The Impromptu Sunday Hike

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I know ... another post without any news of the possible move to 'up top'. We are still in that irritating phase of dragging through the mire of appointments with those who have more influence on our future here than we do on 'our' bought and paid for piece of the dream. To say that this process is frustrating and disheartening is pure understatement so please bear with us. We are hoping for a satisfying conclusion and will pass it along as soon as (and IF) we get some tangible reassurances from those parties. In the meantime, let's blow off some pent-up steam and go for an impromptu Sunday hike.
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Brou and Daisy were keeping up their vigil from the front porch but obviously waiting for some spark of new adventure. I was in that same stage of restlessness after the events of last week. Mark set down his newspaper and we headed down the road in the Dodge, Brou in the bed and Daisy following as usual since she still refuses to jump into the truck for any reason. He dropped us off at our hike site, Daisy caught up and he continued on to the main canyon to pick up his fresh newspapers in the mailbox. The dogs and I headed into our hike zone after he departed but not before some wild attempts by the dogs at following him.

My wild hair objective was to find Mr. Greer again. Well, not exactly Mr. Greer himself (unless this was a burial marker) but the rock carving he left probably a hundred years ago in a most unlikely and secluded cleft in the massive stone boulders that rest tumbled and haphazard at the foot of these mesa walls. That is the most tormenting characteristic of these canyon lands; that you may find a fascinating feature one day and never, ever find it again. It is this tantalizing and maddening aspect which has driven treasure hunters to complete obsession in the past. This will be the second attempt to find Mr. Greer's immortal inscription so let's see what we can find today.
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Even if we don't find Mr. Greer today, the hike through the monster rocks will be worth every single foot fall. It is our own private sculpture park tour, free from any elbowing spectators and the sole featured artists are Mother Nature and Time. How did they ever accomplish these works? So many, all so unique.
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Here is a natural sculpture which I see as the kindly mountain lion and the house cat. You may see something entirely different - what do you see here?
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We continue on, the two dogs frenetically lacing their paths across ours, covering ten paces for every one of ours. I am already tiring from watching their activities rather than from my own by now but they stop long enough to focus on a new find of 'ours'. When viewed dead on, these boulders offer a four foot wide shelter between themselves but this photo was taken as approaching from the side.
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One thing that I have noticed is that you start readily noticing the difference between what is natural and what is an anomaly amid nature's usual themes. There is something odd about the four impressions well above human head height in the rock on the right. They are not the round impressions worn by water and time but more like brutal impacts from human endeavor. The top of the rock on the left would line up perfectly with these divots as though someone had planned to place four pine logs across the opening and notching them in to the rock on the right to support a sheltering roof over the gap. What do you think? Spanish sheep herders, Anasazi, Pueblo, Navajo perhaps? So many questions, so little expertise but the questions are thoroughly titillating and satisfying enough for one day's adventure.

Okay, so we didn't find Mr. Greer this time either but there will be more fine days and excuses down the road to look for him again. Tomorrow ... or maybe the tomorrow after that one, or that one. Mañana ... it's as good as a life can get.
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Saturday's Walk

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Yes, I'm back so soon with another post. Consider it my penance for missing so many days last week.

We both lolled around pleasantly absorbed in reading far too long on Saturday morning to consider a full day 'up top' looking for elk antler sheds seriously. Instead, we chose to wander up the road and across the creek for one last look over a piece of 'our' land before the gas field commandeers it into perpetuity (sort of a modern feudal arrangement and we be da serfs).

Since Brou and particularly Daisy are not inclined to ride in the truck but will chase it down the road to the end of the known world, it was to our great advantage that they both ran up the mesa after ... well, who really knows what. Mark and I ran to the truck and were soon high-tailing it down the road while I watched for frantic descending hounds to follow. Woo-wee! We did it!

After kicking up dust for just short of a mile down into our nearest creek crossing and climbing back up to the far side, we rolled over the newly graded well site and piled out at the far side. I had barely pulled my hiking boots (those beloved rubber boots) out of the truck bed when I saw a brief flash of black down the hill behind us. "Daisy?!!" Sigh ... and Brou. Both panting furiously but neither to be denied an adventure.

