Moab Memories - The Gemini Bridges Road 2006

September 26, 2006 - Despite the threat of rain between Dead Horse Point and the La Sal Range in Moab, Utah, we decided to head home via the back-country road past Gemini Bridges. On paper, it would be a shortcut, but in reality, it was a real challenge. In those days, I thought my Nissan Titan truck could tackle any four-wheel drive road. One road was as good as another, or so I thought. I have since learned that nothing could be further from the truth. Some tracks are good for a full-sized truck, others for only a Jeep. As the roughness of a road increases, it takes a specialized rig or even a motorcycle to conquer some paths. As the afternoon wore on into twilight, we learned that this was a road fit for specialized vehicles not for a normal light duty 4X4 truck.

Identified on maps as the Gemini Bridges Road, those romantic sounding land-forms became the object of our attention. The road down from the high plateau at Dead Horse Point started smooth enough. The easy trail lulled us into thinking that this would be an easy jaunt. Soon enough, we spotted signs identifying the Gemini Bridges, just a bit to the east of our dirt track. As we approached the bridges, we could see that rampant use of four-wheel drive vehicles and motorcycles had torn up the land and created a dead zone of denuded rock. All safety barriers and informational signage had fallen prey to marauders.

In the wild, an arch is a continuous sweep of stone that allows passage beneath. A bridge is similar, but requires that a watercourse, either seasonal or permanent, flow beneath the land-form. The twin rock bridges (hence the moniker Gemini) are hard to photograph from up top, where the trail led us. In the accompanying photo, I am standing on the first bridge, shooting down through the arch of the second bridge and the dry watercourse below. If you visit there, watch your step.

After visiting the bridges, we realized that the light was fading, and that rain threatened. Still, the topography was so fascinating; we stopped often to capture photos in the late afternoon light. Strange, anthropomorphic shapes seemed to arise from the rocks. Far below us, standing in the late afternoon sunlight, was an enormous stone bird, standing erect by the trail. In the photo below, you can see it standing out against the landscape. More about "him" soon.

Guarding the lower reaches of the canyon was a cold-blooded looking serpent. Standing vertically against one wall of the canyon into which we were descending, it stood as a warning of the rough road ahead. By that time, we were traveling downstream in a long dry wash. Having heard stories of thunderstorms above creating flash floods in such canyons, we began to hurry along. Hurrying there was a relative term, since the terrain became rockier and harder to pass.

Soon we came upon what we later learned is “Gooney Bird Rock.” He, for I assumed it was a “he” himself, guarded the lower canyon. In all my research no one has mentioned how tall the Bird is, but he appears to be about 150 feet tall. Later, I learned that it is legal to climb this iconic piece of Wingate sandstone. With the over-climbed demise of the once famous Cobra, farther up the Colorado River, I am amazed that Gooney Bird Rock has not received proper protection from hordes of climbers.

Regardless of erosion and lack of protection, Gooney Bird Rock was a remarkable sight. As the late September sun shone upon its full height, the colors of the sandstone and the filtered light of the sun combined to make him glow in ethereal tones. Realizing that our own light would soon fail, we headed down the trail toward the highway far below.

As I have said before, scale is hard to judge in the canyons. As the Sun set, three Jeeps roared by, heading up canyon. Here, in the adjacent photo, the first Jeep is climbing the roughest and the steepest part of the road. To our astonishment, the Jeeps headed up trail as if on a Sunday drive. In 2006, Jeeps were smaller and simpler than the ones we now see in 2024. Those earlier models could easily glide over rough terrain and the small obstacles of the Gemini Bridges Road. In fact, Moab has been the proving grounds for new Jeep models for many years.

When the Sun finally set, the canyons became dark, and photography became secondary to getting safely down to the highway. Near the end of the trail, the road hugged the side of a rocky mountainside, clinging to a narrow rock-ledge. When I say “rock,” there was not a spec of soil or sand to drive upon. Only the shape of a single-track trail was discernible in the headlights of my truck. Since there was no turnout, we hoped not to meet any late arrivals traveling up canyon.

After an arduous end to what we thought would be a simple jaunt, we finally approached the gathering point near the railroad tracks at Seven Mile Canyon. By then, twilight had faded behind the massive redrocks canyon walls. By the time we started on the short highway trip back to the Moab Rim CamPark in Moab, nightfall surrounded us.

