Each Spring, I Hear The Call - And Then It's Moab Time

In May 2014, I departed Mesquite, Nevada, heading for Moab, Utah, 375 miles to the northeast. Normally, it is an easy trip north on Interstate I-15 and then East on I-70. At Crescent Junction, I would hit U.S. 191, and then head south toward Moab. According to Google Maps, the highway trip should take five hours and thirty minutes. Since I was pulling our Springdale travel trailer, I added two hours to the estimate.

Near its start at Cove Fort, Utah, I-70 traverses parts of both the Fish Lake National Forest and the Manti La Sal National Forest. Along that route, the mountain passes exceed 7,250 feet elevation. After transiting through both national forests, I-70 presents itself as a slow-motion roller coaster ride. The culmination is a twisting descent down the east side of the San Rafael Swell.

Combined, my Nissan Titan truck and its trailer weigh 11,000 pounds. With a twenty percent horsepower-loss at 7,250 feet, the 5.6 liter V-8 in my pickup was averaging just over six miles per gallon. The only way to go faster was to downshift into second gear while ascending. At that throttle setting, the engine runs at over 5,000 RPM, increasing both gasoline consumption and engine wear.

The only sensible solution was to slow down and not push my rig so hard. In doing so, I finessed the gears, rather than the power to keep my average speed above fifty-five miles per hour. Another consideration was the hundred-mile distance to the next service station, in Green River, Utah. In case of emergency, I carry several gallons of gasoline in an approved container. I rarely have to use my reserve fuel, but it offers peace of mind when I visit remote locations.

Once I reached Crescent Junction, I had only thirty-three miles to go on U.S. Highway 191 South. In Moab, my final destination was the Moab Rim Campark, at the south end of town. Before I reached Moab, I had a brief side trip to take. On a railroad siding near the turnoff to Utah Highway 313, I hoped to locate an old friend. Like an old-time prospector’s affection for his burro, I had become fond of the Moab Burro.

Although it is not an animal, the Moab Burro is a fascinating example of twentieth century railroad construction equipment. Built by the Cullen Friestadt Company, the Moab Burro is a self-propelled railroad crane capable of pulling other rail cars, lifting 12,500 pounds and swiveling on its turret 360 degrees. On my previous visit, the Moab Burro lay idle and alone on a railroad siding of the Union Pacific Railroad Potash Branch Line. In fact, the crane and its flatcar-tender had been on that siding for so long, Google Maps had snapped its picture from space.

That day, I was not so lucky. As I approached Seven Mile, I could see that both the Potash Branch Line and its siding lay deserted. Since the Moab Burro is a functioning piece of railroad maintenance-of-way equipment, Union Pacific Burro Crane No. BC-47 was probably elsewhere in the High Southwest. My hope of photographing Plush Kokopelli and Coney the Traffic Cone with the Moab Burro were dashed. Instead, I had to settle for pictures of my unlikely superheroes sitting on the empty track at Seven Mile.

If any reader spots the Moab Burro elsewhere on the Union Pacific network, please take a photo and send it to me via email. If received here, I will then post any newly found images of Union Pacific BC-47, also known as the Moab Burro.

After leaving Seven Mile, I headed straight for Moab. While crossing the Colorado River, I noted that it was flowing higher than it had in the past few years. If the increased flow originated in a heavy snow pack on the Western Slope of the Colorado Rockies, that could be a good sign for Colorado River health. If the flow came from a rapid snowmelt upstream, it might be just a “flash in the pan”, soon to subside. As it turned out, 2014 would be a good water flow year in the Upper Colorado River Basin.

According to the USGS interactive website, on May 15, 2014, the Colorado River was flowing at about 10,000 cubic feet per minute (CFM) at Moab. By June 3, the river peaked at about 37,500 CFM, which was more than twice the sixty-three year average. Downstream, Lake Powell reached its 2014 low of 3574' elevation around April 15. By July 10, 2014, the lake was peaking at 3,609' elevation. That rise of thirty-five feet put the lake level ten feet higher than on the same date in 2013.

A six foot rise might not sound like much, but with Lake Powell's immense surface area, that represents almost an eight percent gain in water volume. As of July 10, 2014, the Lake Powell watershed had mixed statistics. The snow-pack was at forty-seven percent of normal and the total precipitation was at ninety-six percent of normal. A vigorous Monsoon in early July had added greatly to the total precipitation. Still, the lower mass of the snow-pack suggested lower flows for the remainder of the year. 

