A Visit to Seven Mile Canyon, Moab, Utah with Author Craig Childs in October 2008

Recently, I received a message from Dr. Terry Swanson regarding Seven Mile Canyon near Moab, Utah. In part, it said, “Hello: I was trying to find info on the “Snake in the Mouth Pictograph” and came across your blog regarding Seven Mile Canyon and your trip there with Craig Childs.

I am a retired Boeing engineer and spend a few days each year in the Moab area and even more time in the San Rafael Swell, Cedar Mesa areas. I have been to more than 400 rock art sites, belong to the Utah Rock Art Research Association (URARA) (meeting in Moab, October 2013) and the Arizona Archaeological Society, so I respect sites and never touch anything.

Reading your description and seeing you were on the North side of Highway 313 in one of your photos I looked around Google Earth and thought the location might be as depicted on the enclosed image. Best Regards! Dr. Terry Swanson

It has been over four years since I last visited Seven Mile Canyon. I did make one attempted to visit there in April 2012, but the access points had changed and barriers prevented easy access. That day, I had insufficient time to park and hike Seven Mile Canyon on my own. With the new questions raised here by Terry Swanson, I hope to visit Seven Mile Canyon again in 2013.

To answer Terry’s questions about our 2008 Seven Mile Canyon hike, I searched Google Maps for the Utah Highway 313 turnout where we had parked that day. I located it about two miles southeast of the U.S. Highway 191 junction, heading toward Canyonlands and Dead Horse Point.

Prior to 2008, I knew of Utah Highway 313, but not about Seven-Mile Canyon. Not knowing where our driver was heading that morning, I was surprised when he stopped the van at a stub road on the east side of Highway 313. At that point, we were not more than twelve miles from Downtown Moab.

Where we stopped, there were no signs or other markings. In order to find the place again, I photographed the Canyonlands Field Institute Van and our leader Craig Childs, with distinctive natural features in the background. If you search "Craig Childs" on Google, my close-up photo of Craig from that spot appears on the first row of the images results.

That day, we visited two major sets of petroglyphs. The first set was just across the highway, in a small, boulder-strewn canyon. Around the lower edge of the canyon wall, we saw many casual markings on the rocks. It looked like ancient graffiti in a picnic area. Near the end of that brief sojourn, I hiked up on the rock pile and took a photograph looking down on our whole group.

After crossing back over the highway, we followed a path through some tall, reedy plants. Growing as they did on the outside bend of the arroyo, even in October there was sufficient water beneath to leave mud on our boots. It was a tangled mess, with only a limited passageway back and forth between canyon and road.

Later, much to our surprise, a couple of sales reps, out for a joyride in a Chevy drove past us in the arroyo. Somehow, they had driven through the wet and reedy area, not caring about the finish on their company SUV. From there, the two men drove up the sandy wash that comprises much of Seven Mile Canyon. As I learned in 2012, vehicular access from Highway 313 to Seven Mile Canyon is now blocked.

On one side of the watercourse, we found a wooden-rail fence that resembled a long hitching rail for horses. With the lonely fence standing at the base of a small escarpment, its original purpose was no longer obvious to me. In this ancient place, the rail fence became a mysterious, yet recent archeological feature.

In October 2008, the area appeared wracked by drought. We found no flowing or standing water at all. The only surface moisture was in the muddy area at our entrance to the canyon. In the upper reaches of the arroyo, only thorns and tumbleweeds grew. Around the area, large cottonwood trees had died, while others looked stressed, dying-back almost before our eyes. Although the drought around Moab continued since 2008, that one section of cottonwood trees and brush has thrived. The 2012 Google Earth photo of that place shows thick brush and mature trees.

That cottonwood stand is the place where upstream thunderstorms go to die. When flash-floods in the stream-bed are large enough to bring water to the thicket, much of it is absorbed in the alluvium. If you zoom-out on Google Maps, our hiking spot is the largest green space for miles around.

In ancient days that was true, as well. Prior to the Great Disappearance, we know from tree-ring data that the Colorado Plateau enjoyed a wetter environment. Over millennia, this one patch of greenery could have housed and fed people from many cultures. A mix of ancient and newer styles of rock art in Seven Mile Canyon bears out this thesis.

Upstream from the green space, a small side canyon juts away from the arroyo. Next, we visited that dry grotto. In the rainy season, or during a thunderstorm, water pours over the edge of the mesa above, creating a Garden of Eden in the protected alcove below. When we were there, the pool at the bottom was dry and only one stressed out plant of any size was alive in the immediate area. Imagine that space in ancient times. Was it a bathing spot for early residents and visitors? With the profusion of the ancient rock art on the walls of the grotto, I could see that it was once a well-populated place.

