Jun 8 – 14: Glen Canyon National Recreation Area (Part 6)
June 13th
Whew, I am beat! But it is a good tired. LOL. Benny is asleep which is good. We started very early to avoid some of the heat of the day. We hiked a few very easy trails then met Buzz and a guided tour of the Vermillion Cliffs area.
First hike of the morning is called Hanging Gardens and was a one-and-a-half-mile round trip easy hike. According to the brochure it is:
Securely hidden by Jurassic Navajo sandstone, this seep spring quickly takes hostage every drop of rainwater it can absorb creating a lush plant and animal habitat.
The next trail was just a short walk out into the Beehives Trail and back, not even a mile. It was a self-guided hike through slickrock sand formations.
I didn’t want to take a chance in missing the turn out we were to meet Buzz at so we headed on out to the Vermillion Cliffs. The tour we took was a combination of the Wire Pass Trail and Buckskin Gulch. Oh. My. Gosh. Freakin’ out of this world!
The Wire Pass section was a slot canyon with the type of photographic opportunities you find in those high-end, tabletop magazines. There were so many photo opps that I was sorry I hadn’t dumped my phone in a while and I spent about half of our lunch break copying over photos and vids from my phone to my iXpand memory device that I luckily thought to bring with me just in case. For the adventure seekers in the group there were a few obstacles to climb and walk over but mostly it was the landscape and views everyone was there for. The high canyon walls felt like they were closing in a few times and created these crazy light effects.
We ate lunch at the confluence of Wire Pass and Buckskin Gulch where a large petroglyph panel decorated the canyon wall. But that was about the end of the shade for a while and I was glad I brought all the extra water.
The next part of the hike was Buckskin Gulch. It required one descent of about a 100-feet, but it was worth it because there were views of White Pockets, North Coyote Buttes, South Coyote Buttes and large parts of the Buckskin area itself. There was also a narrows section in Buckskin Gulch and Buzz called it a “target rich environment” for photographers. It made me wonder what his background was as the phrasing was a little … different. The hike down into the Gulch took about 45 minutes and the hike back out took about 1.5 hours. Eight hours and many photos later, we returned to the van and prepared to head back to camp.
But wait … there’s more.
After all of the other hikers in our group left, Buzz’s wife shows up and whispers something to him. He grins real big. “You got time Little Sister?”
“Sure,” I answered as the look on his face said he had something in mind.
“They are releasing another condor today. Only a few people have been invited as it wasn’t scheduled to happen until later but a local bird had to be captured for rehabilitation after losing a foot to infection.”
“A condor. Those giant vulture looking birds from California?”
“Yes Little Sister,” he said laughing at my stupefied surprise. “They’ve been releasing them here since 1996 as part of the Peregrines Foundation’s attempt to prevent their extinction. It is public knowledge, but no one encourages the public to attend anymore. It has been since 2019 since there has been a public ceremony of the annual release.
At the look on Benny’s face all I could say was, “I’ll follow, you lead.”
He and his wife both grinned and Benny and I had a real treat that few get to witness.
Back in the 1980s there were only 22 California Condors left. Many people thought they were passed the point of species survival. However, not everyone gave up. Some people stepped in to help the giant birds and by 2019 there were 92 condors in the wild in the rugged canyon country of northern Arizona and southern Utah, and the total world population of endangered California Condors numbered nearly 500, with more than half flying the skies of Arizona, Utah, California, and Mexico.
Benny and I learned a great deal from the people releasing the Condor. And oh … my … gosh was that thing huge. Like a flying feathered dinosaur. It could easily have carried Benny off until Benny assured me, “Aunt Gus, they’d never carry me off. They only eat big dead things.”
“’Scuse me?”
He explained, “I was listening to the man wearing the weird hat with all the pins on it. He said that California Condors are like vultures and only eat dead things … big dead things like cows and buffalos and elk and stuff like that. They are like the roadkill eaters of the mountains.”
I’m standing there with my mouth open when Benny goes back to watching the condor flying around and I hear a soft laugh. It’s Buzz’s wife. “Smart kid.”
“Yeah. I have a feeling the older he gets, the more in trouble I’m going to be.”
“His specialness will keep him with you a long time.”
I gave her a look and realized she wasn’t criticizing Benny, just seeing what she saw. I said, “I’m going to help him to be the best he can be. I want him to be free to live a good life without fear, not tied to me because I’m the one that is afraid for him. I want him to have a home, I don’t want the home to come with chains and bars.”
She nodded. “When I was a little girl a Golden Eagle pair built a nest near my grandfather’s home. Then they built another in a different place in the cliffs and then another even further away. Then the year after that they came back to my grandfather’s home. And as I grew, I knew that every few years the eagles would be back. Then one year they did not come back, nor the next, nor the next. But then the year after that a chick of that pair came with his mate. It had been born in that very spot though the nest had all but fallen apart from neglect by then. That pair rebuilt the nest and now they are the ones that use it in rotation with the other old nesting sites. A home is something you build, sometimes you use it and sometimes the young that come after you do. Chains aren’t necessary, life and living is.”
