Thursday

Last night the water bottles outside the tent froze solid, yeah it was @#&# cold. My sleeping bag didn’t seem to do the job. I woke up multiple times trying to throw cloths on top of the bag in a futile effort to keep warm. I felt I was up most of the night waiting for the sunlight to come, after several hours it finally did. I still stayed in the sleeping bag hoping it would warm up more. Then I heard someone outside boiling up some water, but that wasn’t enough to get me up, instead it was the call of nature…..there is after all only so long you can hold it!

An hour later the sun arrived at our campsite and the temperature soared up to the point of putting on shorts or sweating to death. That’s what the weather was predicting, warmer and warmer daytime temperatures; I just was hoping for the nights to get better.

The main ruin on the list for today was the Green Mask, about a mile or so up stream in Grand Gulch. We left our packs their at the camp since we would be coming back the same direction to head down stream later on. Without fifty pounds on your back, one just seems to float along, our feet just bounding along the stream bed as we flew along.

First to come up on our left was a two-story ruin with Wetherill’s name carved next to it on the sandstone. These guys came through the area about a hundred years ago doing amateur archeology. Most of the time they were just digging up what ever they could find and selling it off to the museums back east. The rules have changed quite a bit since then and now a day it’s the law to leave all artifacts in place.

Further up stream we went part way up Shieks Canyon. There up on the left we saw a small painted green head, called the Green Mask high up the side of the cliff wall.

Remains of a kiva and a few structures were also there. Some of the Pictographs dated back to 6500 B.C.

The time was now after 2:00 and we hadn’t made any headway to our next campsite. So we hurried back to our first site and made lunch. We really needed to put a few miles behind us; our second campsite was Green Canyon. There we saw another cliff dwelling that presented more of a challenge to get to. About halfway up the sandstone wall was a small ruin with a greenish plaster coating on the outside. The view was spectacular from that location and we hung out there in the shade as the colors became more intense with the late afternoon light.

Our campsite was just around the corner and the evening temperature was already proving to be warmer.

Richard Boyer

Wednesday

We set the alarm for 6:00 in the morning….it didn’t work! Nobody was really into getting up that early to start the hike.

For the past several days’ 10:00 had been the norm. So when an alarm goes off in the early dark of the morning, it’s not a welcoming sound.

Around 7:30 we dragged ourselves out of bed. Everything was already packed in the backpacks – so it was just to set them in the car and do a quick breakfast. At 9:00 we were ready, said our farewells to Karin, Lina and visiting family from Sweden and took off for the Grand Gulch ranger station. Karin threw me a serious look and said “Be sure the boy’s come back in one piece!”

Before anyone starts a hike there, you are first required to watch their twenty-minute video on the do’s and don’ts of hiking around the ruins. We had a shuttle with the cars that needed to be done also; one car had to be at the end of the nine mile road we were to come out along and the other where we start the hike. Our route was to head down Bullet Canyon, along Grand Gulch and up by Polly’s Island, all in all about twenty-five miles.

The temperature was 40 degrees when we started with snow still visible in the shadows. The forecast was for below freezing nights in the beginning and to slowly warm up over the next couple of days.

My pack feels like 50 pounds, as it digs its weight into my shoulders and back. We had to cover 7-8 mile today to our first campsite at the confluence of Bullet Canyon and Grand Gulch. Now I am sitting on a log writing in a journal as the temperature drops close to freezing. During the day it did warm up enough that some could walk around in tee shirts.

Our first ruin was Perfect Kiva, one that is still intact with a roof and latter going down into it. They did a little stabilization work, so one is now able to crawl inside.

Our next ruin was just over at the next alcove; Jailhouse ruin with its barred windows was popular with the group. Mainly for the upper level which required some crawling on your stomach along a narrow ledge between the rock layers. The kids thought this one was the best and that most likely because of the exposure. That's Victor smiling in the front!

Tomorrow we have a full day of exploration and with the temperature now below freezing most want to just crawl in the sleeping bag.

Richard Boyer

Tuesday

Yesterday the wind picked up, a front was moving through, at least the edge of it and the sand was everywhere. The center was some place up in Salt Lake. Last time this happened to me down here, I got so much sand in the camera that it had to be taken in and cleaned. That was a $160 dollar mistake; fine particles of sand in the air don’t mix too well with high-end digital cameras. As a result most of the time it stayed in my backpack.

I seem to be having a problem putting pictures with the text on my blog site; the mac doesn’t give me the option of reducing the size of the JEPG image. I tried to put several images on, but they just clog the upload with such a large file. I’ll most likely have to add them in when I get back to Salt Lake City. We leave tomorrow for the Grand Gulch, so I’ll be out of contact for several days. Wi-Fi hasn’t come to the remote canyons of southern Utah yet.

We did Monarch Canyon yesterday, its one of the classics along the Butler was road. A beautiful ruin sitting on top of an overhang with a pool of water below, some large cottonwood trees are growing by the side of the pool. I’ve painted the spot several times.

It was a short hike; most were tired from the day before, so after a few hours we were back at the hotel.

After lunch Dave knocked at the door and wanted to know if I was interested in finding the moki steps from the Anasazi that crossed over comb ridge. We have seen them from the Butler wash side but never from the cliff side of comb wash. We took the long dusty dirt road up the comb valley, after seven miles or so we saw a large outcrop of rocks with some Pictographs marking the way. We were close, we scoured the cliff face and went back to a low point, and there we headed up the steep incline of dirt and boulders, to base of the cliff. It was a low saddle in the other wise 800-foot cliff face. This area was maybe 50 feet to get over the edge and up there we saw the carved footsteps made by the Anasazi eight hundred years ago. There were well worn from time, but still could be used today. The only problem being that they were rather exposed; if you were to peal off of them the fall would be enough to break something. We decided it wasn’t worth it, since we have been up from the other direction any ways. By this time the skies were orange from the sand and wind. Our eyes were feeling the grit in the air.

