It sometimes feels odd to be so far from home and yet find yourself in the familiar. When I was in this area last year, Moab was where I went to church. St. Pius X is the only Catholic Church in this part of Utah. I was happy to be spending Palm Sunday in a church that felt familiar. The priest and the worship space were familiar, but it ended there. At home, being a member of a largely Hispanic church, I’m used to a certain “atmosphere” that comes from the way the beginning of Holy Week is celebrated, as only Hispanics can. Palm Sunday at St. Pius is quite different. It was virtually impossible to distinguish the visitors from the regulars. That’s not usually the case when you visit other churches. I didn’t see a single person that I would describe as dressed up. Not that that’s necessary, it’s just the more common place. Especially on this day. I could pick out lots of people with “camping hair”, and I could smell wood smoke. Familiar, yet unfamiliar. None of this is meant as complaint or criticism. Merely some feelings and observations about my Palm Sunday experience.

And this is what I’ve been meditating about during Holy Week;

Palm Sunday begins a week during which Christians world wide go from joy, to sorrow, and back to joy. And along the way, it is incomparable in the range of emotions and the variety of elements of the human condition that it contains. Rejoicing and conspiring. Community, betrayal, service, denial, guilt, suicide, brutal, brutal, brutal, punishment and execution. Love, pity, sympathy, empathy, jealousy, surprise, doubt, faith, and we can’t forget, sacrifice.   There’s more I’m sure, but it’s all there. In one week. Is it any wonder we want to do all of that in familiar surroundings. When I put it that way, I miss my home church. 🙂

When I leave Moab, I’m heading to Durango, CO. I’m doing that for two reasons. One is, I love Durango. Some of you might remember that from last year. But it also has a church, (St. Columba’s), that I like and am familiar with. If I can’t be home, it feels like the best choice I can make as a place to journey the Triduum.

After that, I am going to mosey east on the trail back to MN. I am well and hope you all are too.

The Colorado River Canyon that runs east out of Moab is a great place to explore on the bike and in a vehicle as well. I didn’t find myself taking very many pictures while here this year. I feel like I blanketed the area photographically last year, and with my most recent photos from Cathedral Canyon, well, I guess I think you guys can take just so many pictures of rocks.

So, these last two; I was in this cut, and there was streaming sunlight that I was trying to capture.  Here are a couple of different light exposures of the same shot.  Sorry, it was better with the naked eye.  Ya shoulda been there. 🙂

Negro Bill Canyon is a great hike that’s moderate to difficult. It’s a good workout. William Grandstaff, the legendary Negro Bill, of mixed race, was one of the first non Native Americans to settle in the Moab area. In 1877 he staked a claim in his canyon to raise a small herd of cattle and to prospect. His reclusiveness fueled a lot of colorful stories about where he came from and his life here in the Moab Valley. He had a “business partner” history only knows as Frenchie, a Canadian fur trapper. His time in his canyon was short lived though. He was accused of selling liquor to the Indians. His guilt or innocence was never determined because Bill, figuring his racial heritage put him at too much of a legal disadvantage, left his beloved canyon and all of his possessions behind, and fled Moab.

As you might expect, the canyon name has not been without controversy. On maps, the canyon is still identified as Negro Bill Canyon, but the signs have been changed to read, Grandstaff Trail.

After years of haggling, and many groups weighing in, the BLM changed the signs in 2016. The new signs were promptly stolen. The controversy continues. Can you say Fighting Sioux?

I’ve written in previous posts about places I was looking forward to returning to. Moab is one of those places. Even though I did not stay in Moab last year, in my excursions to Canyon Lands and Arches, I passed through several times. I was drawn to the energy that this town exudes. This time of year, and maybe all year, Moab defines spring fever. It’s a town crazed by outdoor activities. There are three banks and fifteen bike shops. Now that’s my kind of town. So on this year’s trip I planned a week here and booked myself a spot in an RV park on the north side of town. Last year was all about the parks, this year I came to bike and just hang in Moab.

There are some distinct groups of crazies in Moab. In addition to the National Parks, the area is rich with public lands. Access to terrain that dirt bikers and ATVers love, draws them from far and wide. For those of us who prefer our bikes human powered, the area around Moab has lots of trails. While I personally do not like to bike down trails where shin guards are appropriate, the vast majority of cyclists I would say are here for the mountain bike trails. There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t see someone riding with blood on their legs or their arms, or both. While I embrace a long ride, and the occasional tough climb, that kind of biking is not my cup of tea. And my bike is not built for that. I like to come back from a good ride with all of my blood.

