Pickett CCC Memorial State Park (05/18/25)

 Paul and I are both huge fans of the CCC- Civilian Conservation Corp- a group of young men who signed up during the great depression (1930s), to work on building infrastructure in our country. They were young, single, usually illiterate, and poor. In return for their labor they were paid a small wage, and agreed to send most of it home to their parents. A lot of what these men built is still standing today. 

Over 70,000 young men from Tennessee took part in the program, and Pickett State Park was one of their first projects.

The camps were run by the Army, who saw to their basic needs, and more. The boys learned skills, how to read, and how to be a productive member of society.

Most of the buildings in this park were built by the CCC - They also built several of the hiking trails, which we thoroughly enjoyed. We started with a short loop near the visitor center before moving on.

The other trails we chose were all about the arches.

 

Twin Arches trail is a 2.5 mile loop that takes you past two large arches.

The trail included several sets of steep stairs, and of course, what goes down must go up.

The other trail we did in this area was to Needle Arch-

this trail had a bonus though. Just a short distance from the arch  is a waterfall- Slave Falls.

 

Our visit to this state park in Tennessee took us a little bit out of our way on our path east, but it was worth it.

Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument (05-07-12)

The 1.9 million acres of Grand Staircase Escalante are some of the most rugged, and remote acreage in this country. This area is so remote, it was the last area to be mapped, and for a long time, showed up on maps as a huge, blank white spot.  there aren't many roads that go through the National Monument, but Utah rte 12 is one of them, and its one of the most beautiful drives we've been on.  



     Our first expedition was to the visitors center, which we've been to before, but this time we wanted to check out the hiking, and also to find out where there was BLM land where we could park for free because the state park here only had two nights available.  

Armed with the information we needed, we set out early the next day to hike to lower Calf Creek Falls. This is an interpretive trail, so we picked up a sheet that pointed out what we would be seeing along the way.  There were petro glyphs as well as ancient granaries high in the canyon walls. 

After a 3 mile hike into a canyon, we turned a corner and this is what we saw.  Such a gorgeous waterfall!  When I had found out about this particular hike online, the person who hiked it mentioned swimming in the pool, so I was all excited and ready to bring the swim suits.  When we talked to the ranger however, she smiled and said we can swim there, but with a water temperature in the low 50s, we may not want to.  Oh well. We did wade in up to our knees, and watched some young guys swim all the way to the falls.

With our time here somewhat limited, we made the most of the day by continuing our adventure after the hike.  We drove up Rte 12 and came to an area where we could stop and admire the view.  To our surprise, the view included a top-down view of the falls that we had just hiked to!  If you enlarge the picture you can see the waterfall, but it also gives you a sense of what hiking in a canyon is like around here. (the top picture also pictures the canyon we hiked in.)

We spent the afternoon driving Hell’s Backbone Road, a road that was built in the 1930s by the CCC in order to connect Boulder Utah with the neighboring towns.  The main attraction on that road, beside the feat of actually building the road itself, is the 100 ft bridge with 1500 ft drop offs on both sides that they built.  Quite an accomplishment on their part!

Continuing our exploration of the area today, we headed to Hole in the Rock Rd. and parked the trailer in a small lot.  We had to drive 26 miles down a washboard road to reach our destination- Coyote Gulch, home of Peek-a-boo and Spooky canyons. We debated for quite a while whether we wanted to drive to the end of the road, but in the end, decided it wouldn’t be worth the 100 mile trip.  The road ends at Lake Powell, at the “hole in the rock.”

In the 1800s, a group of Mormons left the Salt Lake area and headed out to colonize a new area. They decided that coming through this way would be a short cut to their destination, saving them months of traveling.  150 people, with 80 wagons made their way through this area,  and kept going, right up till they came to the Colorado River, which was 1800 feet below where they were standing. There was a small “hole in the rock” leading to the river, but it wasn’t big enough for anyone to get through.  They spent the next 6 weeks blasting and digging in order to widen the hole, so they could reach the river.  Tenacious!

After climbing down into Coyote Gulch, Peek-a-boo canyon was the first one we came to, but the entrance to the canyon itself required a climb of 12 feet.  Since the canyon is only .3 miles deep, I decided it wasn’t worth the risk of injury, and I waited for Paul at the entrance. 

He actually said it’s one of the coolest slot canyons he’s been in, with all kinds of nooks and crannies, and places he had to either crawl through, or climb over.  As soon as he left, a woman who works for the National Park Service as a biologist showed up, so I had a nice chat with her while I waited.

A half mile further down Coyote Gulch was Spooky Canyon.  I know why it’s called that- because it’s so narrow and dark (and cool, which was great, since it was hot out) that it’s spooky.  Apparently quite a few people have literally become stuck, and have had to be rescued.  Luckily we weren’t two of them. Again it is a short canyon, but fun.  You can see Paul in this picture if you look into the canyon. He couldn’t wear his hat or his backpack to get through this area.

As if we didn’t get enough accomplished today, we hitched the trailer back up and left Escalante at about 2:00 in the afternoon.  That’s highly unusual for us, since we ordinarily like to be finished traveling by then, but we decided to get as far as we could towards Capitol Reef National Park, our next destination.

