San Rafael Swell

A typical gorge type canyon in the San Rafael.
 

Running in a north to south pattern in central and eastern Utah is the San Rafael Swell. The area is an upthrust in the Colorado Plateau which has caused many canyons, slot canyons, buttes, mesas, arches, and large valleys to be created.

Located primarily in Emery County, Utah the San Rafael Swell is traversed by Interstate 70 from Salina, Utah on the west to Green River, Utah on the east.

The area has had many special proposals to preserve it including the making of a national park.

Anasazi and Fremont Indians lived in this are from 3,000 to 600 years ago at various times. These tribes were hunter gatherer and agricultural based tribes. Many of their villages, pueblos, and grave sites mark the area where these civilizations thrived. Indians left petroglyphs and pictographs behind on the stone cliffs as to their day to day life stories.

Later when white settlers came the Spanish used the area as part of the Old Spanish Trail for trading and exploring. Other whites came through to explore such as John Wesley Powell on the Green and Colorado Rivers.  The Mormons after several unsuccessful attempts settled the area from 1870s through 1900.

Outlaws such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid used the canyons as hideouts from the law due to the mazes and labrynths of canyons were a natural obstacle to any law enforcement. The Mormon Settlers established towns such as Richfield, Salina, Castle Dale, Emery, and Green River as farming and ranching communities. The desert terrain was good for running cattle due to high plateaus that had numerous natural pastures in the Spring and Summer. Cattle rustlers also used this land to steal and conceal bovine quarry.

This vast expanse is traversed by many slot canyons which can be deceiving to the unprepared hiker.

The San Rafael Swell is home to a variety of cacti such as the hedgehog cactus, fishhook barrel cactus, and the prickly pear.  It also has the Harriman's Yucca and the Spanish Dagger yucca as well.  The summers are mild to hot ranging from 80s in the highlands to well over 100 degrees in the gorges and larger canyons. Lows are in the 60s to 70s Fahrenheit depending on elevation.

Winters are often at freezing or below in the higher elevations during the day time and the valleys are in the 30s and 40s Fahrenheit. At night winters can be below freezing in the valleys and colder in the highlands.

Buttes, mesas, hoodoos, arches, free standing rocks, rock fins and other strange formations are concentrated more here than many areas of the Colorado Plateau due to the folding action of the earth's crust.

Much of the San Rafael can be viewed by driving Interstate 70 from east to west or vice versa. The rest is accessed by dirt road, OHV, horseback or hiking. Due to the deceptive terrain and numerous slot canyons it is wise to know your route and prepare for the unexpected if going into the deep back country.  Typical animal life is that of the west including desert bighorn sheep, pronghorn, deer, cougar, and bison to name a few.

There is much debate over natural resource development vs leaving the San Rafael as it is. As such it appears a multiple use land policy will need to arise with stakeholders of all sorts giving up something in order to utilize the rich energy and the scenic wilderness that is the San Rafael Swell.

The "Walking Stick" Cholla

When I was last in Colorado staying with the other Desert Rat on this blog, he decided to work instead of take his buddy on a sight seeing tour. So I took myself.

About an 1.5 hours south on 1-25 from Denver is a forest of tree like chollas, but different in some ways from their Mojave counterparts.  They are called "walking sticks."

Now please don't ask me why they are called walking sticks. I would not know. I suppose it could mean it looks like they move or something.

I would prefer a good old cane to these walking sticks. I love cacti, not that much though. Anyway, the Walking Stick Cholla occurs just south of Colorado Springs and Just north of Pueblo.

The hills and plains around the area are covered with these lovely specimens. They extend down into New Mexico from what I hear.

These are the first plains based cholla, cold hard type that I have seen outside the Mojave. Now one grows in a pot on my patio.

Kirk the other desert rat has them all over his yard. It could be said that this picture is a fake and actually Kirk's front yard.  Hardly a lie now "wink wink."

So if you like chollas and lots of them give the walking stick a look. Just don't actually walk with one.

Dave

Tags: Walking Stick, Cholla, cacti

From The Photo Album

Digging through the photo album on the computer I couldn't come up with a standard theme for this post. So I just figured that I would put up some desert photos and others that interest me.

To the left is a desert scape I took in West Valley City, Utah. In the photo are banana yucca, soap tree yucca, Joshua Tree, Mormon Tea among others. This person had the combination of various plants to make their yard look really good.