The last group of crazies in evidence are the Jeepers. Or Jeepsters, I don’t know. People who own Jeeps and actually take them off the pavement. Moab has a huge Jeep club and every year for the last fifty they have held the Easter Jeep Safari. People come to this event from all over the country, most of them trailering their Jeeps. Again, the terrain’s the thing. They go in groups on these daylong safari trips that seem to be social club, meets big toys, meets backcountry. They spend the day trying to get their Jeeps as dirty as possible and at the end of the day they all line up at the car wash bays and have drinks and try to get their Jeeps as clean as possible. The car washes seem to be an important social part of this whole thing, and I can just imagine the descriptions of wheelies and trail teetering that goes on. I’m guessing it’s the Jeepster version of fish stories. The variety of Jeeps and the ways they are painted, customized, and outfitted defies a sufficient narrative.

These are the people I’ve been hangin’ with for the past week and it’s been uniquely enjoyable. People from all of these groups have been camped together here, and the chats and the people watching have been so much fun.

This was a part of the trip plan that did not disappoint.

Some of you may recall that last year I wrote about the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Today I visited the Mountain Meadows. I was curious to see how the commemorating of these sites is handled. This story has a lot of dark twists and turns and maybe in the end has shown the best and worst of the Mormon Church. In my opinion, this story embodies the entire reason for separation of church and state, a principle that Utah, to this day, seems to be still working on.

I stumbled on to the story after visiting the site of Lee’s Ferry, a historic crossing point of the Colorado River. John Lee was actually sent there by the church to establish a crossing to facilitate the spread of the church into Arizona and Colorado. He was the only man ever to be held culpable for what happened in the Mountain Meadows, and was executed at the site in 1877.

If you read more about this story, the dark twists and turns of the aftermath will take you through a whole range of emotions. There have been numerous books written, and the tendrils of the aftermath stretch from The Mountain Meadows, beyond Utah, to Arkansas, California, and Arizona.

Today, there are actually three commemorative sites, all of them maintained by the church. The evolution of the three sites is a story that has only been “completed” in the last few years. There is a cemetery, where some of the bodies are interred, or more accurately re-interred, and two sites established where two mass graves were eventually discovered. The latter of these are on private land, but with cooperation from the landowners they can be visited. The two are similar and are simply called the Men’s Memorial and the Women’s Memorial. The men had been separated from the women and children, so there are actually two massacre sites. The establishment of the two was largely due to the work of a California archeologist named Everett Bassett.

I give the Mormon Church credit for it’s work in establishing and maintaining the multiple sites that tell this story.  And for calling a spade a spade at the sites themselves. But the path of this story,  from 1859 to today, is hardly a truthful one.

“The truth doesn’t have versions, Harry!”                                                         Diane Keaton to Jack Nicholson in, Something’s Gotta Give.

Today it’s overcast, cool, and windy, so a good day to catch you up on some of my exploring over the last few days.  Most of the time it’s been sunny and warm and I feel like I’ve decompressed a little since arriving in this valley.

Speaking of which, it’s calving season right now and this valley is full of new borns.  Now I don’t know much (anything) about cattle, but I’ve been watching them some through my binocs and gotten a feel for which ones are days or hours old and which have maybe a week or so on the newest ones.  One of the guys I talked to at church yesterday told me how to look for the moms that are birthing off in the brush or trees on the edges of the herd.  I took some pictures but they don’t really show anything.  Too much distance.

And speaking of church, I had another experience with a very welcoming community yesterday.  This is the only parish in Nevada that currently doesn’t have a priest so they are praying to be blessed with a new pastor.  And they aren’t meeting in the church right now because they are excavating under it to upgrade plumbing and wiring.  So Mass, when they have it once a month, is in their community center, St. Joseph’s Hall.  Joe sure has a lot of halls named after him.  Yesterday the Deacon did a Communion Service which was very nice, but the food.  Lord, the food.