That day, we spent our time looking, listening and writing, all in the lower reaches of Seven Mile Canyon. At one point, Craig Childs asked us take off our shoes and walk barefoot in the bottom of the sandy wash. “Just feel the Earth beneath your feet”, he said. My field notes from that day read as follows. “As I walk up canyon, I feel hard sand beneath my bare feet. Rather than enjoying my journey, I think about my destination. Will I know it when I find it, or should I just walk on? Now I look up from my writing place and realize that it is here, in this canyon, among these shimmering cottonwood trees that I do belong”.

Soon it will be time for me to look again upon Seven Mile Canyon. I plan to do so in May 2013. If you go, be prepared to spend three or four hours in the canyon. Even if you hike no farther up canyon than we did in 2008, your encounter with the Spirit of the Ancients will be well worth the effort.

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By James McGillis at 06:20 PM | | Comments (0) | Link

The Union Pacific Railroad's Potash Local Train - 2011

 

The Union Pacific Railroad's

Potash Local Train

   

In mid-October 2011, I drove U.S. Highway 191 North, from Moab towards Crescent Junction. About half a mile south of Utah Highway 313 (to Canyonlands National Park and Dead Horse Point State Park), I saw the unmistakable glare of locomotive headlights, heading south toward Moab and Potash, Utah. With two powerful headlights lights stacked above and two more spread out below, their brightness on the landscape was second only to the light of the sun.

Across from the Bar-M Chuckwagon site, U.S. 191 intersected a gravel road leading west. As soon as I turned on to that road, I found an uncontrolled railroad grade crossing only a few yards away. Parking my truck, I grabbed my camera and ran toward the tracks. When I looked again at the approaching engine, it appeared stopped in a road cut, north of Highway 313. Had time stood still, was the train stopped on the tracks or was it moving too slowly for me to see?

Soon, I could see that the locomotive was accelerating toward me on level ground. From that distance, I knew that my old Sony digital camera would not show much detail. Impatiently, I waited for the train to approach. As it closed on my position, I started taking snapshots of the action. While composing my shots on the LCD screen, I did not realize how quickly the train approached.

  Watch the video, "The Union Pacific Potash Local"

When I walked across the tracks to get a different perspective, I heard a deafening blast from the Union Pacific locomotive's air horn. The engineer seemed to be saying, “Watch out. Here I come”. With a five-second delay for image processing, I had to wait for each shot to clear before I could again depress the shutter. As the lead engine passed my position, I swung the camera up to capture the power and size of the Potash Local. From earthquakes to hurricanes and tornadoes, eye witnesses will invariable say, “It sounded like a freight train coming towards me”. After standing my ground just yards from the passing engines, I understood exactly what they meant.  

With a clickety-clack on the joints of the hand-laid tracks, the Potash Local soon traveled around a bend and out of sight. In a few more miles, it would pass the “Train of Pain”, parked on a siding overlooking the Moab UMTRA Site. The Train of Pain hauls radio nucleotide-contaminated soil thirty miles from the Moab Pile to a disposal site near Brendel, Utah.

After passing through the Moab Rim within the mile-long Bootlegger Tunnel, the Potash Local enters a road cut that bisects many layers of solid rock. After emerging from those two engineering marvels, the tracks then parallel Utah Highway 279 (The Potash Road). Downstream, along the scenic Colorado River, the destination of the Potash Local is only a few more miles ahead. The end of the line and terminus of the Cane Creek Subdivision (Potash Branch line) is the Intrepid Potash Cane Creek Plant.

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By James McGillis at 11:24 PM | | Comments (0) | Link

The "Train of Pain" Travels Thirty Miles from Moab to Crescent Junction - 2011

 

 

The "Train of Pain" Travels Thirty Miles from Moab to Crescent Junction  

In April 2009, I was in Moab, Utah when the first mill tailings train departed the Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) site. The train departed from a track running high along a ridge that overlooks the Moab Pile. Five days each week, a trainload of radioactive soil headed north on the Cane Creek Subdivision, better known as the Potash Branch. The destination is a disposal site, northeast of Brendel and Crescent Junction, Utah. In those early days of rail transport, there was no published train schedule. Before I could locate a schedule, it was time for me to leave Moab.

 

In October 2010, I returned to Moab, traveling south along U.S. Highway 191. As the road descended towards the entrance at Arches National Park, I looked ahead towards the ridge. There I saw two Union Pacific Railroad locomotives pulling a trainload of containers to the north. After noting the time, I made plans to return and photograph the train as it traveled toward the UMTRA disposal site in the desert.

