Little Hollywood

I came to Kanab because it is central to the natural wonders I’ve been showing, in part, on this blog.  I didn’t expect to leave my home near Hollywood and land in a town that has hosted over one hundred movies.  Most of them are westerns and television series from the 1950s and 60s.  The town clogs with movie fans once a year for the festival they call Western Legends Roundup.  It ended yesterday.

Ed Faulkner, born 1932

Peter Brown, born 1935

Several stars from those old shoot-em-up westerns rode into town for the event, and I played the part of a sneaky photo grabber.  Here I am with two stars.  Notice their birth dates and my lack of a birth date and how well preserved we are.

Rob “Gabby” Doudel—
Gabby Hayes look alike

A Gabby Hayes look-alike took us on a bus to see the movie set where Gunsmoke was filmed every week for some fifteen years.  The set is quite run down. 

Long Branch Saloon, better known as
Miss Kitty’s Saloon in Gunsmoke 

Some of you may be old enough to recognize the Long Branch Saloon, better known as Miss Kitty’s Saloon in Gunsmoke.  And of course the gallows still stands with even a piece of rope remaining. 

The old buildings will soon disappear with the stars, as some of them already have.  I like the ancient feeling of pictures taken from abandoned places, even if they were never built to last. 

Something satisfying about being among history that is already fading from memory.

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Subterranean

I am not subterranean by nature.  Quite the opposite; I tend to look up at mountain summits.  The sky and those rocky projections that seem to reach for it have held me in fascination ever since that wayward girl sneaked out to the mountains behind our Altadena home.  I camped at Hennigher Flat, and then slunk home scared of my father’s impending words.  Had I not loved him so much, that downward hike would have been easier.

Here in Southwest Utah, I followed an ordinary-looking dry wash downstream until it seemed to end in that dark hole in the left of the picture.  People speak of the ends of the earth, places beyond normal geography—the South Pole, the Amazon, the Sahara.  I entered this deep slot thinking it is that extreme.  

I slunk into the slot, like entering through the eye of a needle.  Suddenly I was in land dimpled with innocence or guile, a slot cut into the earth, both intriguing and scary.  The seemingly unending tunnel I was trekking through made me feel trapped in a maze.  A sensation of being stalked by shadows came over me.

It would have helped to know that today would not bring a flash flood, but the forecast is always the same—twenty percent chance for thunderstorms.  It’s not like you can look at the sunny sky and know you are safe, for rain falling fifty miles away in Bryce Canyon can send a wall of rushing water this way that arrives six hours after the rain stops.  Such a flood brought this pile of debris.

And how did this boulder get here?  If it were jagged, I’d guess it fell down from the top in some shaking, but since it’s rounded, some tremendous movement of water must have carried it from upstream and wedged it solid.  I climbed over the boulder using a wood post that some prior canyoneer had left.

The route this canyon led me on was twisty and unpredictable, yet inescapable as a pipeline.  The tunnel seemed to have no end.  I was wondering whether I had left Kanab behind and was doomed to roam some crevice in the earth forever.  I wonder sometimes where my common sense disappears to.

I traveled the canyon at a wriggling pace.  Silence filled the slot.  My own breathing was loud. 

Finally there was light from downstream, and I knew I was somewhere near the surface of the earth.  I emerged from this cave-like hole and was back again in an ordinary-looking dry wash 

An Ancient Village

How are you going to send me off to difficult places in search of wonders after I’ve seen The Wave.  It’s like asking, where do you go from Heaven?  I wish I’d saved The Wave for that final day when I’m barely able to make it there, but not back.  Nevertheless, life continues with too little knowledge and too many alternatives.  So off I went as if The Wave were just another day’s goal, another hike.

On May first of this year, I made application for a permit to enter Coyote Buttes South, in Vermillion Cliffs National Monument, and did so online without the lottery uncertainty required for The Wave.  I simply had to say, three months in advance, that I wished to go there on a particular day.  Had I applied any later, all slots would have been filled.   

So it was that I drove in morning darkness to the top of 8,000-foot Kaibab Plateau, passing this sunrise for some vermillion not in the cliffs.

I turned north onto rough-and-dirty House Rock Valley Road and drove thirteen miles over rocks and bumps to where two-wheel-drive vehicles can go no farther.  Then I walked two miles to meet my little colored friend and to understand his tracks.  

Another day in the Vermillion Cliffs, hiking to another remote wonder, though here the cliffs are a misnomer with only vermilion to indicate the formation.

I came to Paw Hole Trailhead where no trail begins, and where the sign says a permit is required.  Mine was dangling from the back of my Pack.  Footprints headed in several directions, so I ignored them and headed north because map and compass led me that way.  And soon I came to a village of teepees, shown here. 

Here is a teepee up close.  Perhaps it was inspiration for Paiute architects many centuries ago.