Soon after passing over the Colorado River, I saw a rare sight in Moab. As I waited at the Highway 128 stoplight, four identical 1960’s Shelby Cobra 289 sports cars pulled on to U.S. 191. From my vantage point, I could not see if the Cobras were original or if they were among the ubiquitous replicas manufactured over the past forty years. After snapping a picture of each Cobra, I followed them toward Moab. Soon, they pulled off for an early dinner at the venerable Sunset Grill. I wondered how the stiff suspension of each Cobra would fare on the long, washboard driveway that leads up to the restaurant.

Soon, I arrived at the Moab Rim Campark, where I stay when in Moab. Owners Jim and Sue Farrell always offer old-fashioned Moab hospitality to all who stay there. As I pulled in to the RV Park, I noticed a young couple standing at the rear of their rental RV. Emblazoned across the stern of their RV was a high definition image of Yosemite Valley. With their permission, I took several photos of the couple and the Sierra Nevada scene. As I shot the photos, I zoomed-out to show that they were in Moab, not in Yosemite. To see the full scene, please click on their image.

Reflecting now on that meeting, I remembered that the young woman had looked up toward me and into the sun. She said, “I can’t see, so tell me when to smile”. Later, after examining the photos, I realized that the woman was blind. In my experience, blind people often see more of our universe than many sighted people can. I only wish I could have explained to her the double meaning created by their standing in front of the Sierra Nevada Range and Moab’s La Sal Range, all at the same time.

For years, I have witnessed and studied various dimensional anomalies in and around Moab. To witness a young blind woman standing in two places simultaneously was an event on par with witnessing a plasma flow etched across the morning sky in Moab. Smiling about my good fortune to witness such a sight that day, I realized that as of that moment, I was on Moab Time.

Returning from Yosemite to the Moab of my contemporaneous three-dimensional time-space reality (3DTSR), I looked beyond the young couple to the snowfields of the La Sal Range. Fresh snow, which fell only a day before my May 15 arrival dusted the lower slopes of the great mountain range. The brilliance of white snow against the blue sky was spectacular. Looking at my photos later on, I realized that one shot captured an image of a large bird of prey, frozen in time within that infinite sky.

My first trip to Moab was in the summer of 1965. After leaving there, I assumed that it was a magical place, which I would never see again. Decades later, I read about the Moab Pile and its nuclear threat to life along the Colorado River. Upon returning to Moab in the early 2000’s, all of the magic and many new threats to the environment came to me. With Big Oil, Big Gas, Big Potash and Big Tar Sands all ganging up on Moab and Grand County, the soul of that magical place might easily be lost.

During my current visit, I hoped to join others and sway Moab toward a more positive outcome.

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By James McGillis at 04:59 PM | | Comments (0) | Link

On Any Monday, in Moab...2011

 

On Any Monday, in Moab...

On Monday, August 1, 2011 a U.S. congressional mandate to allow the world to go on spinning was still one day away. If agreement on raising the artificially contrived federal debt ceiling could not be reached by the following day, the sky would fall and the world would revert to being flat. That prospect seemed like a big setback to most conscious humans.

 

However, sixty or seventy Flat-Earthers recently elected to the U.S. House of Representatives seemed to relish in their power to send us all back to the economic Dark Ages. Like petulant children playing with a new chemistry set, “So what”, they said, “If we explode society as we know it?” “Not our fault”, they assured us. “This has been going on for years…” Since I began writing this story, the Dow Jones Industrial Average tanked by over 500 points and then rose by an unreassuring sixty-points the following day.

That evening, rather than dwelling on such morose potentials, I clicked on an unpublicized webpage, which commands a simultaneous view of all nine Moablive.com Utah webcams. Viewing the scene across my own personal energy bridge, I found myself looking through the front office window at the Moab Rim Campark. Suspended there, over Moab's Slickrock Trail I saw a webcam image of a double-rainbow. Looking in turn at each of five webcams in the Spanish Valley, I could see different slices of the scene. Stitching it together in my mind, I watched a summer storm hit Moab and then dissipate on the slopes of the La Sal Range.