 

Two afternoons later, I waited near Milepost 134 on Highway 191. From there, I could see the lead engine, a 2004 GE C44AC-CTE approaching from over a mile away. As it pulled the hill, the entire train disappeared behind the Redrock. Reappearing a minute later, the lead engine entered an “S” curve. If this were the old days, I would say that the engines appeared to be “building steam”. As I stood and shot photos, the engines rapidly approached.

 

 

While standing near the edge of the railroad right of way, an unexpected plume of sound, heat and pollution blew me back from my position. After receiving that 8800-horsepower blast of old energy from the twin GE Evolution Series diesel locomotives, almost a minute passed before I could catch my breath. Still, as the parade of nuclear waste bins passed my position, I reflexively snapped more photos.

 

Each of the thirty-six flatcars carried four steel-lidded bins. The two bins at the center of each car held up to thirty-five cubic yards and two outboard bins were larger still. Bringing up the rear were two ancient, exhaust encrusted locomotives. After fifteen years of service in the Rockies, the old diesel-electric engines could still share the load with the newer, equally powerful engines at head-end. Because of the extreme weight of the mill tailing trains, pushers are needed to help climb the initial grade. If an average container held forty cubic yards, the entire train carried almost 5000 cubic yards of contaminated soil. When dumped at the disposal site, a single trainload of contaminated soil would fill an American football field to a depth of about one meter.

 

To put the cleanup process into perspective, consider that it will take ten to fifteen years to complete the removal project. That timeline assumes two trainloads per day, at least five days per week. What might happen if a Colorado River flood were to hit the UMTRA site before the Moab Pile is gone? Only time will tell.

 

After the train passed my position, I jumped into my truck and headed towards the grade crossing at Utah Highway 313. When I reached that spot, the lead locomotives had already passed. I fastened my seatbelt and took off for a spot where the tracks come close to the highway. While taking pictures from a small hill adjacent to the tracks, the big diesel engines soon provided me with another blast of hot diesel exhaust.

 

Traveling farther north, I stopped at an arroyo and shot pictures of the engines as they passed over a low bridge. My final stop was north of Canyonlands Field, where the unmarked Rock Corral Road crosses the tracks. This time I arrived well before of the train. After passing under the highway near Canyonlands Field, the train made wide left turn across my field of view. As it did, I could see each car in the thirty-nine car train. As the big diesel electric engines approached, I moved back form the tracks the tracks and continued shooting pictures. The train passed my position; it was heading down a slight grade, gaining speed on the straightaway.

 

Thinking that I was smarter than the train this time, I had positioned myself upwind from the exhaust blast. Sounding like an earthquake on wheels, I watched as the mighty engines roared toward me. What I had forgotten was the several horn-blasts required at a rail crossing, even in the middle of nowhere. This time, rather than an exhaust blast I endured several deafening blasts from the horns.

 

Covered with diesel soot and near deaf from the horn blasts, I stopped chasing the "Train of Pain". Instead, I stood between the tracks and watched as the two 1996 GE C44AC pusher engines disappeared down the tracks.

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By James McGillis at 05:45 PM | Environment | Comments (0) | Link

Experiencing Seven Mile Canyon Petroglyphs with Author and Naturalist Craig Childs - 2008

Experiencing Seven Mile Canyon Petroglyphs with Author and Naturalist Craig Childs

On October 15, 2008, I was up early enough in the morning to see the full moon, as it descended behind the Moab Rim.  In anticipation of my first day at "Confluence – A Celebration of Reading and Writing in Moab", I drove to the Moab Arts and Recreation Center.  Unlike the many public activities at Confluence, the intensive writing seminar was limited to only twenty-four individuals.

 

Moments after finding my group of seven fellow writers, we loaded ourselves into a passenger van provided by the Canyonlands Field Institute.  None of us knew our destination for a day of hiking and writing.  Having renowned author and expert on the desert southwest, Craig Childs as our personal guide for the day made those prospects even more exciting.

 

Heading north on U.S. Highway 191, we crossed the Colorado River, then drove through the notch of the Moab Fault, a deep gorge that features the main entrance to Arches National Park.  Five more miles up the road, we turned west on State Highway 313, which leads to Canyonlands National Park and Dead Horse Point, a Utah State Park.

 

Only a mile or two from that junction, our van slowed and then our driver turned on to an unmarked road-stub.  We all piled out of the van, and then surveyed the surrounding area.  Knowing that Craig Childs had spent many months of his life hiking in and around the Moab area, we were curious why he would choose what appeared to be such an undistinguished spot to start our day.

 

Not knowing what to expect, we crossed the highway and walked west toward a canyon wall, where the sunshine had begun to warm the morning air.  Once we reached a suitable place for our group to sit and listen, we quieted down and Craig Childs, the master of the canyons, spoke.