Little people live in these cliffs, their doors perhaps a foot high, or so it seems.  Everything seems out-of-proportion here in the Paw Hole 

Sand dunes once shifted here and changed with winds many millions of years ago.  See how the layers change directions, perhaps with changing winds or seasonal shifting of wind.

Here is a riddle for all you armature geologists.  If these layers were formed in ancient sand dunes, where winds shifted and created the different directions of sand buildup, which eventually hardened into sandstone, then why is this layer looped back, so much that it appears upside down?  Anyone who correctly explains this will receive an very ancient prize when I return. 

The Wave

There is a place about forty miles southeast of Kanab that, when I saw pictures many months ago, I was convinced it was not real.  The pictures were doctored and the tales of its grandeur were fabricated.  

The place is reachable by a terrible dirt road that floods often and can leave you stranded for days until the water subsides and the mud dries out.  From what is called a trailhead along this road, there is no trail, and to find the magical place, you must navigate with map and compass over three miles of limestone ridges and ravines in scorching heat.  Still an average of two hundred people per day from all over the world want to experience the place.  But only twenty are allowed to go.

You can enter an on-line lottery four months in advance.  I did this twice before coming to Kanab, and lost twice.  You can also enter a daily lottery for one of ten slots reserved for people who come to Kanab and sit in a room hoping their number will be drawn.  I sat in that room with fifty others and lost.  But yesterday I decided to try again, and, Yippee, the last number called was mine!

Words may come to describe what I saw today, but this evening after visiting The Wave, I can only yield to my pictures.  In them you see just one branch in a labyrinth of truly astounding natural sculpture.  The pictures are in order as I walked along just one passage of The Wave.

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Kanab

Wayne is fixing the cooler on the roof,
but I know him best for friendly service,
providing all my requests,
and for being a nice guy.

I liked Wayne almost immediately when he picked up the phone three months ago.  I called him because his website claims the best personal service in Kanab and the lowest price of any motel.  My affection for him has not diminished in the days since our meeting last Monday.  And his wife is just as good.  They are my kind of people, which is not say they are like me, but they are people that I like.  

This afternoon I told Wayne that after four tries, I had finally won the BLM lottery and will be off to The Wave in the morning.  He gave a shout!  I should return by nightfall, I said, but would he please call the BLM if I am 24 hours late.  The Wave is the most photographed and possibly the most colorful sandstone feature in the country.  At odds of ten-to-one against me, I put in for The Wave this morning, and could not be happier at having won.  Permits to go there are the most sought after, and I have one!

George is a regular for breakfast at the Perry Lodge.  He’s an Airborne veteran of WWII and moved here from Southern California to beat the traffic. 

Gabby Hayes is one of the many celebrities who have dined at the Perry Lodge.  So many movies have filmed here that local folks disagree on the number.  Pictures of the stars line the walls of cafes and stand on little posts along the main street.

Several movie sets about town allow visitors to stand where their heroes stood when the chips were down. 

The main street of Kanab

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The Fitting Things

Zion National Park,
from the road halfway
from the east entrance
to the Virgin River 

The Peak 

Left Fork of North Creek
in Zion Park 

The Creek

Thunderstorm on the desert
west of Fredonia, Arizona 

The Storm 

Slot Canyon

See how the lines in this carved sandstone look like a section through sand dunes.  Layers of sand can almost be seen blowing in 200-million-year-old wind, just as they blow today in Death Valley.  So it seemed as the overture began today for the greatest earth on show. 

Alice was feeling bored while sitting on the riverbank, when she noticed a rabbit run past.  She followed it down a hole when suddenly she falls a long way to a curious hall with many locked doors and strange surroundings.  So I felt today after walking two hours to an ordinary-looking wash that suddenly narrowed into a steep-walled slot where the temperature dropped and sunlight nearly disappeared.

Sunlight glances off the vermillion walls of the canyon above me and comes in already red before it strikes the red walls near me as I stand in the bottom of a canyon so narrow that two people could not walk abreast.

Sunlight seldom or never reaches the bottom where warped and meandering walls rise and twist, not vertically, but in spirals and bends.

This slot is called Red Canyon, about seven miles north of Kanab.  Other slots that I hope to enter will be deeper and less lighted.  But even here I feel like creature of the netherworld.

Creeks that form slot canyons erode vertically downward, and their canyons are often no wider at the bottom than they are at the surface.  While most creeks meander and leave their debris behind as they continually find new and easier ways of flowing, creeks of slot canyons, carry all their debris with them and erode only downward.  Normal canyons broaden as they erode into the earth; their banks slide into the creek which carries debris away, eventually to some lake or sea. Slot canyons can cut hundreds of feet downward with walls that are often steeper than vertical, leaning back and nearly meeting each other, as if never really separated.