If we are to believe what the mainstream media tell us about our world, it is a sad and dangerous place. If we believe our own eyes, we know that our world is a wild and wondrous place, almost begging for our attention. As heat and drought imperil crops and lives throughout the middle section of the U.S. this summer, Moab has recorded several substantial rainstorms. Airflow from the northwest has vied for position with a strong monsoonal flow from the south. During July 2011, storms from the south followed storms from the northwest. The combination kept rivers running high and replenished the local water table.  

In this world, one Moab was located in ancient Syria, near the Dead Sea. The other, manifested more recently in Southeastern Utah. The name “Moab” means “the far country”, and each Moab qualifies for that title. When we are not there to witness events firsthand, forgotten is the beauty of those wild places. On this page I compiled a slideshow of webcam images captured that evening. Even if our economy grinds to a halt, we can live in hope that such beautiful weather events will continue to sweep through the far country each summer, and forever.

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By James McGillis at 04:44 PM | | Comments (0) | Link

A Webcam Has Its Run at a Moab RV Park - 2011

 

A Webcam Has Its Run at a Moab RV Park

In late May 2011, I traveled to my favorite town of Moab, Utah. As usual, I planned to stay at the Moab Rim RV Campark & Cabins. For many years, the Campark owners, Sue and Jim Farrell have been my hosts each spring and fall. Earlier, when I had called to make a reservation, Sue asked if I would like my usual spot, down at the south end, away from most of the activity. Of course, I said, “Yes”, having lived in that spot for three months during 2006. The nearly unimpeded view of the La Sal Range from my front door makes that spot special to me.

 

In Moab, it had been a cold, snowy winter and a tumultuous spring. After some good weather in early spring, one after another, storms rolled through Southeast Utah. Rather than a typical spring thaw in the Sierra La Sal, the snowpack held and even grew in May. Upon arrival, all I could see on the mountains was a sea of snow clouds, dumping their moisture on the upper peaks. From across the Spanish Valley, the La Sal Range is one of those rare snowfields where you can actually see the snow falling through the sky.

 

By my second afternoon in Moab, the rain showers at the RV Park ended and the clouds began clearing from the mountains. As the sun made a brief afternoon appearance, it bathed the whole area in golden light. The unexpected sunshine brought campers out from their coaches and tents. On a clear spring afternoon, the Moab sun brings new depth of color to both the mountains and the sky.

 

While I was out looking around, I came upon a two-year-old boy and his father. They and the boy’s mother were first-time RVers, traveling through the High Southwest. The father expressed disappointment that all of the Colorado Riverway campgrounds were full. Since it was still days away from the Memorial Day weekend, I assume that he did not drive down Kane Creek Road to the BLM campgrounds there. To him, a night with electrical, water and a sewer hook-up meant one fewer day spent in a self-contained wilderness experience.

 

The young boy answered to Mikael, or a name close to that. By his playful, two-year-old looks and actions, I supposed he might be the next Archangel Mikael, stopping in Moab to enjoy a three-dimensional, time-space reality. As I spoke with his father, young Mikael romped around in the gravel and even threw his first stone. Up it went, landing gently on his father’s head, where it slowly slid away. Shocked to see Mikael throw the rock and equally shocked by its landed on his head, the father admonished his son, “Not to throw rocks”. Young Mikael listened for a moment and then ran off to play.

 

At the Moab Rim Campark, a cloudless sunset is always a treat. That means that the last rays of the setting sun will find their way to a part of the Moab Rim that I call the Moab Acropolis. My Moab Acropolis consists of two oversized blocks of eroded sandstone sitting at the highest point of the Moab Rim. Both the Moab Acropolis and its namesake, the Acropolis of Athens, rest upon rocky perches. As the sun set that late spring day, it illuminated that crest from Behind the Rocks, lighting up the sides of my twin imaginary buildings.  

 

In my coach that evening, I uploaded that day’s images from my camera to my laptop computer. Next, I burned a CD of pictures for the father and son. Since it was late, I did not disturb them that evening. The next morning, when I awoke, young Archangel Mikael and his parents were gone. I assume that they headed away from civilization and towards the High Southwest campground of their dreams. Perhaps someday, father or son will Google the term “Moab Rim Campark” and find this article. If they contact me, I still have that CD of Moab memories ready to mail.