Mark headed off to the West and I headed East. The dogs shared themselves back and forth between us until they realized that Mark would return to the cab to finish reading his Wall Street Journal in just a couple of hours. I had paced through the sage to reach and follow the abandoned road along the base of the mesa and both dogs eventually became committed escorts for my hike.
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I dropped away towards the creek, somewhat south from the old road and, as we rounded a bend, I saw this huge boulder between the road and myself. Something didn't look right about this big rock which could have buried the back quarter of the Rat without a trace. It was sitting on a fresh bed of piled earth which had not yet flattened and smoothed out in the rains. I moved in closer and saw fresh white battle scars on its face and immediately thought of Quig and the D8R but there were no vehicle tracks of any sort on the road this far in, let alone grouser tracks.

Then I noticed orangish colored tree debris to the right. As I walked back closer to the road, I realized that these were the sparse remnants of two full-sized cedar trees and the story began to tell itself. This boulder had recently broken loose and thunderously bashed its way down a couple hundred feet to finally rest just beyond the old road bed. It most likely let loose from the light-colored area half-way up the mesa face where what looks like two dark triangular eyes and a nose stare down on us.
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You can click on all photos to enlarge

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I clambered barely up the foot of the talus field to take the above photo looking back down over the boulder's path. I passed another flattened cedar, massive divots and piles of freshly shattered sandstone to get there. If you placed a floret of broccoli on a block and smashed down upon it with your fist full force, you could not have flattened it out as completely as these cedars were now. This is also when I noticed a deeply trenched gouge across the road just behind the boulder. The monster had finally stopped bouncing and slid the last 15 feet across the road bed before running out of momentum. (These photos do not capture the scale at all; everything in this landscape is immense beyond what any of us are used to).

I then recalled hearing what I thought was a demolition explosion in the distance recently. I also thought about 'The Rock of Damocles' still perched over the Rat. These canyons are still changing at the prod of nature's rough and relentless hands.
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Humor of the Day (from the Katlady)

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We finally figured out why Mushy doesn't like cats ...
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Hiking with the History Man

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Retrospect: Late Summer 2007

I looked out the large Rat window late morning and saw several pick-up trucks lined up on the road leading out of our canyon. That's an unusual sight and I decided to go investigate. My hunch was right; it was the gas field doing more poking around for potential new gas well sites. Better still, as I had hoped, they brought along a professional archaeologist as part of their team.

I always had a love for archaeology as a very small child and he kindly let me follow along. I promised that I would not interfere in his efficient survey strides and complied, for the most part. In the mean time, the rest of the team had set out with survey equipment to overlay the ideas of some engineer back in the office over the reality of this terrain. Along the way, the history hunter showed me a pit house dating back to the 9th century. I hope my disappointment didn't insult him TOO badly as I looked down and mentally glazed over. "Uhm, right here you say? Really?" I stared down at the ground trying my best to see a vanished people's history. What I saw was just another patch of ground just like any other in this vast wilderness except for a few anomalous rocks and a pottery shard or two. I began to realize that my childhood passions lay in discovering recognizable feats of man, cavernous repositories of megalithic statues and other incredible feats of art and craftsmanship. Somehow, this vague hint of man's presence just didn't fulfill my expectations.
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This is the first area we covered and where I found this very unusual patch of cactus growing in a tight cluster. I am now relying on my cactus-savvy readers to identify this species. This colony of very spiky plants stood quite low, no more than shin-high at best, but so tightly grouped that the surrounding thick grass had no opportunity to invade it. This plant was still rich with unshed yellow fruits, even though this photo was taken much later (just last week). The arms were not spatulate like a prickly pear but rather long and slender and very much restrained to within its low group profile.

Here is a close-up of the cactus cluster.