In Juab County, Utah out in the western Utah desert is an oasis called Fish Springs National Wildlife Refuge. Some 150 miles southwest of Salt Lake City this is truly the middle of no where.  What is more interesting is that there are people that actually live out in the sticks to manage this place.  There are no paved roads out in this area, only improved dirt roads.  If you have a road worthy machine then you are in luck.  The picture is at Fish Springs looking north toward Dugway Proving Grounds Military Area.

This is a Autumn shot up Diamond Fork Canyon in Utah County, Utah.  Looking south you can see the southern Wasatch Mountains.

The photo to the right is Quail Creek Reservoir, outside of St. George, Utah. This is a colorful area of Utah. I was grateful that the light was just right to capture this particular shot looking northeast. Here the blue waters

compliment the colorful red, orange, and brown rock of southwestern Utah's Mojave Desert.

This is another photo from Diamond Fork Canyon, Utah.  Looking toward the north you can see where the Wasatch Mountains of the Rockies meet the beginnings of the reddish colored mountain areas of the Colorado Plateau.

Nothing screams being in the middle of the desert like being in Las Vegas, Nevada.  In the older area of the strip is Fremont Street. A portion of this street has been covered by a large canopy with millions of LED lights.  I was able to get this one with my cell phone. It turned out pretty good. If you like lips then savor the moment.

Winter in northern Utah can be cold. And with cold comes frozen waterfalls. This picture is of Bridal Veil Falls near Provo, Utah.  The main part of the falls continue year round. The slower falls freeze up creating this beautiful type of cliff ice sculpture.

During the summer there is nothing like a Rocky Mountain Meadow shot. I took this one while roaming the back country of northern Utah. There is something nice about getting off the main trail and seeing what is beyond the horizon.

Sometimes getting the right sky meeting the hilltops makes for a great shot. This one is about 8,000 feet above sea level in the Utah Wasatch. The clouds were perfect on this day for a nice window into the moment.

This photo to the right I happened to capture right before the sunset. I thought these flowers growing in this large ornamental pot were a great shot. This is in downtown St. George, Utah.

Nothing says beauty like a prickly pear in bloom. This  opuntia from the Mojave Desert sits in my yard. This was taken summer 2010 when I had great results with the multiple cacti flowering.

The last photo shows the American Flag. I am always proud of my country and what America represents and the beauty of the land.

Why Cactus?

Cactus have never really been my thing growing up. When I was seven we lived about 20 miles south of Salt Lake City, Utah in a mid size town called Sandy. We had large fields around our subdivisions of suburbia.

I would used to go out into these fields of sagebrush and play with my friends. One day while playing, I stumbled across a Great Basin Prickly Pear with long sharp spines. It was also colder that day and the barbs went right into my leg.

I ran home crying in a lot of pain and my mom got the barbs out with a pair of tweezers. I never really took to cactus after that. I mean they were cool as back drops in a Western and anywhere that I wasn't. But to be honest, pain was not my thing.

It was many years later that I met a friend of mine at my current work, who now lives in another state. He and I became fast friends. He let me come to his house and I saw this bizarre yard.

He had cacti, mostly prickly pear everywhere. He also had some palm trees. I thought to myself "This is an interesting chap." He was really enthusiastic about palms, cactus, and other tropical stuff. If it was a challenge to grow outside of the traditional zone, well Kirk was the man.

It soon became of some interest to me after a few trips we took out west of Utah Lake in Utah. Slowly he sucked me into his world and I began to grow prickly pears. The same kind of plant that stuck me in the leg some 25 years earlier.

The rest is history. That is how I came to love cacti. Now I have mini barrels, large barrels, golden barrels, beaver tails, prickly pear from the Colorado Plateau and Mojave Deserts, hedgehog cacti and chollas.

It is a wonderfest of pain but very beautiful when they bloom. I have always liked stuff that was a bit off the mainstream. I live on the line between the Great Basin to the west and the Rocky Mountains to the east.

It forms an interesting microclimate of moderate winters and hot summers with nice spring and fall seasons.

We have a true Indian Summer here. It is nice to see such hardy plants survive in and outside. More about cacti later. But if I figure if I am going to have a hobby, no pain, no gain.