She was called away to speak to some other people and I thought about what she’d shared and was only distracted when Benny came running back telling me all the things he’d learned from the man “with the gazillion pins on his hat.”
The California condor is one of the largest flying birds in the world. When it soars, the wings spread more than nine feet from tip to tip. Condors can weigh more than 20 pounds. They can soar and glide for hours without beating their wings, sometimes at more than 55 miles per hour. From the air, they search for dead animals, like deer or cattle. They feed only on carrion (dead animals that they find).
Condor nest sites are in cliff caves in the mountains. Nesting condors raise only one chick at a time. The four-inch long egg is laid in late winter or spring, and it takes two months to hatch. It takes more than a year from the time the egg is laid until the young bird has learned to live on its own and it is only after it leaves the nest that a new egg is laid.
Thousands of years ago, California condors lived in many parts of North America, including California, Texas, Florida, and New York. In recent centuries, the large vulture was even found in British Columbia in Canada and Baja California in Mexico. As people settled the West, they often shot, poisoned, captured, and disturbed the condors, collected their eggs, and reduced their food supply. People thought they competed for large animals with them, not realizing that like vultures, they are nature’s clean up crew. By the late 1900s the few remaining condors were limited to the mountainous parts of southern California.
For nearly 100 years it has been illegal for anyone to kill California condors, but illegal killing was not the only problem that these birds faced. A major problem has been contamination from lead fragments in carcasses, poison bait, and environmental pollutants. Contamination from past use of the pesticide DDT disrupted the hatching of some condor eggs. Human activity in the condor nesting range has been followed by growing numbers of ravens, which threaten condor eggs and nestlings. It is strange how the smaller birds have such an oversized impact on the Condor population.
The lead poisoning solutions that were enacted have not always been popular with people. In 2008, the California Fish and Game Commission adopted regulations implement a law restricting the kind of ammunition hunters could use in the Condor home range. In 2013, the then-Governor signed an additional bill that required the use of nonlead ammunition statewide for the taking of all wildlife, including game mammals, game birds, nongame birds, and nongame mammals.
I waived goodbye to Buzz and his wife, first letting them know how much I appreciated that Benny and I had been included in so many activities. On the way back to camp Benny fell asleep in his chair and it gave me a chance to find some quiet for my head. And to wonder if there was a condor stuffie in the gift shop that could join the Crew.
Dinner was leftovers that needed to be cleaned up and some fruit and yogurt. That’s about all either one of us wanted despite a walk along the water. It didn’t take Benny much time to fall asleep after that, clutching his newest Junior Ranger badge. It was only then that I felt ready to open up my tablet and get busy researching adoption.
*DING*
Well, it wasn’t just one ding. It was a bunch of them as all the emails came pouring in. Most of them were meaningless junk that I dropped in the spam folder to re-check before I permanently deleted them. A few were notifications from the blog letting me know I needed to moderate some posts. A few of them were bills but thankfully nothing I hadn’t expected and already budgeted for. But when I saw one particular email, I put the rest aside while I read it.
Oh my Dear Girl you have no idea how your email has chirked the Judge up. He was beginning to wonder if all you children thought him nothing but an old codger, only good for telling stories during vacation bible school or identifying who is who in old photos. I tell you I haven’t seen him with this much vitality in months, not since our son and his wife had to move out of the area for his job and took the grandkids with them.
He asked that I email you right away to let you know he has already been speaking with a few people but that until he gets a few more opinions he doesn’t feel he can give you the best advice. He asks that you give him a week to speak with some more colleagues and to please not do anything precipitous either way.
Now as for this crazy adventure you and Benny are on? Love it. Love it. Looooove it! We both do. I only wish Lawrence Sr., Little Lawrence, and your father Benji were here to see it. I mean obviously they are looking down and enjoying you living life, but it would be wonderful if they themselves were here to share it. Ah well, I suppose I shouldn’t wish someone out of Heaven just for my own selfish desires, so I hope you know what I mean.
I hope you don’t mind if I ask a personal question. Have you spoken with your Uncle Daniel recently? We don’t really see him much despite sharing a fence with him. I see his younger daughter coming and going … what’s her name? Charlotte? But she never stops to say hello. The older one … that Shannon … is living in Lakeland and we don’t hear about her at all, or at least nothing good. The Judge won’t say why he hopes she doesn’t come back here but given how she was after your father passed, it doesn’t take much imagination.
I’d love to get Daniel in church if I could pull it off, he seems so lost. He’ll start a project then leave it half done. We won’t see him for weeks then it seems he has started another project only to leave that one half done as well. What your grandparents would say about their property I’m sure I don’t want to know. The dock is nothing but pilons and the house is covered in algae. I don’t think the woods between the house and the road have been mowed since you did it last, and no I’m not exaggerating in the least. It just breaks my heart. There are boys at church that would mow just to have a place to get in the river at but he rarely if ever involves himself locally, though rumor has it he spends a lot of time in Tallahassee.