 

As many people know, Moab is “Jeep Country, USA”. From the annual Easter Jeep Safari to the many Jeep trails within Grand County, a Jeep is the vehicle of choice for locals and visitors alike. If you own a Toyota or a Land Cruiser, they will still greet you and treat you nicely, but secretly they will be wondering why you did not buy a Jeep. In one of my walks around the RV Park, the only vehicles I saw parked there were Jeeps. Then, to disprove my point, along came a converted military Humvee.

 

The next morning, Jim Farrell and I got into his Jeep Wrangler Limited and headed south on U.S. Highway 191. “The color of this Jeep is Mango-Tango”, Jim told me. About ten miles south of the RV Park, we turned left from the highway and onto an unmarked dirt road. About a mile from the highway, we stopped at the Desert Rocks Festival 2011 check-in location at Area BFE. Later that day we would visit Desert Rocks, but now we were on our way to a new house under construction. With unobstructed views of the La Sal Range and Behind the Rocks, Jim told me that this was his final home design project. I was impressed with his talents.

 

Upon our return to the RV Park, I installed our fourth webcam at the property. We feature the three original webcams on the MoabLive.com Webcam Page and on the Campark website at MoabRV.com. The new webcam, I call “Check-in Cam”, as it points directly out the front window of the office. When guests pull in, you will see them and their rig, front and center.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
With new ownership, this mage no longer refreshes.

 

If anyone wants to say, “Hi” to the folks back home, go the RV Park, stand in front of the window and call your friends on your mobile telephone. Then you can mug for the camera. Do not forget that there are 300,000,000 Chinese smart phones online, so you will be mugging for many of them, as well. Bring signs… Have fun. It is free entertainment, courtesy of MoabLive.com and the Moab Rim RV Campark. Be sure to tell the folks in the office that Moab Jim sent you.

 

Author's Note - After the sale of the Moab Rim Campark several years ago, the new owners elected not to continue hosting live webcams from that location. This information is provided for historical purposes only. This website no longer has any affiliation with the Moab Rim Campark

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By James McGillis at 04:52 PM | | Comments (0) | Link

 

 

Only One Ranchette Remaining at Moab Ranch - 2010 

In 2006, I stayed at the Moab Rim Campark for most of the fall. After a series of unrelenting storms pushed me south to sunny Arizona, I made plans to come back to Moab and the Spanish Valley as soon as weather permitted.

 

In the spring of 2007, I was back at the RV Park and ready to look at property. Jim Farrell, the owner of the Moab Rim Campark is also a local developer. After touring other available parcels, Jim suggested that I look at Pueblo Verde Estates, which is one of his development projects.

 

Soon, I had money down on a one-third acre lot. At the time, only the roads and utilities were completed. Even so, I could see that this would soon become one of the premier developments in Moab and the Spanish Valley. Standing on level ground at the site, one has spectacular views in all directions. To the West is the Moab Rim, its crenulated sandstone ridge looks impossibly steep and tall. It reminds me of the Grand Canyon, but from the bottom, looking up. To the northeast is the La Sal Range, which includes several peaks greater than 12,500 feet in elevation.

 

Over the next three years, I observed the development activities at Pueblo Verde Estates several times each year. During the build-out, my friend Mary Wright was the sales agent for the modular homes planned for each parcel. To help her efforts, I developed the Moab Estates website, which included the first live webcam from the upper Spanish Valley.

 

When the economy slowed in 2008, the developers of Pueblo Verde Estates teamed up with the Housing Authority of Southeastern Utah. Over the next two years, the housing authority built high quality, affordable homes on each of the remaining lots. The unique project involved federal government grants and sweat-equity provided by the future homeowners. When completed, the project included more affordable housing units than any similar project in the history of that federal program. Now, those three-bedroom, two-bath homes are a financial and aesthetic credit to their owners and to their neighborhood.

In 2008, I realized that the remaining Ranchettes were an untapped treasure for their future owners. Each Ranchette is almost 2.5 acres in size and includes surrounding open space, dedicated to that purpose. Access is via wide paved roads, which include concrete curbs and gutters.  Underground utilities, include water, sewer, electricity, natural gas, telephone and cable TV, all of which are in and paid for.