That evening it was red wine and lasagna.

Richard Boyer

Monday

I'm sitting on the second floor porch at Recapture lodge, looking out over the dusty parking lot to the red rock cliffs along the San Juan River. Lina is up and wandering around with the dog and the rest are still lying in bed. Its 9:00.....vacation time I guess, with no urgency to get up and cease the moment. maybe it was the long hike we did yesterday up to Long Finger. We got going around eleven in the morning, drove out along the desolate highway to a dirt road heading off into the desert. There one opens the cattle gate, making sure to close it behind you and sets the under age child behind the wheel. This time it was Victor. Their eyes really light up when you posse the question "So, Victor, would you like to drive the car?"

The next ten miles or so I had my hand on the emergency break, just in case. I told him to look old when he drove by another car! Instead he rolled down the window and shouted out!

We finally made it to our destination and all clamored out of the three vehicles. Our goal was about a mile up the narrow walled canyon. There we saw "Long Finger Ruin" sitting atop an over hanging alcove. We spent maybe an hour looking around the pottery shards and ruins. Outside of every Anasazi ruin there exists a lush field of Prickly Pear Cactus, the remains of the former dwellers bathroom. over the years of doing their business they fertilized the ground enough for the cactus to grow quite prolific.

We did lunch and decided to head up to the ridge line. Comb ridge in a layer of Navaho sandstone tipped at an incline with an abrupt 800 foot drop at the end. The views are really killer, so most times when we go exploring, a trip to the top is well worth it and it gives us a chance to discover more ruins.

This is Lottie, Kay and Karin on the ridge top.

Halfway up we found some pictographs on a sandstone wall. At the top some more grain storage structures off on a far cliff wall. To get to those would have been a major undertaking, forcing us to go back down the incline and back up a different side of the canyon. We had been hiking for a while and really didn't have the desire. The idea of heading back down sounded better to most. So we slowly made our way back to the car and gin and tonics at the hotel.

Richard Boyer

Sunday

Here we are in Bluff; the weather outside is sunny and warm.....what a difference from Salt Lake. When we left there yesterday morning there was an inch of cold snow on the ground. We heard the sleet pounding against the window pain in the middle of the night.

Yesterday on the way down we stopped off at Dead Horse Point to do a little mountain biking and hiking.  Last year they opened up some a new trails system around the rim that offers spectacular views of the river 2000 feet below.  You can actually stand right at the edge and contemplate your own fate!  We have five bikes with us and eight people, so the boys took the bikes and the rest of us walked the trails.  The sky was overcast and looked like rain, but nothing actually hit the ground.

After that it was over priced take-out pizza at Kim's house in Moab.  She has three acres of land about a block away from Main Street and is putting on an addition to her house.  We are calling it our future room when we visit. Kim is married to Ed, who is our neighbor across the street and they divide their time between Salt Lake and Moab.

Richard Boyer

Friday

Tomorrow we drive down to Bluff, Utah, so there is a little packing that needs to be done this afternoon. I'll bring the laptop along and see if I can post a little done there, but as they say "Its a 3G dead zone!" But nevertheless I still want to show you some of the Anasazi cliff dwellings we'll be visiting.

The crit session went well last night, Robert managed to dance around his wine glass but never broke it. He likes to walk up to the painting to do his lengthy explanations and put the glass down on the floor. The dilemma is that he is of Italian decent, so his arms and feet tend to fly all over the place. Yes, you can imagine what happens!

First up on the block was the fishing boats.

They thought the main boat in the center was too cluttered, so I removed a lot of the stuff back there and simplified it all. That green tarp that was there, wasn't much of a hit, nobody seemed to know what it was. The foreground dock was also changed around a bit and some more detail added to the boat in the lower right. More rim light was added to the masts to play up the feel of the morning sun.

Next on the list was the cafe piece. They still wanted the umbrellas lighter, so I did that a little and also added some lighter green leaves to the plants at the bottom. Some atmosphere was added to the guy with the dark blue shirt, just to push him back some more. The sky was painted lighter and some of the background buildings became darker and more simplified. I forgot to paint also the arms on the chair to the left and the table was also too small, so both those problems were fixes as well.

Now I'll just forget about it for a while and look at it with a new eye when I get back from southern Utah. I still don't know about the lower left corner with that chair there, some think it should go and be open, others thought it was better when I had the table there.

Richard Boyer

Thursday

Its crit night tonight, so I was going to throw the boat painting and this one to the wolves. Now I did change a few things on this one....which ended up being quite major.

Several artists thought that the row of tables were a little too much and that the light blue guy was pressed up against the back of the darker blue shirt man. So I painted the end table out and pushed it farther back into space. The table at the end is now smaller and farther away from the other table. Yes, one Hell of a lot of work for a small pay-off. But maybe better off for the composition now. I also moved the left table closer to the viewer and got rid of the table that was in the lower part of the painting. All small changes to the eye, but in each case it means painting out the object in order to paint it back in the correct size or location.

If this was reality, I would have moved the objects around in five minutes..........but nooooo.
This is a damn painting and it takes all @%$@ day to do those few changes.

Well lets see what they say tonight

Its a winter wonderland outside. This morning we woke up to a Christmas like landscape, so much for Spring !!!

Richard Boyer