Cashin Mine

My wife and baby were in Michigan going to Jacqueline's high school reunion. They left me all alone in Norwood, so I talked to the music teacher at the school and he was down for a weekend hike. We both had Friday off of school, so I called him up early in the morning to see if he was game. He said he was and there was an area I had been wanting to check out. On the drive to Moab from Norwood, there is a canyon that cuts through the scenery and winds its way down to the Dolores River. This seemed like an excellent trip. After doing some research online, I learned that there were some old mines in that area. Seemed interesting, so we went for that. It was about an hour's drive from Norwood to where we parked the car at a big pulloff. We could see a road below us and the terrain did not look too crazy so I asked him if he wanted to just start from here. Jeff looked a little apprehensive, but we slowly picked our way down running into very few obstacles until we hit the road. You have heard the expression "Alpine Start" well this was a desert start. From that point we just followed the road. Almost immediately we ran into a waterfall. We never got a good picture of it though, as it was obscured by vegetation and we did not want to cross the little creek we were following. Jeff was very impressed by the canyon country and all the rock. It was not long before we began running into mines. We saw the first one up the hill, so we climbed up to it. I was amazed that it was actually big enough for us to stand up in. We were not able to go very far back because neither of us had a flashlight, but we went as far back using what we could muster for light. I did not have a camera either, so I relied on Jeff to take some pictures. We did not have to go far to run into our next prospect and we could start to see why this area was hit so hard. With all the multi-colored rocks, we knew there were copper like material coming out of it along with probably much more stuff that you would have to be a mineralogist to know about. We were just appreciating the history that was in this area knowing that it must have been a much more thriving area when the mines were active here. Continuing down the road we ran into the first of the big mines which was the Cliff Dweller Mine. But the big one was at the end of the road and that was the Cashin Mine. There were dozens of buildings to house miners, many prospects, and a large mill that was still standing. We walked through the middle of it which was a little creepy. I figured if it could stand up in a Norwood windstorm, it would make it through a beautiful sunny October day. We climbed up on the cliff side to explore another prospect and you could tell that this one was the mother lode. It still had tracks running through it and we walked over to where there was a big vertical shaft. We were only able to go so far, but were glad we made it that far. As we came out, we walked over to the mill. I was not going to walk the tracks over to it, though, as that would have been foolish. I climbed up a steeper slope to where there was another prospect. Jeff had started calling me Bear from that guy Bear Grills on the Discovery Channel. This last one was not very exciting, so we went back down to explore some of the old falling down buildings. From there we headed back enjoying the stream and the beautiful fall colors. I thought about taking Jacqueline and Zyla back to this area. It would be a good off season hike. The hike back proved to be a lot quicker without all of the stops along the way. The climb out was not too bad either and we were left with much time to enjoy the rest of a much needed day off from teaching.

Paul Bunyan's Potty

Jacqueline's dad Tom and her brother Paul came down to visit. We met them in Monticello to hang out for the weekend. They had already been doing a little bit of exploring of their own before we came. We went out to dinner on Friday night with the whole crew and had a good meal. The next day we were off to Canyonlands National Park for a trip I had wanted to take for quite some time to go see Paul Bunyan's Potty. We had about an hour drive to get to the trailhead. I was a little bit nervous about the road so we parked at the beginning of the road, but realized later that we could have driven it and saved ourselves 20 minutes.
Oh well. The hike was down an old road that was now no longer used for driving. So needless to say that even though it was a beautiful Saturday in October, we only saw one other group of people. The wash that the road followed and eventually would enter was either really sandy making walking difficult or wet. I got to carry Zyla and she was having so much fun. We had not heard her talk so much but she was so happy and making so many loud noises. We did not move incredibly fast because of the sand, the heavy baby, and the good company.
We were all enjoying it as we walked under the cliffs that soon became bigger until we felt like we were in a small canyon even though it was so open. We hiked for a couple of hours and then stopped for lunch. We knew we were close to the arch, but we did not know how close. Jacqueline did not want to stay out too long with Zyla, so after lunch her and Tom headed back while Paul and I went to Paul Bunyan's Potty. It turned out to be only about a half an hour away. When we got to it we knew what we had found as it did look like a giant toilet seat.
We spent a few minutes checking out the ruins beneath it, but the best part was finding a way to climb up on the cliffs to get closer to the arch. We had to take a long way around, but eventually found a way up to the cliffs right beneath the arch. I spent a little bit of time there and then Paul followed behind me. He was taking a lot more pictures as he was enjoying the different scenery in Southern Utah compared to where he lived up north in Salt Lake. I climbed on down and hung out in the shade waiting for Paul.
He took quite some time and I realized he was having trouble finding the way down, so I finally pointed out the way down. From there we hustled on back knowing that Jacqueline was wanting to get back by a certain time to keep Zyla on her schedule. It was fun hiking with Paul as it was good to spend some time with him. Jacqueline really does have a great family and I am lucky to have such good people to be related to. When Paul and I made it back to the car, the Tom, Jacqueline and Zyla were nowhere to be found. They left a note, though and we found them in the shade under a big rock. We headed out back to Monticello for some good food and to watch UW when a late night game over Oregon State before it was back to Norwood and the work week.

Anniversary Weekend in Ophir

Well two years has honestly flown by. In that two years we had a great honeymoon, a big move to Colorado, and a new edition to the family. In those years we also had many great hikes. So I thought we could return to the place where I hiked on my first trip out to Colorado near the tiny town of Ophir. The first issue was finding it. We were lucky to have a GPS because even though it was fairly close to Telluride, there were absolutely no road signs for it. Then once we got to the town, there were absolutely no signs for trailheads. We were lucky enough to park and find a trailhead. After feeding the little one, I strapped her on and we were ready for a hike. The trail took us first across a little creek and then up an old road. Zyla was so happy to be hiking and had a giant grin on her toothless face. She really loves to go hiking. There were quite a few people out considering there were no signs for this random trail. The trail took us uphill through some aspen forest which was very nice at this time of year. I wanted to take Jacqueline out here because how much she loved the fall color and I just knew that this place would be full of at least some yellows. We were almost a little bit too late as some of the leaves were gone on some of the trees. Eventually the trail popped us out above the trees, but it also popped us into some private land. There were no trespassing signs up, so we thought that we would obey them. There were quite a few junctions, so eventually we found the right one that took us up the hillside to the other side of the valley. 

From there we had some good views and we also had to take some time out of our day to feed the baby again since we had been hiking for a while and she was getting hungry again. We found a nice place to sit and enjoy the perfect weather outside. We knew it would not be too long before t-shirts would be exchanged for the down jacket. We kept running into the same couple who were trying to make a full day out of this hike. They talked to another group that said the trail we were on headed toward the post office. Almost immediately we said that we did not want to go down that way, but after thinking about it, I figured we could make a loop out of it. When I realized later that the post office was a long way down the road, I was happy we chose to turn around. We still had excellent views down towards the mountains of Ophir. We could see the road coming down from Ophir Pass, the crazy road that scared me when my dad drove it 13 years ago. Once back to the car, we headed down the road to the town of Rico. We stayed at the Rico Hotel, which I would not recommend because the place was rickety and you could hear everything that was going on in the place. We had a good dinner, the baby was awesome, but I did not get great sleep. Still I had a fun weekend with the wife who I know I could not do it here without. She has been an amazing mother and wife, I could not ask for more. I know there will be many more anniversary trips to look forward to in the coming years.