I cannot tell you how much we miss you and your father Benji. I know he never meant to pass the way he did. I was so shocked at how fast Lawrence pulled you away from here but in hindsight he likely did the best thing for you. But now that time has passed and you’ve reached out, don’t let this be the only reason we hear from you young lady. I tell you, and hope you don’t mind that I shared, so many around here remember you and they’ve gotten just the biggest kick from your website. My goodness you’ve grown up into a fine young woman. I almost didn’t recognize you without that horsetail of hair you used to have. And my goodness you have your mother’s curls these days.
Ah well, I need to sign off here. Timothy … that’s Mr. MacMasterson to you … is down ill with the latest covid variant. I can’t even remember what they are calling this one. Some of the ladies from the church have gotten a meal schedule together so his wife can have some relief. Why they think these ridiculous forced quarantines do anything at all I haven’t the foggiest. They did little enough when this stuff started back when your father was little more than a boy. But those are the rules and we must abide by them … especially when someone tattled to the health department that he was sick. They came right out to the house and he was too weak to resist their demand that he be tested if you can believe it. It was probably their ex-daughter in law. Any excuse not to let her children see their father’s side of the family.
Now mind me and let me know you get this as soon as you can. Grown woman or not, I’ll worry until you do.
Love,
Meemo
I didn’t know whether to hide or laugh myself silly. Mrs. Phelps is still very much as I remember her being. She’s like a force of nature. Not a hurricane but definitely more than a soft summer shower. I let her know that I had received her email, thank you thank you thank you, that I would wait on the Judge because I trusted him, and that I had not spoken with my uncle since Lawrence’s funeral. I wasn’t totally against it but even without the hard feelings that were ongoing even before Dad died, I wasn’t sure what if anything could be made of any communication. But that I would think about it if for no other reason than that she had given me something to think about besides the hard feelings.
I attached a picture of Benny and myself but asked that it be for her and the Judge’s eyes only as I was very careful with that sort of thing, just to be on the safe side. I’m sure she and the Judge will do just that. She shared the blog address because I hadn’t asked that she keep it a secret. But now that I’d said so, she would be as tight lipped as a fresh clam. Even if she doesn’t quite understand why I’m sure that the Judge will explain it to her.
I’m going to listen to the Judge but I’m going to do my own research as well. And so saying, I’m going to do that and then hit the hay. Tomorrow morning we are going to do a few more small hikes then I’m going to give Benny a free day to just play on the beach. Tomorrow is our last day before heading down the road and I’m going to let him swim and splash to his heart’s content.
June 14th
Got an unexpected rain this morning that had lightning in it so no hiking for us. Instead I did some cleaning and prepping for the next camp that won’t have nearly as many amenities as this one. After the rain let up and the threat of lightning went away, I took Benny to the beach, and as a surprise, let him just run around and play and swim. We even got out on the river and kayaked as soon as I saw that the weather was going to be completely clean of lightning.
Did a little more laundry before dinner, used the solar cooker to make bread with … or at least tried to make bread with … and when I’d cleaned up that particular mess, I cooked some kebobs and rice. I included the bread experiment on the blog and I immediately got a lot of laughs and some that said it was nice to see some reality injected into things as they were beginning to wonder if I ever made mistakes. Ha. Ha ha. Mistakes as in me not making any. Ha ha ha ha. Boy, did they not know me.
I organized what food we have left and I’m making a menu of options and a grocery list of needs. I put some shoe goo on my joggers where the sole looks like it is pulling away from the upper. Getting tired of the curly shag. I have a certificate in ornamental ropework, it shouldn’t be this hard to learn to French braid my hair. Hopefully I can figure this out and can leave the shag and Pippy Longstocking look.
For now I’m going to put this down and get out the maps so I can set our course for tomorrow. Yeah. I’m going to be sorry to see this campsite go, but more adventures await. Our next port will have something to recommend it. And if not that one then the next.
Cumulative Fuel Expense: $3497
Cumulative Accommodation Expense: $1650
Cumulative miles: 8431
Resources:
https://www.nps.gov/glca/learn/kidsyouth/upload/GLCA-Jr-Ranger-2013.pdf
https://aztrail.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/JuniorExplorerHandbook.pdf
https://www.lakepowell.com/media/65354/wahweap-rv-campground.pdf
https://www.nps.gov/subjects/fishing/upload/Let-s-Go-Fishing-Accessible-6-24-2019.pdf
Advancement Central - Sea Scouts BSA
https://www.nps.gov/rabr/learn/kidsyouth/upload/RABRJrRanger.pdf
Pork Rind Pizza Crust Recipe | CDKitchen.com
Pork Rind Nachos - Taste of the South (tasteofthesouthmagazine.com)
Vermillion Cliffs Junior Ranger:
https://www.blm.gov/sites/blm.gov/files/documents/files/jr-ranger-vermilion.pdf