Hole-in-the-Rock Road

When we drove into Escalante, Utah, we saw a little museum that said something about Hole-in-the-Rock road?! We didn't know what that meant, but we got a good education when we returned to that museum. One of the items on display was an old pump organ. Unlike most museums where there are "do not touch" signs, Denisa was invited to play. Pumping up those bellows is good exercise.

The museum is ran by volunteers, and our guide was born and raised in this town. He pointed out a road in the high mountains named for his Great-grandfather who settled there. So with great enthusiasm, he told us the story of the 100 Mormon families that were sent to colonize the southeast corner of Utah in 1879. The only problem was that no one had ever traveled there from Escalante. So this group headed across this remote area in their 100 covered wagons, much like the one in the picture below. It was tough traveling, until they got to the huge cliff overlooking the Colorado River. Then the tough trip became impossible travel.

They found a crease in that cliff, and they literally chipped and blasted it into a hole in the rock just big enough to get those wagons down to the river. It was a harrowingly steep and bumpy ride down to the river, and we watched the very good film at the museum to tell us all about it. It reminded us that we were glad to be traveling across this great country on well defined roads in a comfortable motor home.

We are also glad to tow our trusty little car, that allows us to take rough gravel roads. If we followed this road for 57 miles, and had a four-wheel drive, we would get to the famous hole-in-the-rock used by that Mormon wagon train. But we won't be going that far today. We are glad to hear that the road has just been graded after this week's rain, and we are pleasantly surprised with how wide and smooth it is after some of the reports we have heard.

There are some places that get impassible in the rain, but we made it to our destination. The main reason we took this road was to take the hike through Peek-a-boo and Spooky canyons. If you read yesterday's blog you know how that turned out. But there's so much more on this little gravel Hole-in-the-Rock road.  We noticed on our map there was a dinosaur track site. After wandering along dirt roads with no road signs, we finally arrived here.

We had no idea what we were looking for, but the small sign at the parking lot said there were hundreds of dinosaur tracks on the slick rock up high. So we climbed to the highest point, and split up to cover more ground in our search. After an hour of searching, Mark's favorite dinosaur tracks looked like this . . .

and this.

Denisa's favorite tracks were these indentations that seemed to be spaced about right for a dinosaur stride. However, neither of us were enthused with this site with no signage or instruction for unschooled paleontologists like us.

In fact, Mark got bored with the whole dinosaur hunt and took off on an unplanned hike. Denisa looked up and saw him standing on the top of the highest hill on the horizon.

After our minimally-successful hunt for dinosaur tracks, we didn't have high hopes for our next stop along Hole-in-the-Rock Road. But we stopped at Devil's Garden, not knowing what to expect.

What we got was a wonderland of balanced rocks in rich colors. Mark felt right at home among these balanced guys.

Children were running along the ledges and over the arches. Many people were taking pictures, because the setting sun was lighting up the rocks to their golden best.

We took turns taking pictures with another couple in this great lighting.

Together with them, we determined that Devil's Garden should be renamed "Fred Flintstone Land." It sounds a whole lot less sinister, and whole lot more fun.

So we learned about a piece of Utah history, got some exercise hunting for scientific knowledge, and hung out in Fred Flintstone land. Not a bad day for a couple wandering God's wonders.