Grand Canyon of the East (Letchworth State Park, NY-6/17/11)

    We made reservations at this park based on a recommendation from a couple we met in PA, and it is a great park (although the “real” Grand Canyon has nothing to be worried about), but I thought it was much closer to Joe and Judi in Rochester than it actually was.  It took us about an hour and twenty minutes to get to the boat on Saturday.   Also, I had to cheat the system.  They had no more “pet” sites available so I said I had no pet.  Poor Dozer had to stay inside, with the shades down, the whole time we were there. Not an ideal situation, and I don’t think I’d do it again. 
   

  The Park was partially built on land donated by William Letchworth after his death in 1910.  He was a conservationist during his lifetime and spent a lot of time and money collecting artifacts to preserve them for future generations.  The land is along the banks of the Genesee River and includes 3 major waterfalls.  No one is allowed along the riverbed unless they are part of a group rafting trip, however, which is very odd, except in most places the gorge is a few hundred deep anyway.    Things really got built up here in the 1930s, when the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp) came in and built most of the structures, trails and picnic areas.

  

       One of the longest and most popular trails here is the Gorge trail but at 7 miles long (with a 7 mile return), its a bit much to do in one day.  The ranger suggested starting at one end one day, hiking halfway, returning, and then doing the other half another day.  We took the advice and ended up hiking about 7.5 miles the first day.

We also saw all 3 major waterfalls the first day.  Hiking here is pretty easy- the trails and waterfall views  are pretty accessible by road, all along the way, so we didn’t really have to hike as far as we did, but we wanted the exercise anyway. 

    We spent one day exploring by truck, driving down tiny little dirt roads that we probably shouldn’t have been on, and we found a trail that follows an old canal that was built in the 1800s to carry lumber and materials to distant towns. The canal was used, by a series of locks, to raise and lower barges over 900 feet in elevation. Not much of the locks are left, but it was still an interesting day.  Our travels also brought us past a small town that didn’t have many stores, but did have a great place to get ice cream!

Hiking with the new GPS and Fort Davis, TX (2-13-2011)



working with the GPS

     Our new GPS arrived while we were in El Paso, and we spent a day or so trying to become familiar with it.  Its going to take a lot longer to become proficient though.  It's not exactly user friendly, but we're hoping that by spending some time with it, it will  become easier to use.  We took it out to Franklin Mountain State Park and found our first geocache with it!  It was very exciting, although we did make a few rookie mistakes.  I also discovered that I can walk and I can look at the GPS, but it's much better for me if I don't do them both at the same time. 


Fort Davis



      After a great visit with Paul's mom, we left El Paso a couple of days ago, and have settled in Balmorhea, TX.  Yesterday was a full day of adventure for us.  We started with Fort Davis (National Monument), which was built and used from the mid to late 1800s as one of the forts along the road from San Antonio to El Paso, to protect travelers from Indian attacks.   The fort is slowly being restored and there were several very knowledgable volunteers there who knew the history well.  At certain intervals all day long, we would hear a bugle call, just as the soldiers would have heard it so many years ago.  We were given a cheat sheet listing all the calls and what they meant, and it was fun to listen and get a sense of the rhythm of their daily life in the fort.  I always like the personal stories- the ones about the Colonel's 4 kids and their lives in the fort.  Education was always an issue when someone was stationed at a remote outpost.  Many families sent their children back east to be educated, and didn't see them for years at a time.  No thanks.  They couldn't bring a governess, because after the cost of transporting someone out here, it usually took about a month for her to be married to someone, and no longer interested in being a governess. 

    Once we toured the fort, we went hiking for a couple of hours.  I had downloaded the location of several caches, but it turned out they were too far away from our location, and the gates are locked at 5 pm,  so we couldn't risk not being back in time.  I had fun using the GPS to hike anyway.  Since we still had time, we headed over to nearby Davis Mountain State Park, and drove the scenic drive.  This state park was built by the CCC back in the 1930s.  Throughout our travels we have marveled at the incredible work done by the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp) all over the country. It was a government program during the depression, that gave young men jobs creating infrastructure and protecting the natural resources in our nation's parks.
In this park they built a lodge from adobe that is still in use today.
    We ate dinner at the restaurant in the lodge, since there aren't too many options this far out in the country. It was just ok.  You would think that would be enough for one day, but we decided brave the predicted temperature of 22 degrees, and headed over to the McDonald Conservatory for the Star Party.  Luckily it only got to about 40 degrees out, because even that felt pretty cold.  At 7:30 one of the staff started pointing out the constellations in the sky, showing us some of the things that we would be able to see through their telescopes.  It was a clear night, although it was a half moon, so it wasn't as dark as it could have been.
    One of the things he pointed out to us was Polaris, the North Star.  We had always thought that it was the brightest star in the sky, but it's not even close.  It is always in the north though, because it's location is straight off the earth's rotational axis, so it doesn't appear to move much at all.

    There were 6 telescopes set up to view different objects, including the moon.. There was an awesome Nebula, but the only thing I got a picture of was the moon.  If I had had more time to play with the camera, without other people waiting in line, I might have been able to get the right setting, but I couldn't even play around with it because it would have been too much light polution to have in my face, so I just picked settings and did the best I could.