Several years ago I was having a series of apocalyptic dreams. Each of them featured the world ending in different ways, or just the knowledge of being on the brink of the end of the world. One such dream featured an old, dilapidated, wooden church in the middle of an open field. Already having a penchant for ruined and abandoned buildings, I've added wooden churches to my picture-must-be-taken-of repertoire. So, far from the highlight of my weekend trip, but an interesting addition to the experience was our one-night stay in Green River, Utah. And in town, the Green River Bible Church stood there, a little ghostly.
Check out the HB's coverage of our Horseshoe canyon adventure on his blog here. Usually we're camping in the San Rafael Swell area, but late-February seemed a little too chilly and we booked a hotel in town instead. I've stopped at the edge of town plenty of times for gas, but never actually visited or driven through (just about 2 minutes to get down Main Street from end to end). I honestly hope it stays as hopeless as it is, because I don't want it to be touristy, but it did make me just a little sad that the town felt so empty. As far as the canyon goes, it was incredible, and I will re-iterate Tyler--it was a perfect day, I can't imagine a better one. My previous trip to Horseshoe Canyon was with my archaeology field school group in Escalante. We went there to hike the canyon on a Saturday sometime in June and it was hot as hell. I loved it then too, but until I went on this weekend, I didn't even know that water ran through there, I'm sure it's all dried up by then. It really was just perfect.
Alene and I needed to get out of town for a night (cabin fever) so we decided to head down to the southern desert and visit a place I've never been before and Alene had not been since her archaeology field school in 2001.
Despite many warnings about the weather from everyone we knew that was familiar with the area, we decided to chance it, with a couple of back-up plans with going to Arches, or the other side of Canyonlands, both of which have paved roads running through them.
We left around 8:30am on Saturday and headed straight down to the Western side of Canyonlands (it's actually separate from the main park). We arrived at the main turn-off from Hwy 24 across from the Temple Jct Road about noon and headed down the dirt road due east. We were most worried about road conditions (the weather is still wet down there and the road is 30 miles to the trailhead and all dirt road, which can be really muddy and force us to turn around). Well, we lucked out; No wet weather and the road was actually REALLY dry except for a couple of parts that were muddy for about 20' but we just gained speed in the subaru and headed straight through it and out the other side. We were fine.
The hike was AMAZING. We were the only ones in the canyon that day. This canyon has one of the most oldest and largest gallery's of ancient art pictographs. The hike we did went about 1.5 miles down hill into the canyon, then extended another 2 miles to the main Gallery of art. Along the way we were able to see a couple of other areas of art, which were all very impressive. Some of the cool things about being in the canyon to yourself was that your voice echos like crazy from some spots. Another cool thing Alene bringing to my attention the fact that this is the canyon that Aron Ralston was found by some tourists hiking the canyon.
The weather conditions were PERFECT, not too hot, not too cold. The only relative mis-hap was as we were leaving. We had already done about 1.5 miles back and were looking at another rock art panel when we heard a VERY loud roar from the canyon (back from the direction where we were). It didn't sound like any sort of a cat or dog, but like a bears roar (not a scream like a mountain lion, but a real ROAR). Bears don't live out there, so we have no idea what it was. All I know is we picked up the pace and high-tailed it out of there.
After the hike, we drove on back again lucky it never rained on our road (no rain in the immediate area, but there were plenty of clouds in the distance). We drove back to Green river where we had reserved a hotel room at a Comfort Inn (the nicest hotel in Green River). We ate a good burger at Ray's Tavern, then went back to crash and sleep away the hike.
Here are some pictures and videos of the trip:
The sign at the entrance of the dirt road into the canyon
The road going into the canyon
Looking back at the San Rafael Reef
The trailhead into the canyon
Dinosaur print on the way down
The clouds were amazing
Looking down into Horseshoe Canyon
Frozen part of Barrier Creek (which is the creek that runs through the canyon; the canyon was once called Barrier Canyon before it was engulfed by Canyonlands Natl. Park)
High Gallery, which is the first panel of art we see
Tomorrow Alene and I are heading down to get a hotel in Green River and head over to Horseshoe canyon, which is part of Canyonlands national park. We are going to see the largest petroglyph rock art in all of the U.S. dating back before the Fremont Indians (7000-9000 BCE).
Alene has already been there, but I'm just excited to be getting away from this crappy weather and getting out on a hike. I'm excited to see the canyon and to try to feel what it must have been like 9000 to 11,000 years ago for the people that lived there.
Here is a picture of what we're going to see, what is called the "Great Gallery".
Several years ago I was having a series of apocalyptic dreams. Each of them featured the world ending in different ways, or just the knowledge of being on the brink of the end of the world. One such dream featured an old, dilapidated, wooden church in the middle of an open field. Already having a penchant for ruined and abandoned buildings, I've added wooden churches to my picture-must-be-taken-of repertoire. So, far from the highlight of my weekend trip, but an interesting addition to the experience was our one-night stay in Green River, Utah. And in town, the Green River Bible Church stood there, a little ghostly. 
