Desert Daze: A Southwest Adventure (XVIII)

Part Eighteen: Holy Sh*t, You’ve Got To Be Kidding Me, The Road Goes Where?

I find out later when looking at my map that I’ve been driving on the Notom-Bullfrog Road. Gotta love the names of some of the roads around here: Notom-Bullfrog (goes to Eggnog Junction!) Hole-in-the-Rock. Moody Canyon. Lampstand. Nipple Creek. Death Ridge. Left Hand Collet. Carcass Wash. Etc. All very descriptive and I’m sure, with some interesting stories behind them.

I looked into a couple of the names when I returned home from the trip. Turns out Left Hand Collet Road simply refers to one of two canyons (Left Hand and Right Hand Collet) that merge into Collet Canyon; not too exciting. Carcass Wash Road however, refers to the bodies of cattle that are found in the road after attempting to cross this steep wash and not making it. Turns out this steepness has created some human carcasses too. In 1963 a party of 49 people, including members of a Scout Troop, were heading to a boating trip down the Colorado River here (before it disappeared under the waters of Lake Powell) when the truck they were riding in lost power while climbing out of the wash, and then lost its brakes. It rolled back into the bottom, killing 13 adults and children.

Driving Notom-Bullfrog Road north, I am lost in reverie, consumed by the extreme beauty all around meand almost miss the road heading off west to Boulder.

I turn, but then realize it heads right up the massive wall of the Waterpocket Fold. Uh-oh. I see no warning signs indicating that this is four-wheel drive only, so I continue on. It is an admittedly very well maintained road, but still, it is gravel, only one vehicle wide in places, and heading straight up. And, just to keep things interesting, there are patches of snow and ice on the switchbacks near the top. And no guardrails. Arghhhhh!

Once committed though, there is nothing to do but keep pushing upward (can’t even imagine trying to back down.) I stop at one of the switchbacks near the top to look down at where I have just come from – whoa!, this is one steep mother of a road – it looks to be almost straight down from here.

Oops, now someone in a jeep is coming down at me from the top and I’m blocking the road. I have stopped at the edge of a snow patch - not too smart. I try to get going again and only succeed in spinning the tires, moving the truck sideways towards the edge. I’m scared. I think I need to change my underwear scared. I back up to dry pavement and try again; this time I gain enough purchase and momentum to make it through the snow patch and to dry pavement on the other side. Whew! I pull over in a wider section and let the Jeep pass me. The occupants are two women, apparently out looking for adventure like me. It's not too often I see women in remote areas like this. They look at me wide-eyed, probably thinking something like “this guy is totally nuts coming up here in that van” but they smile and wave. Naturally, I smile and wave back trying to appear nonchalant, trying to keep the terror off my face.

Of course, you knew I made it or I wouldn’t be telling this story. According to what I've since read, this road on this steep, 600-foot slickrock and scree slope is the only relatively easy crossing over the entire southern Waterpocket Fold. (Harrumph. If you had tried to tell me a few minutes ago when my heart was beating faster than a hummingbird’s wings (that's about 50 times per second) that it’s a ‘relatively easy’ crossing, I would have taken issue!)

I pull over at the top to gather my wits . I look back: an incredible view of classic desert scenery and mountains. Up here, the weather is different; there are patches of snow scattered about and the wind is bitingly cold. I am on the Burr Trail, named after John Atlantic Burr, who was born in 1846 aboard the SS Brooklyn somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. He and his family lived in Salt Lake City, then later moved south and established the town of Burrville, Utah, in 1876. The route was probably initially used by American Indians, but John Burr further improved it to move cattle back and forth between winter and summer ranges and to market. This cattle trail through the rough, nearly impassable country around the Waterpocket Fold, Burr Canyon, and Muley Twist Canyon eventually came to be known as the Burr Trail.

And said Burr Trail will get me to Boulder, eventually - it’s not done with me yet!

Next: Canyon Squall