 

In talking about the area surrounding the spot where we sat, Craig did not mention the sporadic traffic along the highway, only fifty yards away.  Instead, he began a lesson in perception, inviting us to see these canyons as he sees them.  Juxtaposing Craig’s intimate description of that landscape with the impersonality of what I saw as an unremarkable roadside made me feel uneasy.  I felt like he could see things that I could not.

 

After cautiously placing myself into Craig’s perceptual landscape, it became easier to see the uniqueness of that place, which was one of an infinite number of potential stops along that road.  Having driven Highway 313 many times before, I knew that the landscape along that road was itself a paradox.  On one hand, the highway meets our human needs to get somewhere.  After passing photo spots of drama and beauty, the road ends at the equally dramatic Dead Horse Point.  No one would dispute the beauty of the famous visual attractions near the end of the road.  Yet, if one stops along the lower portion of the road, he or she will also find an abundance of unique and beautiful micro-environments.

 

After completing our first small writing exercise, Craig stood and invited us to follow him around the far side of a large boulder.  There, only a few yards away, were many examples of Native American rock art incised into the desert varnish of the canyon walls.  Unlike many of the pictographs and petroglyphs that are visible from local roads, this great art had remained untouched since its creation.  According to the style of that rock art, members of the Fremont Culture created it sometime between 600 and 1250 CE.  If one needed a better example of Craig Child’s contention that there is unimaginable beauty available throughout the Canyonlands area, this art gallery, created by grand and ancient masters humbled me into recognition and belief.

 

Soon, it was time to start our trek up the broad, flat wash of Seven Mile Canyon.  Again crossing the road, we gathered beneath a cottonwood tree.  Although Seven Mile Canyon is open to both hikers and motorized vehicles, that morning we saw no one other than our group for the first two hours of our hike.  With non-native bulrushes partially overgrowing the entrance to the canyon, the driver of a full-sized vehicle would scrape off a lot of paint in order to run that gauntlet and pass through into the canyon itself.

 

While walking up-canyon, we began to feel the warmth and dryness of the desert environment.  Frequent breaks for water helped facilitate our passage along the soft sands of the canyon bottom.  Stopping in the shade of a cottonwood grove, Craig asked us to take off our shoes and feel the canyon sands beneath our feet.  Once barefoot, each of us took off in our own direction.  Our assignment was to find a place to sit and write about the feeling of being in touch with the canyon on that bright October morning.

 

After a trailside lunch, Craig directed us towards a nearby, but partially hidden canyon wall.  After a scramble over some boulders, we arrived at an intimate alcove, hidden from the sun by a massive overhang of Navajo Sandstone.  In such places, one intuitively accesses a faith in geologic time.  If, in eons of time, this stone overhang had not crashed down in a pile of rubble, why should let go as we walked into this stone sanctuary?

 

When seasonal rains visit, the spot where we stood becomes a waterfall and receiving pool of a size and power that would drive any human back to a safe distance.  On this day, there was no water pitching over the precipice and the receiving pool was dry.

 

As with our previous stop, we found one wall of our secret canyon alcove covered with both Fremont Culture and Archaic Era rock art.  Once again, we found no sign that anyone had visited this sacred spot since the last of the pre-Puebloan Indians chipped and painted their artwork into these walls.

 

If you were to take the stone-age tools available to the ancients and attempt to make your own mark upon these walls, it is likely that you would quit before you created anything of note.  Scientists estimate that each incised figure might take several weeks to complete.  For that reason, the defacement of more accessible rock art is often in the form of bullet holes or surface scratches across the face of the artwork.  How and why did members of these ancient cultures take the time and put forth the incredible effort necessary to decorate their home canyons?

 

Our theory is that before European contact, there were times of lush abundance in the Canyonlands.  Being efficient hunters and gatherers, good years allowed the ancients to fill their granaries with enough food to take them through the harshest of winters.  In the best of years, their larders might be full by summer’s end, leaving leisure time sufficient for the ancients to pursue an activity that motivates almost every human culture.  That is a desire to tell their story to other humans and other cultures who might later visit these canyons. 

 

On a beautiful fall day, not unlike the one we spent among their galleries, the ancients may have carved and painted the story of their lives, their hunts and their spirit guides into these sacred canyon walls.  To me, it felt like they had just been there, suspending their chipping and carving as we approached.  Hearing our voices, had they retreated to be with their ancestors, waiting patiently for us to leave before returning to their timeless work?

 

Thank you to Craig Childs and the Confluence Organization for transporting our group to a special place, where our contemporary world and the Canyonlands of our pre-Puebloan Indian ancestors converge.  As with so many lessons in human life, we found that the similarities between them and us are far greater than the differences we so easily perceive.

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