Best of the Southwest – Canyonlands – Day 9 – Monticello & the Abajo Mountains

This was supposed to be a day spent hiking in The Needles section of Canyonlands National Park, the gnat clouds had sent us fleeing out of the park and up to a camp site at a higher elevation where the little buggers could not bother us; which meant that we were now essentially winging it. You gotta be flexible when traveling on the road.

The bright sun woke us from our sleep and we rolled out of our sleeping bags and started leisurely packing our camping gear away in the SUV. Breakfast was peaches and apple juice as we watched several hawks engaged in an aerial ballet on the Sky TV channel. The unobstructed views went on forever and the silence was so deep that it literally felt like we had lost our hearing. I couldn’t remember the last time I had heard such blessed quiet.

We headed back to old reliable US 191 and turned south toward the Abajo Mountains as the Manti-La Sal Mountains to the east blazed a bright yellow in the morning light.

Monticello

Located between two large mountain ranges – the Abajos and LaSals – Monticello, Utah sits in their rain shadows, begging for rain that comes ever so close but rarely delivers.

Our first impromptu stop was the pueblo-style Canyon Country Discovery Center, located right off US 191 just before Monticello. The entrance fee was a very reasonable $6.

We chatted it up with the very animated young lady who ran the place. She was born and raised in Monticello and recommended several cool-sounding side trips for us to do that day.

Photo Courtesy of www.utah.com

Inside the museum, there was a sunny, light-filled room filled with very interesting interactive science exhibits geared for kids and curious adults about wind, light, water, minerals and animals. There were classrooms, a planetarium, a climbing wall, and a quiet meditation area overlooking a serene desert pond. They also had a nice gift shop selling outdoor equipment and snacks. The bathrooms were clean and spacious bathroom. The Wi-Fi was free. And outside, there were picnic shelters with grills and a trippy playground and rock garden.

Photo Courtesy of www.utah.com

We spent a very enjoyable hour cruising around the Discovery Center, then headed for town and checked into the Rodeway Inn & Suites on the north end of town. The place was a bit shabby but they had a great indoor pool. It was going to be another scorcher, so that would definitely come in handy later on in the day.

The first thing we saw as we approached Monticello from the north was a large wind farm in the foothills of the Abajos running right down to the western edge of town like a large flock of white-winged dinosaur birds perched above a green oasis in the high desert.

We hadn’t eaten a hot meal since the Quesadilla Mobillia in Moab the previous afternoon, so it was time to chow down. We were pleasantly surprised to find another Peace Tree Cafe located in a little yellow house surrounded by tall cottonwoods in the middle of the sleepy Mormon town and the Native-Americans running the place treated us like long-lost friends. The breakfast was delicious!

Abajo Mountains

Following the directions that we had been given by the friendly lass at the Discovery Center, we took an amazing drive to the very top of the Abajo Mountains, following 200 West and Abajo Road out of town and then turning left after Dalton Springs where there was a sign to Lloyd’s Lake.

The gravel road climbed steeply through Gambel oak, and then aspen and conifer forests before rising above the tree line into a surreal alpine zone where large pieces of shattered brown rectangular Laccolith rock blocks looked like they had been dumped across the face of the lush green-meadow mountains that surprisingly resembled the Alps. The road was suitable for a SUV, and maybe a passenger car with high clearance, but was definitely not for the faint of heart because there was a sheer drop of at least a thousand feet on the left side of the narrow, steep cobble-littered road, and there were no barriers for the last mile up to the summit. If you got too close to the edge, that’s all she wrote.

At the top there was a communication complex of cell towers and barely room to park, but we squeezed our vehicle into a space between two spruce trees and the views from the tippy-top were absolutely stunning.

On the way back down from Abajo Peak we stopped at Lloyd’s Lake for a short hike around the shoreline. The only other person around was a lone fishermen, sitting in a lawn chair half asleep.

The Visitor Center was located right in the middle of town off Main Street (US 191), and attached to the center was the FREE! Frontier Museum where they showcased a very curious mix, starting with the standard private collections of looted Indian artifacts from Anasazi sites in the area, with the names of the pot hunters, like Nell Dalton, proudly displayed like generous benefactors; items like linens and dishes from the long-gone Hyland Hotel; a wooden chair from the Home of Truth Chapel; minerals, fossils, and monstrous sharks teeth; a Champion Cowboy saddle; a galvanized steel ballot box; Ray Jarvis’ old tool collection; landline telephones and the town’s first switchboard; a white oven/stove and gas iron; a huge typewriter; old dresses and a baby carriage; an electric mangler and all things cowboy; historic photos of cowboys and Indians; a very odd doll collection; medical equipment, including a weird EKG machine; a collection of barbed wire; cameras, radios, and a hodgepodge mix of unrelated items from local houses and businesses.