In those days, the Moab Pile was yet untouched by a massive removal project we now know as UMTRA. As such it completely hid the lights of Moab from our view. In 2024, the removal of the Moab Pile has once again created a full view of Moab as one passes by the entrance to Arches National Park.

From the red rock canyons near Moab, Utah in the year 2006, the Gooney Bird says, “Bye, bye.”

This is Part Two of a two-part article. To read Part One, click HERE.

Email James McGillis

 

Moab Memories - Dead Horse Point 2006

In the late summer of 2006, I moved my travel trailer from Kanab, Utah to Moab, Utah for a three month stay. At the time, Moab remained “undiscovered” by the hordes of motorized enthusiasts that now tear its out-lands asunder for the sheer pleasure of throwing dust, dirt, and plant life into the air. At that time, most visitors were hikers or bicyclists, with a lesser number of Jeep enthusiasts.

“Side by sides” and “quads” were yet to become the off-road vehicles of choice. Person-power prevailed over horsepower. At that time, no one had heard of an electric bicycle. Yes, there was running water, indoor plumbing, and electricity, but looking back eighteen years ago, Moab felt like it belonged at the turn of the twentieth century, not in the first decade of the twenty-first century.

At that time, wireless telephone and data services relied on the 2-G network, with occasional hints of 3-G speed, but only then during the early morning or late at night. Since I was running my executive recruiting business from my travel trailer, I was sensitive to data usage. Each afternoon, as the outdoor enthusiasts returned to Moab and the number of emergency-calls for assistance skyrocketed, my computer wireless data would go from slow to zero connectivity.

After much diagnosis with my mobile phone and data provider, I discovered the truth. The entire City of Moab was running from a single wireless transmission tower, situated above the Sand Flats Recreation Area. Even in that era, before the release of the Apple iPhone in 2007, the use of mobile telephone and data networks was exploding, with the various providers falling far behind.

Additionally, I learned that police and fire agencies took first priority, with mobile telephony in second place and my business lifeblood, mobile data a distant third in priority rankings. With my business connectivity curtailed as each afternoon wore on, I learned to start earlier and to go out and explore the land in the late afternoons.

Following are excerpts of what I wrote about our late afternoon wanderings around the redrocks areas just outside of Moab:

September 26, 2006 - Greetings from Moab Utah… The land of 4-Wheeling and off-road biking. We have been here for about three weeks and there is so much to see and do that we could spend months exploring and not see the same thing twice.

The first weekend, we set off for Dead Horse Point State Park. Legend has it that cowboys in the 19th Century herded wild mustangs there and then culled the herd, taking only the best. The less capable horses remained to die, corralled on a point overlooking the Colorado River, below. In today’s world, one dead horse might be acceptable, but for men to purposely leave herds of horses to die in the blazing hot desert was indeed cruel and unusual punishment.

After taking the turn from U.S. Highway 191, and on to Utah Highway 313, we were still on the way to the park. Looking for anything of interest, the first vista point held a Civil War battle scene. There, standing tall and proud in the desert were two sandstone buttes, resembling the first “ironclads,” the Monitor and the Merrimack (later known as the CSS Virginia). During the opening days of the U.S. Civil War, those two unique ships had fought to a draw in the Battle of Hampton Roads. The two buttes before us aptly conjured that epic battle, one hundred and forty-four years prior.

From Dead Horse Point itself, we could see no remnants of a corral, fencing or of dead horses. Utah has a way of cleaning up its history and prefers to present itself in the most positive historical context, regardless of the carnage that often occurred in its early days. The most egregious conduct occurred before Utah statehood in 1896. Instead of dead horses, we viewed the potash settling ponds far below and adjacent to the Colorado River. In my previous trip to Moab, in 1965, the potash ponds had not yet come to fruition, since in situ mining of potash in the area was then still to come.

The Colorado River itself hid from view in a nondescript trench at the bottom of the Anticline, which encompassed the vast area within our view. In the far distance was the La Sal Range, which remained dry and snow-less in early fall. In less than two weeks, the seasons would change, bringing autumn to canyon country and winter to those mountains.

Turning my camera to the south, you can see the Colorado River in the foreground. It flows to the right of the picture and circles around in what is known as an entrenched meander, or goose-neck. As the river cuts down into the rock, the land itself is uplifting, locking the river into its ever-deepening banks. From there, the river passes to the left in the middle ground of the picture and then again south into Canyonlands National Park. There, at what is known as The Confluence, the Colorado River joins the Green River, which has its origins in Wyoming.