 

In order to inform prospective buyers, I developed the Moab Ranch website. Recently, I completed an update to that website. Now you can view the remaining Ranchette on an interactive map and take a video tour of Moab Ranch. Additionally, you can view a webcam that streams live from the property.

 

Author's Note - November 10, 2013: When the word gets out that only one horse property, complete with unobstructed La Sal Range views, is available for $95,000, the final Ranchette will sell fast. No other property in Moab has all of the amenities you will find at Moab Ranch, at any price.

Email James McGillis 

 

By James McGillis at 04:04 PM | | Comments (0) | Link

Moab, Utah - I've seen fire and I've seen webcams - 2008

Moab, Utah - Matheson Wetlands Wildfire

On Wednesday, October 22, I departed Moab, Utah after three weeks of hard work, learning and meeting many new friends.  There is so much about Moab, the place, the time and the happenings that I want to share, it is hard to know where to start.

 

While ensconced in my Pioneer travel trailer at the Moab Rim Campark the night before, I heard fire engines racing north, on nearby Highway 191.  Although the nearest fire department to the south is in Monticello, Utah, fifty miles away, that fact did not register with me.  Somehow, it was nice just to hear that an emergency was receiving an emergency response, as we would wish if our property were in peril. 

 

On Wednesday morning, I hustled down to the RV Park office to create the final changes on our new webcam, streaming live from that location.  With the consent of Jim and Sue Farrell, the proprietors at Moab Rim Campark, we had installed a webcam up under the eaves of their second story.  Offering a panoramic view of the RV Park, Highway 191, the Slickrock area and the La Sal Mountains, our new webcam offers the world a completely new view of Moab, Utah and its weather patterns.  If you like, you can view the webcam at MoabLive.com or MoabRV.com.  Just click on either link and be patient as the webcam loads.  With the view changing every five seconds day or night, I assure you that you will not be disappointed.

 

Wednesday morning, I was so busy with the webcam that I failed to notice a column of smoke rising from the  Matheson Wetlands Preserve, which fills the space between the City of Moab and the nearby Colorado River.  According to the Wildlife Action Plan (WAP) for the area, the Matheson Preserve's lowland riparian habitat is the most critical habitat type in all of Utah.  As a unique wetland, it formed when the Colorado River bend in the Spanish Valley eroded its outside bank, leaving its former watercourse as a tangled swamp or reeds, bulrushes and non-native Tamarisk trees.

 

As with so much of the Desert West, the Matheson Wetlands are no longer as wet as they once were.  Although the water table there rises and falls with spring runoff or the occasional thunderstorm, a system of irrigation and water control dikes has turned much of the southern pond into “solid ground”.  Hunters and others camp or party in clearings, amidst the tangled undergrowth found throughout the preserve.  Did one such individual or group leave a campfire unattended the prior day?  Perhaps ironically, the fire appears to have overlapped a prescribed burn originally planned for October 2008.  That burn was only a small part of a wetlands restoration project planned for the preserve.

 

As I connected my pickup and travel trailer that morning, the wind came up and swept the fire from up near Highway 191 and the Colorado River, downstream to the gap where Kane Creek Road meets the river canyon.  Luckily, the firefighters stopped the fire there, but it was dramatic to watch, even from several miles away.

 

As I prepared to drive back to Los Angeles, I remembered a bit of Moab history.  In 1855, eight years after founding Salt Lake City, a party of forty-three Mormon men built a rock fort in the area now called the Matheson Wetlands Preserve, near the Colorado River.  Growing crops and attempting to convert local Native Americans to their religion became the Mormons’ primary challenges.  Additionally, they sought control of the strategic river crossing and trade with travelers along the wagon road known as the “Old Spanish Trail”.

 

The naming of Moab retains elements of controversy.  Some say that the original settlers named Moab for its appearance, supposedly being similar to an area located on the eastern side of the River Jordan.  Others say Moab was a bastardization of the Paiute Indian word “moapa”, meaning mosquito.  Either way, with the coming of regular postal service and incorporation of the town in 1902, the name Moab became official.

 

Several months after their 1855 arrival, Native Americans attacked the Moabites, burning crops and killing three settlers.  The Mormons then abandoned Moab, not to officially return until 1878.  With its cultural affinity and geographical proximity to Colorado and Arizona, Moab grew into the twentieth century more as a typical Western town than as a Mormon colony.