One of the more interesting items in the Frontier Museum was the Bull Durham Tobacco Quilt that was made from old Bull Durham sacks by a local lady who collected them along the side of the road and from the local cowboys who saved their sacks for her too. When she had collected enough, she dyed them yellow and pink and made two lovely quilts. The quilter was following the pioneer creed: “Use It Up, Wear It Out, Make Do Or Do Without”.

But the strangest exhibit were items donated by the family of Marie Ogden of New Jersey, who came to San Juan County in 1933 after the death of her husband, with a group of about thirty followers who called themselves The Home of Truth. They were mostly disillusioned easterners who were fleeing the Great Depression and they were following Marie who had promised to lead them to the place of the Second Coming of Jesús Christ. Marie’s followers believed she was the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary. Apparently, the local Mormons did not find these religious fanatics amusing and no one would sell them land around Monticello. But Marie was tenacious and she built her mission by a creek near what is today the entrance to The Needles section of Canyonlands National Park. And then she bought the “San Juan Record” newspaper in 1934 and served as its editor until 1949 when she sold the paper. She also tried her hand at farming, mining, construction projects, and taught music. She died in a nursing home in Blanding, Utah in 1975, at the age of 91.

It only took us about thirty minutes to check out the museum, and after that, we chatted it up with the ladies who ran the Visitor Center. The neatest thing in the whole place was “Little Town”, an amazing diorama of Monticello between 1888-1911.

And as we were leaving, one of the ladies led us outside to an adjacent barn where she showed us the ginormous 20-feet-long by ten-feet-wide by eleven-feet-high, 650 rpm, 22,725-pound, 4-cylinder gas tractor called the “Big Four “30” – The Giant Horse” made in 1913 by the Emerson-Brantingham Company of Minneapolis. It is a remnant of olden days when colossus machinery ruled the day.

The initial cost of this behemoth that moved along at a top speed of 3 mph and needed a full time maintenance crew, was $4,000, a hefty price indeed in those days for a little shitkicker town in the middle of nowhere. But the local working wage per day was $11.20, and the total cost for using the Big Four tractor in grubbing and plowing was $3.51. So it was a good deal – at least for a few years, until it started regularly breaking down. Eventually, they just dug a big hole out in the desert and buried the goddamn thing.

Whenever you are passing through places you once visited, it’s always fun to stop and re-live your memories. The last time I had been to Monticello was when I got popped for weed and an open container at a road block near Natural Bridges on a Labor Day weekend way back in the early 90’s, and ended up spending the night in the brand new Monticello Jail. So, we pulled over and Jimmy snapped a photo for posterity of me standing in the road in front of the jail.

After spending some time cooling down in the motel pool, we ate a thoroughly forgettable meal at a local burger joint called PJ’s Burgers. Our only other choice was Wagon Wheel Pizza which looked like they were serving wagon wheels covered with cheese. Like I said before, sometimes you just have to roll with the punches when you’re traveling.

The International Dark-Sky Association works to protect the night skies for present and future generations, and they produce a map each year showing light pollution zones around the globe. They also designate “Dark-Sky Parks”, of which Canyonlands is one. So, star gazing in southeastern Utah is pretty stellar (bad pun intended), and we took advantage of it almost every night by driving out into the high desert and watching the stars for a few hours while drinking a few frosty beverages.

So, as the sun began to set we drove north, past tidy, well-watered farms and small ranches until we came to a U.S. Forest Service sign for the Spring Creek Road. As far as the eye could see was public land and there were no houses or structures. We turned left, following a dry creek bed, and after about two miles we came to narrow gravel road leading up to a pinyon/juniper ridge overlooking Abajo Peak where we had driven earlier in the day. We had come full circle without rhyme or reason.

We set up the lawn chairs, broke out the cooler and relaxed in the evening’s outdoor patio. A pack of coyotes began singing their hunting song. And a jet plane headed south at 35,000 feet, still illuminated by the setting sun to the west like a golden arrow.

And right on cue, up popped the stars. After a week of star gazing, we now knew the brightest ones by name. As soon as darkness settled in, our old friend the Milky Way slowly came sparkling into view, looking like the galaxy’s biggest natural arch. And there was no entrance fee.