The Red Desert

Another one I forgot to publish…………UGH

June 26, 2021

I was sleeping sound, like dead to the world, it’s pitch black outside, when Mary grabs me by the ear, yanks me out of bed, throws me into the drivers seat and says drive me to these Petroyglyphs which are 80 miles down the road. Actually she let me get dressed first, she said you’ve got 10 seconds to get dressed. She stood there with a big ole frown, tapping her foot and giving me the evilest evil eye you’ve ever seen.

Ok, so maybe it didn’t happen exactly like that but we were on the road by 7:15 or earlier and that’s kinda unusual for us to be on the road that early.

After some head scratching we finally found the turn, off the highway, road we were looking for. The paper map called the road one name, the GPS in the Jeep called it another name and Maps on the phones had yet a different name, None of them matched the street sign.

So, after the 80 mile drive to find the road then 22 miles of really rough road, where 5 MPH sometimes  made your teeth rattle in your head we FINALLY made it to the White Mountain Petroglyphs.

These are carved into a sandstone cliff, a lot of them were hard to make out and others looked to have one carved onto another one. With the walk to the Petroglyphs walking around the base of the hill and back we walked right at a mile.

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Since we were so far from home we decided to finish the 150+ mile loop through the desert. We traveled through some of the most desolated in-hospitable areas I think we have ever been in. We literally drove for hours and didn’t see anyone.

To say that we were disappointed would be accurate. We had this high quality printed map showing different things to see. But nothing along the route pointed out what you were supposed to be seeing.  One place was hard to miss because the map mentioned some trees, we knew when we found that spot because it had the only trees for miles in any direction.

Another spot, mentioned on the map was along the continental divide. Did you know that one spot in the USA along the continual divide where the water runs neither to the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans but into a bowl with apparently no outlet. Not that it really matters because it’s a desert and the only slight green is along the drainage ditches. We were just guessing when we found that spot.

Somewhere along the way I started getting tired, Mary said she would drive for a while, I wouldn’t go so far as to say she was driving slow but if we had been in a race with a tortoise and snail, and they were going backwards we still would have lost. Ok, so that’s not exactly true, we might have stood a chance but not by much.

We cleared the desert near the famed South Pass. Since we are thinking of passing here when we leave with the motor home I wanted to go to the top of the mountain to see what it was like.

We get near the top and low and behold, I didn’t know there use to be a town called South Pass City or that there were gold mines in the area. Now I, and you, know. Anyway, the friends of South Pass are refurbishing the town.

The town & mines were established in 1867(?), it has one long Main Street with several buildings open, you can step in a couple of feet and look through some glass to see the furnished insides. Others are open with displays in them. All the buildings are numbered and the booklet they give you with admission has a small write up about who lived there or what the building was thought to have been used for. 

Main Street continued beyond the town of course, now it’s just a walking trail.

They have done an excellent job with the restoration and little tidbits of information. They also have several walking trails, you could spend the day there and not see it all. There is also at least one mine tour you can take, its reservation in advance only.

We didn’t lallygag around at South Pass City because it was already getting late and we were 125+ miles from home. 

Coming off the mountain we stopped at several historical markers. All in all it was a good thing we left early this morning because we were gone around 13 hours and only took a small lunch with us, we were ready to eat as soon as we got home. Pinedale, about 15 miles from home is the only “town” we passed through and they don’t have any “fast food” restaurants, no stop lights either.

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