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He plodded on through the tall sage and I eventually got distracted by my current passion; desert plants. He was likely grateful that he had lost his ersatz student to the colorful blooms beckoning away from his grid. I would occasionally look up and head in his general direction but eventually found myself utterly distracted by the flora and well beyond his survey area. It was a gaggle (or whatever a plural of these is called) of military helicopters tightly hugging the terrain which caught my attention and made me realize that I had wondered too far into the inlet by myself. I back-tracked quickly and rejoined the history man on a roadward leg of his mission. About five minutes later, after we had separated again, I heard the familiar unfettered roar of a military plane and looked up. I ran down the separating hill towards the history hunter, yelling excitedly as I went "Is that a BUF? Oh yes, yes, LOOK, it's a BUF! It's a BUF!! " It then occurred to me that he might not have a clue what a BUF is. He dutifully looked up just as a low flying B52 crossed over his head and climbed up to clear the mesa in front of him. As it turned out, he had grown up in Texas near the development area of the B52 and shared some of his recollections of the plane with me. All in all, it was a rather fabulous way to spend an impromptu romp in the sage.

I only wish that I had brought the camera along. Within one of the shallow caverns created by the immense boulders, we had discovered a slab with the deeply etched inscription "Greer" on it plus an indecipherable date of possibly '08'. I was determined to find it again last week to show you. I looked. And I looked. Nothing. That is the amazing thing about this part of the world; you can see something once and probably never find it again despite your best efforts to remember the locale as you leave it behind. So many of the treasure tales I hear are about people who found something once and meant to return to investigate it further. And some have been trying to do so for over 30 years since.
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I looked though acres of rock formations for that inscription last week with Brou and Daisy's help, all to no avail. The consolation was being able to admire the bizarre rock formations left behind by Mother Nature. The photo above shows some of nature's curious carving work. Erosion had left but one tall column to support this precariously balanced massive rock roof.
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. In this photo is another boulder of harder material left on a pedestal of softer sandstone, all perched atop the massive boulder occupying the majority of the photo. If you enjoy geology, this is a continual trove of awe.

I never did return home with the photos I wanted but I eventually will, even if it takes me a few decades to find the spot again.

This is all leading somewhere, unfortunately.
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Hiking Ms. Daisy

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Here is the conclusion to Just Daisy and Me Hiking where I discovered the Spanish rock inscriptions. I figured that you wouldn't mind less talk and more photos for a change. This is as much to let you know that we haven't fallen into a bottomless sinkhole yet. We're just both running tired with the growing 'To Do' list before the REALLY cold weather sets in. We have been enjoying high 60s daytime temps and balmy overnight temps of high 20s and low 30s i.e. no further pipe freeze-ups (touch wood!). Great sleeping weather with just the pilot lights burning on two of the propane wall heaters for the most part. The extra Rat insulation is paying off nicely.

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These cacti are the first of their kind which I have come across here. Don't ask me what they are (Belle - any ideas?) but I have noticed that so many desert plants out here may only grow in one small area. This is why I was so upset with the new well location up top when they failed to give us notice and time to survey and salvage any unique plant specimens per our agreement. I'd rather take a chance on transplanting them than having them dozed under with absolutely no chance of survival.
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Here is another view of the creek. Hard to believe that a creek which spends most of its time sleeping in this deep, dry state can inflict such damage when it awakes.
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At one point, the sandstone wall rises dramatically straight upwards to the first bench. For one exhilarating moment, I thought I had found the eerie of an eagle. Follow the yellow arrow and notice the accumulation of white bird dropping just below a dark hole (you might have to click to enlarge to follow this). The crow who showed up and circled above it quite vocally told me that it was probably his nest though.
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Here is a view of Rat City from our hike. It gives you a better idea of the scale of the mesa behind us. Compare this view to the view in The Rock of Damocles. The rock is resting at the very top of that mesa.
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Above is the last inscription treasure that we found that day. This one had survived the weather better by its location under the shelter of the much larger rock shown in the initial account. There were some fainter, intriguing inscriptions above it to the right but the shadow hides them completely. Wait 'til you see the petroglyphs we discovered yesterday though! Woo-hah!
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