Another shot, to the east, shows the vastness of the river canyon and an interesting pyramid, fooling our eyes, and making us think it was human made. Each layer of strata in this vast area was once an ocean bottom or a an alluvial plain. How, one wonders, could so much material erode from a once great plain and travel down the Colorado River to points south? Did it happen in a million years, or five hundred million years? I like the concept that it happened all in one thunderstorm of proportions unimaginable by today’s standards. As it traveled downstream, such a flood could well indeed cut the entire Grand Canyon in a single episode.

While we were there, a great bird soared by, and I was able to catch it at full telephoto. I then zoomed in on the picture and cropped it to bring it in even closer. Was it a California Condor, far from its release point in the Sespe Condor Sanctuary or was it an Andean Condor on a hunting trip to the Northern Hemisphere? Either way, it was the largest bird I have ever seen on the wing. El Condor pasa.

This is Part One of a two-part article. To read Part Two, click HERE.

Email James McGillis

 

Sliding Down Barham Blvd. in a Beetle in 1966

The endless summer was over and we were back in school. One Friday evening in October 1965, a group of friends and I caravanned from Burbank to Hollywood. There, as underage youth, we could buy cigars without showing identification. The Wolf Bros. Crooks brand, with their, “Rum Soaked, Dipped in Wine” motto, were our favorites. With alcohol-soaked tobacco, we pretended that we were drinking and smoking at the same time; only our lack of access to alcohol kept us sober. That night, I rode shotgun in my friend and classmate Phil Plank’s Volkswagen Bug, which he called his “V-dub.”

The only separation from opposing traffic on Barham Boulevard consisted of a double white line. On the downhill ride toward Burbank, the slope ended at an intersection with Forrest Lawn Drive, better known to us as the River Road. On our return trip from Hollywood, the road rose over a hill, and then descended, while acing slowly to the right for about a quarter mile. As Phil held his steering wheel to the right, the camber of the roadway sloped gently to the right, as well.

At Burbank Senior High School, we learned some basic laws of chemistry and physics. For instance, “Oil and water do not mix,” “An object in motion tends to stay in motion,” and “The heavy end of any object will try to lead the parade.” Pushing in the cigarette lighter at the top of the hill, Phil ignored all these laws.

As we crested Barham Boulevard, a slight drizzle began to fall. While waiting for the cigarette lighter to pop out, Phile reached down to tune in the AM radio and activate the windshield wipers. With our friend’s car ahead of us, Phil wanted good music and good visibility for his overtaking maneuver. In his exuberance to overtake, and in steadfast belief in his own immortality, Phil accelerated throughout the long downhill curve. Soon enough, all the laws of chemistry and physics came into play.

After months of a Southern California drought, oil on the roadway glistened colorfully in the headlights of oncoming vehicles. The emulsion of oil and water on the roadway provided friction like a sheet of ice. As the tires lost traction on the road, I found myself looking straight into the headlights of an oncoming car. With its rear engine design, the V-dub tried to swap ends and thus lead the way with its engine-heavy tail. In a vain attempt to slow down, Phil slammed his foot down on the brake pedal.

As we swung once again towards oncoming traffic, I saw my Maker. Who would believe that God drove a 1958 Cadillac? With unwavering speed, the heavy Caddy struck our little Bug, making contact aft of our driver’s side door. Mercifully, the impact sent us back to our own side of the road. According to one witness, we swung around three times as we descended the hill. Facing uphill, windshield wipers still thumping, we stopped just short of the intersection at Forest Lawn Drive. Less than half a mile from our final resting place that night lay the largest cemetery in Los Angeles.

Staring straight ahead, with both of his hands still clutching the steering wheel, Phil sat in shock. A telltale splatter of blood on the windshield told me that the impact had caused his nose to hit the steering wheel. Still gripping the grab handle on the passenger side of the dashboard, I exclaimed, “Phil, we f---ed your whole car.” When I received nothing more than a blank stare from Phil, I got out and helped direct traffic around Phil and his badly broken Beetle.

The whole event took less than a minute. Although my life did not flash before my eyes, as events unfolded, I knew that my life might end at any moment. That I survived uninjured gave me a startling clarity that only such near-death experiences seem to bring. I was seventeen years old and blessed to be alive.

Excerpted from the 2018 Book, “True Tales of Burbank,” by Wesley H. Clark and the late Michael B. McDaniel (1956-2024). Both authors are Burbank High alumni.

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