As soon as the service ended the couple in front of me turned around and said, “we have breakfast, so stay, ok?”  Yah!  On the first and last Sunday of the month, (the last is when they have a priest), people bring food and the community has breakfast after their service.  There was three different egg dishes, biscuits and gravy, and a plethora of pastries.  And the person who made the coffee knew the importance of grounds in the coffee.  None of this tea like the Lutherans make. 🙂  Now, c’mon, I’m just kidding about the Lutherans, so don’t get all excited.  But seriously, this group of parishioners knew how to be welcoming, and exuded a close sense of community.  It was a wonderful morning for me.

This morning, this park is full of kids.  I can look across at the Day Area and see at least five busses.  It’s too bad they didn’t have a nicer day, but they seem to be enjoying themselves ok.  Let’s see, what else this morning?  I hear an occasional wump from over in the direction of the test range.  But it’s also pretty dark over that way so it could be just thunder.  Still, it isn’t like a rolling sound, more abbreviated.

Continuing back over the past days, on the other day it was crummy outside, I did some driving around the area.  There are a number of state parks somewhat close together here.  Echo Canyon has a medium sized reservoir as it’s main feature.  These are from the upper end of it.  I like the park I’m camped in better.

Pioche is the nearest town north of where I’m camped.  Not much happenin’ in Pioche.  Here is their local rodeo grounds though.

The hiking and biking has been good here although you’re always bucking some kind of wind.  Exploration has produced some interesting spots.

Next I’ll be heading to Moab and I’m looking forward to spending some more time there this year.  After that, depending on what the weather is doing, I’ll be looking east, picking a route, and starting to mosey towards home.

As I’m finishing this post I’m looking out at the ground covered with snow.  A dramatic turn of events.  Hmmmm, I am well and hope you all are too.

On Thursday I spent time on both the bike and on foot exploring around the park.  It was an opportunity to see up close the bluffs I had been watching in the evening light last night.

I can see him, can you?

There are a lot of places where the bold can squeeze in where they dare.  I’m working up to it. 😉

It’s like the Leggos version of Bryce Canyon.

It occurred to me while thinking about these most recent posts, that I may have lost the timeline a bit in my writing.  So to catch up on that little piece; today is Friday, the 31st.  It rained last night, but not hard, and it has been cold and overcast all day today so I’ve used “cabin time” to catch up.  I was in a good frame of mind for it.

I left Yosemite last weekend and since then have spent time in Ridgecrest and Shoshone.  On Wednesday I arrived at this nice little spot on the plateaus of eastern NV, not far from the Utah line.  The park is in the valley of a little canyon lands area.  It’s a long valley with cattle ranches and some crop circles.  So far, one warm night and day, and one cold night and day.  All of the highest peaks I can see in any direction have snow patches on them.  The next couple of days are supposed to be sunny and warm.

On Wednesday evening, after I got all set up, I sat with a cigar and watched the light play on the bluffs across the way from my site.  

If you are wondering what all the posts are about, they protect a regulation volley ball court that is strapped out on the ground.  There’s a couple of very nice handicap accessible campsites next to it.   The evening sky was also interesting.  Just to the west of here is something called the Tonopah Test Range and the Nellis Air Force Range Complex.  If you look closely you can see a number of contrails evidencing four aircraft turning in unison.  I was able to watch lots of different contrails appearing in various directions of travel.  It looked like the folks over there were testing and looking at their stuff. 🙂

It was a very nice afternoon and evening and I felt like I’d landed in a spot that I could stay at into next week if I wanted.

Death Valley didn’t do much for me. Even when I had the chance to search for some good morning or evening light shots, I couldn’t get up for it. Misfortune had struck again, which took time and money, and I was feeling disgusted.

In spite of that, if you are ever in the area, you should plan to pass through it. It very likely is like no place you’ve ever been.

I was surprised at how many cyclists I saw out in Death Valley. I guess that’s because it’s flat, there’s not much traffic, and the roads are like perfect.

This is rush hour at the main junction just west of the big D(V).

This is the Visitor’s Center at the old rusted car exhibit.  🙂  I crack myself up sometimes.  Seriously, if this looks like a bunch of porta-potties out in the middle of nowhere, that’s exactly what it is.  You just never know what you’re going to see.  You will see these along the way.  This is in Stovepipe Wells, a gas station and tourist trinkets must see.

