeking to sell off public lands. It all saddened me, not just because I fear that the beauty I experienced over three days in Southern Utah may not remain protected and may not survive ever increasing climate volatility, but because we (collectively as humans) don't care enough about this world to treat it and us better. 

I finished my stay in Capitol Reef with a stop at the Gifford House for some homemade Strawberry Rhubarb pie. And a bottle of cherry jam to take home. 

The world will have some hell fire days ahead, but in the meantime, I'll at least enjoy some homemade pie and wading in the cold water of a red rock stream. I'll also work to save public lands and to do my part in stemming global warming. 

Out with a Bang

My first night of driving Uber was on Sunday June 2--the last and most festive day of Utah Pride. My lifelong friend Steve had recruited me to try Ubering for a promotion that would give him a bonus. My winter part time gigs of lift operating at Deer Vally and being reminded that I really don't like substitute teaching at the junior high level had all ended, so a summer job of Uber driving seemed worth doing. 

As I headed out that evening for a few hours I found that most of my passengers were car fulls of young revelers headed out to an evening of gay bar hopping. I had some fun conversations. "I'm a recently out gay man and have never been to Pride." I got lots of return love and support. I didn't go to any gay bars, but I felt like I was participating in Pride in my own little way--shuttling others in safety to and from bars--and gay bars to boot (who knew Salt Lake had so many!)

In the ensuing months, I have enjoyed going out a few evenings a week and driving. I've explored all corners of Salt Lake Valley and beyond and have met some wonderful and interesting people in the process. Early on, I twice had supportive conversations that lingered at the drop of point with two other recently divorced fathers, who, like I had been the year before, were now dealing with the frustration and sadness of being separated from their teenage sons. I've retraced my path to return phones left on the back seat. I've consoled a woman who had recently lost her mother, I've delivered late night limited speakers of English (mostly Spanish) but also refugees from Africa (surprised that I knew where Rwanda was), the Middle East and Asia to and from night shifts in large warehouses on the west side and service jobs on the east side. 

I didn't drive Uber much in December. Mid-month I was hit with a weird bout of some undiagnosed malady that left me shivering and aching in St. Mark's hospital for a few days. It's taken a few weeks to finally feel close to normal again. And so, I decided to drive again, on New Year's Eve. There was promise of extra earnings and I had no other place to be. 

I started about 6:00 and all of the early riders were happy and pleasant. I didn't plan to drive after midnight for fear of what they may become. Some were heading home from work, some from buying party refreshments and some going to early parties. I picked up one man in West Jordan. "Headed any place fun?" I asked. "To a friend's [in Sandy]. He called and neither of us had plans so I said I had an unopened bottle of Christmas whiskey and some fireworks, so we are now partying." Along the way we chatted. 

Me: "I grew up in Logan" 

Him: "Know any Wallises?"

"Yes, a friend Scott."

"How about a dentist Jerry Wallis--He's my grandpa." 

"Sure I know who he is. He was a friend of my dad's. 

"He's 93 and sells fly fishing equipment at Al's Sporting Goods."

"I know Al's. Shopped there since I was a kid"

"Yeah we own a hunting lodge in Bear Lake with its owner Chris Larsen"

"I went to school with his older brother Jeff.:

Small world.

Two bedazzled twenty something social media wannabes rode from central Salt Lake City to a party in Mill Creek. They sat in the back. In the rear-view mirror, I could see the glow of their phone screens on their faces as they mouthed words to songs as they filmed and then edited snippets which I heard were to be posted on Tic Toc. I jokingly told them that there was an extra fee for filming in Ubers and they fell for it. Should have collected an extra $5, but I told them I was just kidding. Don't know if I got a tip from them. 

After dropping off the lip singing influencers, I took a pit stop at my home in South Salt Lake. There I added a Be Real post (so the kids can see I'm up and well) to document the midpoint of the evening. I then pulled out my bag of Trader Joe's snacks (chocolate cinnamon bears and maple flavored kettle corn) and headed out. Near downtown I took an only Spanish speaking young man on a two-stop run to get cash from a friend and then two cases of bottled water from 7-Eleven. Maria, who requested the ride, sent a voice and text message telling me what her friend needed to do. Initially I thought I would need to call Will or Sarah to interpret the 7-Eleven shopping instructions for my rider, but then I hit that translate button on the Uber app and he could read in Spanish what he needed to do. 

