Fremont Rock Art

VSO has been working with the archeologist on the Dixie National Forest for the past couple of months. The archeologist (Omar by nickname) is a trove of historical and archeological facts from all over southern Utah and the great basin. In passing a small ridge of basalt near Calf Creek one day, Omar mentioned that there had been some earlier habitation by Fremont Indians along the broken top of the ridge. VSO, being curious, wanted to go back for a look. So we did.

The spot is very close to Enterprise, which, for some reason, has grown a lot recently. Is it the relative proximity to St. George? The town is swollen with gaudy new plastic boxes—three or four cars in the yard. To be fair, not everything that has happened to the Fremont is the fault of the over-weight, semi-urban, fake-millionaires that seem to crowd every small town we ever had. But, if you can imagine what might be going on near a town filled with modern motorists, you can imagine that nothing worthwhile from the past is anything other than hacked at, pissed on, stolen, broken, scratched over, and generally defaced. I mean, why leave something of someone else's alone when you can destroy it for no good reason?

In any case, we found the site, poked at some lithic scatter, picked up some beer cans, and generally hiked around for a little while. As the sun set, and the traffic died on the gravel road below, we even started to get a feel for the place. With my hand on a chunk of rock, warmed by the setting sun, I heard the evening chirp of a canyon wren. A small band of coyotes tuned up across the creek and I heard the "hoo-oot" from VSO that meant she was looking for me. We scrambled back to the top of the steep bank above the Chev and looked at one more scratching in the rock that could have been a petroglyph. Then we headed for the road. We made it into Pinto just before full dark, and shared some wine and corn chips before hitting the pavement at the Iron Wye just outside of Cedar City.

Seldom Remains More Than a Week

With all the weird weather this winter—some who follow the pop-news say it has been the coldest winter in 70 years, while I would guess that it has been milder than average in southern Utah—I was comforted to find, recently, that the weather has always been weird. In 1827, the trapper Daniel J. Potts wrote of his travels in the Sevier River country (not too far from Parowan) during the winter: "Having but little or no winter weather, six of us took our departure [from Bear Lake] about the middle of February, and proceeded by forced marches into the country by way of the Utaw Lake. The grass is at this time from six to twelve inches in height, and in full bloom. The snow that falls, seldom remains more than a week." They were having a February like this one (2014) 187 years ago (1827).

Spontaneous Combustion

On Tuesday morning, when I got up to start the fire, the temperature was low, both indoors and out. I kept the damper open on the stove for a long time, making a nice hot fire to warm the house. Before I left for work, I noticed that the living room seemed a little smoky. I had just closed the damper, so I assumed the stove had stopped drawing for a moment. I adjusted the wood and the damper at the stove, and then opened the front door for a minute to bring in some fresh air. I thought I had solved the problem and didn't notice anything else, so I said goodbye to the girls and went out. Shortly thereafter the girls left, too, EDO to school and VSO to Center Creek for a little skiing. When VSO returned to the house an hour or two later, she noticed more smoke in the living room. Upon examination, she found a smoldering chunk of cottonwood on the wood box. Evidently the intense heat from the stove nearby had caused it to spontaneously combust. We've heated with wood for more than a decade, but we've never had that happen. The cottonwood chunk was next to the stove, but not touching it. It was stacked with a bunch of other wood, mostly Douglas fir or juniper, that showed no signs of meltdown. Ultimately there was no harm done, but it was a little scary. The house is mostly made of brick, so it probably would not have burned down, but there is plenty of other stuff—windows, furniture, floors—that could have been damaged if the burning had spread.

What a Difference a Week Can Make

After about 40 days without snow, winter finally returned to southern Utah. Starting Thursday night, a number of small bursts came through, adding up, by Saturday morning, to a solid ten inches on the forest. You can see from the picture that it was nearly enough snow to stick the Chev when I tried to turn around in Center Creek. The really big news, though, is that the dump allowed me to re-start my Olympic ski training program. There was enough snow of the right consistency for me to put in my first laps since Christmas Eve. I broke trail in the lower meadow, starting from where the truck was, well, parked, and made a .45 mile loop in 10:38. The second lap came in at around 9:00; the third was about 8:00, and the fourth was 7:10. It is actually a really nice track and, as it solidifies, I should be able to get my times down into the five minute range. But, what we need now is more snow. I don't mind re-packing the track every week, but if we get a bunch of sun, we'll be right back down to the grass.