 

To my knowledge, the remnants of the old fort did not survive the one hundred fifty-plus years of mud and floods visited upon the Matheson Wetland Preserve by the mighty Colorado River.  Perhaps the denuding of that area will lead to renewed archeological interest in locating remnants of Moab’s original, if brief, non-native culture.

 

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By James McGillis at 06:25 PM | Environment | Comments (0) | Link

The Moab Rim Escarpment - As it is Above, So it is Below - 2008

The Moab Rim Escarpment - As it is Above, So it is Below

One of the things that I love about Moab, Utah is the juxtaposition of desert and mountain environments.  Midway between those two extremes is the Moab Rim, a towering escarpment that overlooks the Spanish Valley and the town of Moab. 

 

Geology of the Moab Rim

 

According to information on the website “The Geologic History of Moab”, during the “Tertiary Period, the Moab Fault allowed salt to erode, collapsing the center of an anticline.  A fault line runs down either side of the Moab valley, joining just upstream of the Moab Uranium Pile, near the entrance to Arches National Park.  Perhaps because of water running down along the fault line, salt dissolved away deep under the rock of Moab.  The overlying slab sunk down, creating a 'collapsed anticline' that is the Spanish and Moab valley”. 

 

Bisected, as it is, by the Colorado River, one wonders if the whole valley might at one time have been a lake, impounded on the downstream side by that solid rim.  If so, did it slowly and inexorably wear away until the river canyon established itself, finally reaching the natural, smooth gradient that the river exhibits today?  If any geologists know the answer to this question, we would love to hear about it via email.

 

The Grand Canyon of the Colorado River is famous to most visitors as a place where we look down and into the canyon.  The Spanish Valley is a place, similar to Zion National Park where, for the most part, we look up to the canyon rim. 

 

One exception to this is if you hike the Hidden Valley Trail, which climbs 680 from the valley floor to the top of the rim and a final elevation of 5270 feet.  From there, one has myriad views that include Potash, Moab, the Spanish Valley and Geyser Pass in the Manti La Sal National Forest.  Since the whole hike is only two miles one-way, it should be on the “to do list” of every reasonably fit visitor to Moab.

 

If you plan to hike the trail, it is best to start early, before the heat of the day.  Take plenty of water and a camera to document the spectacular scenery and late season wild flowers.  Since this is a protected area, do not stray from the path, as even one off-path hiker can leave tracks that will not heal for years, if not decades in this fragile environment.

 

Another way to enjoy the Moab Rim is from below.  My favorite place for doing this is west off of Highway 191 on Canyon Rim Road, which starts on the south end of the Moab Rim Campark (at 1900 South Highway, 191, Moab, Utah).  The pavement ends just past the power lines that parallel Highway 191.  If you continue up the dirt road, you can park where the road turns right and get out of your car.  With its easy access and immediate remoteness, it is a great place for a disabled visitor to get away from civilization for a bit.

 

If you have four-wheel drive, or are riding a mountain bike, you can continue on to a series of connecting dirt tracks that take you to the base of the Moab Rim.  Either way, there are several desert watercourses (dry, except during a storm) that you can walk without damaging the fragile soils and plant life that you will encounter.

 

One of the best times to visit the base of the Moab Rim is at dusk.  From there, you can watch the sun set behind the rim and see Moab transform from an apparent lake of trees into its nighttime incarnation as a brightly lit tourist town.  You will still hear traffic on the highway, but it is muted and unobtrusive.  After the sun dips below the Moab Rim, the desert air will cool considerably, so bring at least one layer of clothing beyond what feels right while the sun is still up.

 

Since this is one of my favorite places in the Spanish Valley, please do our environment a favor if you visit here.  Bring a plastic grocery bag and fill it with any beer bottles or other small trash you might find there.  If each visitor removes even a small amount of trash, the occasional “hell raiser” will be less likely to see this as an open dumping ground.

 

If the Moab Rim were located anywhere else except among the profusion of natural wonders that surround the Spanish Valley, it would probably rank National Monument status.  Since it is open land and policed on the honor system by the Bureau of Land Management, I hope that everyone who cares about the Moab Rim will help protect and enjoy its unspoiled beauty.

 

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By James McGillis at 07:35 PM | | Comments (0) | Link