Dropped two men off for an evening of bowling and beer. 

Picked up four twentysomethings in West Valley for a ride to a downtown concert venue. While driving my friend Steve called. Earlier in the day he had texted me wanting to stay the night after he attended a family party in Bountiful. I said sure. I texted him to let him know that whenever he was done to text me back and I would head home and meet him. He called instead at about 11:15. 

"Where are you."

"Headed downtown for a dropoff. Then I can head for home."

"Meet me at this address---"

"What's that?" I asked.

"A Gay Bar" he said excitedly (Steve came out decades before me. He has assumed the role of trying to help me navigate gay life. Sometimes his help is appreciated)

I think. I've been driving Uber for over five hours. This was not part of my plan. I've yet to go to a gay bar. I have no desire to go to a gay bar. I really don't like the limited amounts of alcohol I've tried in the past year. I just want to go home.

"I have no interest in going to a Gay Bar tonight" I said

Steve didn't push it. He just texted me the address if I wanted to meet him there. 

The four passengers overheard my side of the conversation and thought I should go have fun. I explained that I was recently out as gay and had been an alcohol abstaining Mormon for decades and was not quite ready for a gay, or any bar, on New Years Eve. They understood. They were also interested in the back story of why I would be thinking of going to a gay bar for the first time at such an old age. I've had similar conversations with others. It usually starts with: "I'm driving Uber now as a part time gig after retiring early from BYU." Occasionally that leads to: "Why early?" Which leads me to: "It was not a good place mentally for a closeted gay man." Which then has led to some very interesting Uber conversations. Most of which find me rolling along with kind souls who offer understanding and support. 

I dropped this nice group off west of Gateway. My next pickup was near the Delta Center. Close by but road closures and traffic congestion made for a complicated pick up. I finally called them and we found a better pick-up place. They were a young couple from Texas in town for a convention of university Catholics that started at the Delta Center in the morning. They have created a Catholic dating app that puts people into real time conversations. They were presenting the app to college Catholics in downtown Salt Lake City on New Years Day. 

As I was maneuvering to the meeting point, I remember thinking that all of a sudden Salt Lake was feeling like Chicago or New York with steam rising out through the manhole covers. As I headed south on 300 West, the steam persisted to float up around my car. Then a helpful man hanging out from his slowed down jeep pointed at my car and mouthed something like; "there's a fire!" 

Duh! It's not the manholes. It my nine-and-a half-year-old Subaru with nearly 200,00 miles! I pulled over. The Texan and I got out. Steaming it was. I popped the hood. He soon noticed the radiator rubber pipe had split wide open--perhaps with an unheard bang. Radiator fluid covered much of the hot engine and that was the cause of the steam. They were still a few miles from their hotel. I thought to drive on, but they had no desire to get in my steam wagon so we cancelled their ride and another Uber came for them. He suggested it might not be wise to drive. That seemed right to me, so I called a few tow trucks at 11:30 PM on New Years Eve. No luck. Obviously. 

I then thought to park my car in the back of the Street Taco place where I had pulled over and call Steve at the bar for a ride, I hated to interrupt his revelry. He does like his cocktails. He introduced me to my first Cosmopolitan last year (expensive fruit juice!). 

Then Steve called me. He couldn't find his wallet and he didn't have the $5 cover to enter the bar. He wouldn't be staying at my place and was now heading home to Logan to see where his wallet was. I told him my dilemma and he offered to come get me. By then the steam had subsided, and I decided to chance it and drive slowly to my place which is located just behind Mark Miller Midtown Subaru where I can get it fixed Thursday. I stopped halfway home for the engine to cool down when the steam started up again and then drove the second stretch with no incident other than a little more steam. Got home just in time to see the ball drop. 

And so my year ends. 2024, like all years, has had its highs and lows. Sadly, some days the lows seem to be winning, both in South Salt Lake and worldwide. But on we go: taking our medicine, getting cars serviced, working new jobs; and decrying genocide and war, resisting authoritarianism and seeking to overcome political craziness. Here's to a happier, healthier, kinder and more peaceful 2025.