God takes care of fools.  My flat tire was a good news/bad news thing.  The good news was I had my flat just outside Shoshone, CA, and not 40 miles out in the Valley of Death.

Cannons to the left of them, cannons to the right of them, into the Valley of Death rode the Six Hundred.  From The Charge of the Light Brigade.

And so, back to the flat.  Grateful that I was near Shoshone, but I still had to wreck the tire limping to a spot to switch it out.  Meaningful help for replacing it was thirty miles east in Pahrump, NV.  My spare, although serviceable, was not the same size as my other two tires.  Shoshone looks like a bit of an oasis when you’re coming into it,  but the sum of all the parts is one each of an RV Park, a Post Office, a gas station, (no air compressor), a bar, and a closed museum.  But my camper got dry and fixed, and I drank a couple of Death Valley Pale Ales at the local pub.  Oh, one other thing I learned about Death Valley.  It goes good with Pink Floyd music. 😉

I returned to the scene of the crime, the Motel 6 in Ridgecrest. The place where someone helped themselves to my tote of clothes. Not that I wanted to rub salt in a wound mind you, but this filled some needs. I already had their phone number, so it was easy to arrange. Ridgecrest had a church and a Home Depot. I needed some tools and lumber for repairs. It was sunny and 70s there. I needed some comfort conditions. And finally, it was the logical stopping off point for going through Death Valley.

The age of my camper and the dampness of Yosemite caused some sagging in the sleeping bay I use. It’s the larger of the two. The two pieces that make up that deck were pulling apart. So I had to devise a plan to support it better from underneath, and purchase what I needed to accomplish this. The previous owner had built a support that he used because both he and his wife slept in that bay. And they were not small people. But the one he gave me with the camper was at home, up in the rafters of my garage.

So after showering two days in a row (What!), church, having some great Mexican food, and watching a little Elite Eight basketball, I set out across Death Valley to find a spot to fix the camper and get it dry again. And then came my first flat.

Leaving Yosemite is not an easy thing to do.  I told my kids that I felt like it was a privilege to be there, and for me, a place that you could never get too much of.  But I also left feeling worn down both physically and emotionally.  The loss of my phone, the corresponding expense of that, and the mostly rain and cold of the final five days there, left me spent.  Although I still think it was the right decision, abandoning my plan for time in the Tahoe area didn’t help either.  But as I came down out of the mountains, with cold rain still falling and a soggy camper, I retraced my route back to Ridgecrest, CA, and  could feel my body relaxing in the warm afternoon of later that day.

It was always my intention to give a nod to the importance of Yosemite to the climbing community so I will end with that.

Recently a man named Royal Robbins passed away.  He was a well known figure in Yosemite and led the team of three that first summited the face of Half Dome in 1957.  That ascent took five days.  Today, it’s a checklist climb that the current crop of phenoms do for a day.  Ten years after the Robbin’s team, Royal’s wife Liz became the first women to summit the face.  In 1958 the first ascent of “the nose” of El Capitan was done by Warren Harding with a team of three others.  That climb took eleven days and was “watched” by climbers from around the world.  Today you almost can’t believe the records that have been posted and fallen over the years on Yosemite’s iconic climbs.

In the years after World War II climbing was largely a European sport practiced by wealthy adventurers who could afford it.  The rise of climbing in the US had a different path.  All around Yosemite are massive boulders and “bouldering” almost became a sport unto itself.  It made Yosemite not only a place of challenging climbs but a place where people could come and learn.  They put “crash pads” around the boulders so mistakes could be made with little or no consequence.  Established climbers from around the world became their teachers and Yosemite became the climbing Mecca of the US.  An informal climbing school eventually became a formal climbing school that still operates in Half Dome Village.  If you follow this history, there were any number of famous clashes between the Park Rangers and a growing vagabond community of climbers, who would ignore the fourteen day camping limit and flock to the park to set up camp for the climbing season.  Even if climbing is not a specific interest, this marriage of sport and obstacle, as it played out in Yosemite, is a “great read”. (read that, web search) 🙂

This seems like a good place to end the Yosemite chapter.  Climbing and climbers have always been a fascination for me and I’ve watched and read a lot of material about them.  Watching some of the things they do on film sometimes electrifies my whole body.  The strength and nerve that it takes is not something within me, so my fascination has always been from a distance.  I wanted to write something about that piece of the park’s lore.