Morning in Price, Utah

This don't look so good! Cold and rainy in Price, snowing up in the hills. We're headed for Grand Teton today, and we need to go over Soldier Pass to get there and then hit the southern end of the Salt Lake City metropolitan area before heading northeast. Oh, well, we've traveled in snow before.

Yesterday was quite a day. As you may be able to tell in the first picture, taken inside Arches National Park, the air was filled with dust and it was blowing hard (and yet the park was FULL of people on a Wednesday in late May!). The picture of Sandy in the window doesn't show her grabbing for a rock as wind almost blew her over!

Still, the storm clouds and occasional sunshine gave a dramatic effect to the red rocks; definitely a place to go back to. Sandy's saying it sounds like a visit to Moab in March might be a good break from Mancos weather.

We almost canceled out on my plan to go west of Green River, Utah, and go through the San Rafael Swell. But, it cleared, and we got through without mishap (the bikes are encrusted with mud, though).

Buckhorn Draw (Wash, in some usages) is a fantastic red-rock canyon, narrow with vertical cliffs on both sides. At a double elbow in the canyon, Archaic period folks painted tall, haunting figures on a fresh "flake" of the cliff some 2000 years ago. They're now called Barrier Canyon style. There were several different artists, and only one of the panels of figures is shown here.

When I was still with BLM, I was one of the people who worked on interpretation of these figures. When the dedication was held on an autumnal equinox, I went up for the event, camping the night before on top of the cliff above. Fascinating! 

During the ceremony, being a natural hermit, I left the crowd and walked across the river to a stretch of bedrock that gently slopes toward the pictograph site; the last picture was taken from that location. I suddenly realized that I was sitting at the focal point of sound that was echoing off the walls of the amphitheater formed by the canyons at this point ... I could hear everything happening at the dedication and I could see the figures reasonably clearly. 

One theory about art of this sort is that it is performance art, meant to serve as a backdrop for shamanic ceremonies. That experience made me a believer! Sandy and I went over to the "bleachers" ... at the very least, it gives you a sense of the grand sweep of the site. tv