Travels with Richard

Introduction: When I heard that my friend Richard Menzies, an accomplished photographer and one helluva good writer, was to have a one-man show in his hometown, Price, Utah, I emailed him and told him I’d be there. His response, “Why would you want to do something as dumb as that?” I answered, “Cause, I like your work.” “But you’ve already seen what I’m showing.” “So what?” “Well then, so it won’t be a total loss, I guess I could show you some of Utah’s backcountry?” “Fantastic!” Richard rattled off places he thought I might enjoy seeing. The only one I recognized was Green River. I met him at his home in Salt Lake City and the next day we headed for Price where we attended a reception for his show at the local college. The following morning we left Price and spent a couple days bouncing along dirt roads. We made stops at a wall of 2,000-year-old primitive drawings, a not so swinging bridge, an amazing canyon, a valley of hoodoos and at a geyser that lost its fizz.

Pictographs... We traveled down through the Buckhorn Wash along the San Rafael Swell, a giant bulge in the earth’s surface. We passed by towering Navajo Sandstone cliffs that have been eroded into incredible formations. We stopped where ancient people created rock art called pictographs and petroglyphs. The pictographs were painted onto the surface of the sandstone as apposed to being carved or pecked onto the rock as in the case of petrogyphs. Did the images have a purpose? Were the symbols some sort of primitive language and if that’s the case, what was being said? Researchers who study such things don’t really know; however, they do agree that the rock art probably had a deep cultural and religious significance to the people who created it. As for me, it points out that mankind has always had the need to express thoughts symbolically and then pass on the thoughts to those who follow. “I was here, I existed and this is what I did.”

Swinging Bridge... Not far from the pictographs we crossed the San Rafael River at the site of the old “Swinging Bridge,” which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. This 160’ span, built by the CCC in 1937, doesn’t really swing and I haven’t been able to find out just why it’s called “Swinging Bridge.” I suspect it has something to do with the cables that stretch between the towers. In my need to know, I did find a website that lists 27 different kinds of bridges and Swinging Bridge fits the description of two of them: a suspension bridge, or possibly a cable-stayed bridge. But that still doesn’t answer my burning question...tis a puzzlement? For a long time, 53 years to be exact, Swinging Bridge was the only bridge across the San Rafael River. Today, it’s no longer used for vehicular traffic, however there’s a modern bridge just a few feet farther down stream. If anybody out there knows why the name, please pass it on...curious minds need to know!

The Wedge...When is the Grand Canyon not the Grand Canyon? When it’s the Wedge. Huh?
   Ok, perhaps you’ve never heard of what some people refer to as Utah’s Little Grand Canyon, which just happens to be a beautiful piece of Mother Nature’s handiwork. To get to the Wedge, we continued along the San Rafael Swell and eventually drove through a pinyon and juniper forest, right up to the edge of the canyon. Another few inches and we would have been airborne. We jumped out of the truck and began firing away, me with my Sony a100, Richard with his big ole Mamiya. Standing on the Wedge Overlook and peering 1,000 feet down into this sculptured wonder, I couldn’t help but marvel at how incredibly long it took the San Rafael River to dig it’s way inch by inch and pebble by pebble through the soft sandstone. From here the river continues on, finally melding into the much larger Green River, which eventually joins the mighty Colorado and we all know what canyon it dug.
   Someday I want to go back to the Wedge Overlook, camp on the rim and at sunset ease back in my folding chair, smoke an expensive cigar and drink a fine single malt Scotch while the setting sun makes all that red rock glow. Now that’s what I call luxury.

Goblin Valley... It’s a place that I swear Walt Disney must have designed. Well, it’s not a cartoon set; it’s a real place and along with the Wildebeest it’s also proof Mother Nature had a sense of humor. As I stood in the midst of this strange natural anomaly, I tried to image Mickey and Goofy and all the other Toons scampering through the field of rust colored mushrooms, but alas, I had to force myself to get real.
   When Richard was rattling off all those place names he mentioned Goblin Valley, but it didn’t register other than being an odd name. When I asked him for some detail, he shrugged his shoulders and said I should wait and be surprised and I was.
  
Do you know what hoodoos are? They’re also called tent rocks, fairy chimneys, earth pyramids, or goblins. Probably the most spectacular hoodoos are in Bryce Canyon, but hoodoos can be found wherever there is a dry region composed of rock that easily erodes, such as sandstone. None of the hoodoos I’ve ever seen look like the ones in Goblin Valley. These comical formations are the result of what happens when there’s hard rock on top of soft sandstone. The rock resists erosion, but the sandstone doesn’t. In this valley there is precisely that combination. You add in wind, rain, ice and snow and the result is...mushroom shaped hoodoos. As I walked among them making pictures, I found faces and animals in the rocks. OK, I confess, I can’t help but notice that certain inanimate objects look like animals or people. It’s distracting to some of my photography friends, who take great pleasure in reminding me that they really are just rocks. But thank goodness Richard isn’t one of them. It was he who discovered the duck; I found ET.
   OK, Walt Disney didn’t design this place, but Goblin Valley was used in the sci-fi movie, “Galaxy Quest,” starring Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver. I enjoyed the movie, as did most eight-to-11-year olds.

Crystal Geyser...When one approaches a geyser, one expects to see a spectacular display when heat from molten lava beneath the surface of the Earth elevates the temperature of surface water to a fever pitch, which forces the boiling water and steam to spew into the atmosphere creating a show like that which happens ever hour when Old Faithful blows its top. So as Richard and I approached Crystal Geyser we held our breaths (briefly) and waited patiently for the geyser’s spectacular climax. So did several other people and one very friendly dog. Did we get a show? No, cause there was no blow. It’s a dud as geysers go.

   Crystal Geyser was created in 1935 on the banks of the Green River when an oil crew was making an exploration. As it turned out there was no oil, so a pipe was installed to prevent anyone from falling into the well and the pipe made a perfect conduit. The geyser was once predictable, going off about every 8 hours. But on the day we were there, nada. Well, I guess I can’t say absolutamente nada. Water did meekly rise up the pipe about 2 feet in a puny attempt to impress us. What happen, no huge plume? How disappointing!
   But wait... When I got home I did some research and found out Crystal Geyser is not your classic geothermal geyser; in fact heat has nothing to do with it. It’s a coldwater geyser and it sits on a confined aquifer saturated with CO2. That’s what creates the pressure that forces the groundwater to blow, so you see it really is capable of having a fizz, just like soda pop. The bubbling I saw is normal and what I captured in the picture is not a puny eruption at all; it evidently was part of the build up of pressure that eventually gets large enough to shoot water into the air. SO, next time...stick around longer, relax, have a beer and maybe even camp for the night.

Conclusion...Traveling through Richard’s backyard was a good trek: wonderful scenery, a great travel companion and big laughs along the way. I look forward to other trips, only next time I suggest we skip the chicken fried steak in Green River, but definitely stop again for a beer at that wonderful brewery outside of Price.