More Colorado

Castle Mountain!

More snow!

Full moon rising in a pine, fir, spruce forest..the smells were amazing..I brought a big bag of needles home for the fragrance.

Colorado

I drove through so many gorgeous Valleys...I think this one was near Crested Butte. All of them had a fast running COLD river at the bottom! Snow melt no doubt!

The Aspens were amazing!

A Grouse...he/she was making a grunting sound so as to divert me away from the nest...when she did this, her throat enlarged and showed a bright red skin.

Can you believe SNOW?!! in JULY!!

WOW...What a change!! I can hardly believe how soon I was in high elevations and encountered snow banks!! The air temp was probably in the 50's and the snow was obviously old and melting but it was SNOW!! I made snowballs!

Leaving Utah early

I was planning on staying in Utah for the week and helping "Map" some ancient sites...however circumstances took me in another direction. The morning of the scheduled departure further into the desert, the Van began pouring oil from the Oil filter(luckily I saw it after backing up a few feet). After removing it and screwing it back on, the leak was stopped but I did not have the confidence that it was not a faulty thread or whatever and could happen again. The closest Auto parts store open on a Sunday was Moab, 100 miles away. We were headed another 10 miles into a remote area, with no cell phone reception....my intuition told me I shouldn't do it...that I should go get a new oil filter. The team went on without me and said I should come back and meet them using GPS coordinates. But my GPS had quit working and well I just didn't think it was a good idea for me to be in the middle of the desert with no communication having never been there before. Soooo....to make a long story short...I decided to leave the 102 degree desert for some high country in Colorado Mountains!! Stay tuned!!

I took the scenic road from Moab along the Green River.

RockArt

Petroglyphs are carved or chipped into the rock. This one was on a cliff wall a short hike from the campsite.

Pictographs are Painted on the rock. Painted on the inside of one of the house walls...the site was aptly named Target house.

Cliff Dwellings

The sites were very remote, so the hiking was great and at times strenuous. To come upon the structures was just breathtaking! The leader of the group has done extensive research in this area for the last 7 years so his knowledge was abundant. All the structures we visited had been well documented and mapped already. I was to be heading out with another team in a few days to go map some undocumented sites!

These structures were built by the ancient Puebloan peoples, I think they said around 700 AD.

Every site had "Grinding slicks" where it was obvious tools were sharpened or shaped over time.

Going to Utah

I love driving through the Southwest. Views like these of ancient Shiprock (below) in the distance as one drives through modern civilization seems so surreal.

I am going to meet a group of Archaeologists, Anthropologists, Geologists, etc...basically scientists of sorts for their annual "conference", which is a social gathering with some organized site visits to ancient cliff dwellings!
The venue is a campsite on the San Juan River near Bluff, Utah. Soooo beautiful! The river was up a bit and very swift.

The van is still going strong and a perfect little home away from home for me. A little tarp provides some shade and protection from a welcome thunder storm.

The Schoolhouse

The adobe schoolhouse in El Cerrito, New Mexico is almost finished after a rebuild over the last 7 years. I have been fortunate to be involved with this project and now know ALL the residents of the village, Population 11. I passed through here on my way to Utah as camping on the Pecos River is a great way to start a trip!