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Show Discover SI. SitaSs FuMots Lake Powell by Dick Wilson The "world's toughest wagon road" and Hall's Crossing are accessible by a main branch of Highway 95. And by jeeping the 0ld wagon road you can place yourself in the most remote re-mote corner of the 48 atiit es. The route referred to heads south from the Natural Na-tural Bridges National Monument. Grand Gulch, the 1000-foot-deep gash is unseen while driving down this road but it parallels the route that ends up at Clay Hills Crossing of the San Juan River. Just getting get-ting to the crossing is a day's drive from Moab and well worth your inspecion It is possible to cross San Juan River at this point with a four wheel drive vehicle and continue your journey past Paitite Farms to Monument Valley and Highway 47. Eut the route I want to emphasize this week climbs over Clay Hills Pass and reaches into the "interior'' of a vast and little-known Mecca. Hall's Crossing is the usual destination in mind when traversing this rough road. It is here that the Lake Powell , Ferry Service is located being operated by Frank Wright of Blanding. Hall's Crossing is not too difficult to get to providing provid-ing you don't mind some 90 miles of -- well, we can't say unimproved road for since the Mormon nione ers' first laid it out 88 ' years ago it has been improved. im-proved. Automobiles can make the journey if the endurance is present. The beauty in the vicinity vicin-ity of Hall's Crossing is not quite describable except ex-cept to folks who have been there and have tasted of it. The thick beds 0f the rounded knobs of Navajo sandstone, red as iodine, dip gently into Lake Powell. Pow-ell. Then in other spots, not so gently but rather in tremendous vertical drops. If you are sad that the ferry days are over, cheer up and try the Lake Powell Ferry at Hall's Crossing. For a fee you can have your auto transported over Lake Powell to Bullfrog Basin and continue on a loop route toward Highway High-way 95 and Hanksville. It was from Hall's Crossing Cross-ing three Decembers ago that I conducted a filming expedition for purposes of a Canyonlands travelogue. I had 'hired Dr. Ernest Booth of Escondido, Calif. ... ' : ' 1 i . ' j - , ' ' l y ' '.' 7 . ' r. -: . -'i ' . ' : T,VA -",c' , , ' .-' . ,' . .. .": ' i '.. .-rf K" ' : ' :' . ; fe-. ' - . . - . .' I i . '.'" "' " .-d"'-''.' .. . 1 ' ' " . -". "..-' . S.,y , ff ' , v ; ,j-.,Y.. . -J . m--'-' - 5-- ' - ' i " - 1 . .. .. .-;:--v. . ""1. . -' ': "1 ." . "-' ""-., ' Lvn-" H to.,.... . ..VJ r tenn-ft ....-V- . n.-Mll . . . Boating on Lake Powell provides pleasures and Visual Vis-ual excitement difficult to match anywhere else in the world. All along the cliff-bound shores boaters owner of Outdoor Pictures Inc., to accompany me for the photography work. I sent Dr. Booth and three companions in two boats down the Old Mormon iran. The "world's toughest wagon trail" begins its greatest resistance at its junction with the Hall's Crossing road which is a-bout a-bout 17 miles east from the lake. A left fork, if followed follow-ed by four wheel drive for 15 miles, will take you to Nokai Dome and a superb view of the San Juan River Riv-er a view almost comparable com-parable to Dead Horse Point. My motorcycle brigade, however took the right fork over wet and slightly frozen (fortunately) sand. December is a good month to explore sandy places in the Canyonlands. On this same stretch during warm weather I found it necessary neces-sary to push my Honda 90 through nothing but sand for four miles at a time. This problem does not face a four wheel drive rig, but it sure scares a one-wheel drive vehicle! My three cyclist friends, who carried their Yamaha 80 trail hikes all thf wav from. Tennessee for the expedition, ex-pedition, had never seen , such wild country. We had sent sleeping bags down river with the boats expecting ex-pecting to meet them at the end of the Old Mormon Trail. Three flat tires of my Chattanooga friend, Ben Moore, slowed us down and it was dark bv the time we reached the place called "Slick Rocks." Here the trail was carved by the pioneers of 1879 right out of solid sandstone. A small layer of snow on that northern end of Wilson Mesa sent us into skids and belly-flops. The darkness was thick and gloomy. And high on that mesa in December De-cember it was cold. But the lure of food a warm fire and sleeping bags caused us to proceed. Some where ahead at the bottom of the trail were our companions com-panions in the boats. A full moon peeked from an ominous cloud and played play-ed hide-and-seek among the spires of that remote region. More than 110 miles lay between us and civilization. Before the trip I had been no farther than the end of Wilson Mesa and the Rincon. One huge a-bandoned a-bandoned meander of the Colorado River is that a-mazing a-mazing feature called the Rincon. If there were no other wonders in this region re-gion but the Rincon, this alone t0 me would seem worthy of a visit. I visualize visual-ize a skyline drive to the Rincon someday - although my preference is to leave can find hidden canyons sometimes just wide enough en-ough to admit a boat. it accessible only by jeep. This kind of wilderness is fast disappearing. It is either the walking kind, which allows no vehicles at all or it's the kind seen irom tne comiorc ox a paved expressway. I like the inbetween, myself. I don't have the time or money to spend days and days hiking into vast wilderness wild-erness areas. Yet, I need, for my spiritual and mental men-tal improvement, a rough trail ahead with exercise potential. A jeep road fills the bill for my personal needs getting me into wilderness with enough speed yet not allowing the encouragement of civilization civi-lization to mar the landscape land-scape or rob me from my pioneering instinct. We lit into the Chute in the light of the full moon. The Chute wasn't so bad there was no way out of it except down. So we rode down, not sure what lay ahead. Through the red rocks ahead we came to areas that were deriving even in the daytime the trek along the Old Mormon Trail is plenty well-nigh impossible to follow in places. We wandered a-round, a-round, the four cyclists, looking for faint jeep tracks. When one of us would come across the trail we would blink our headlights head-lights at the others and they would come from a-croas a-croas deep gashes to join up caravan - style onct more. At Cottonwood Hill we gave up all ideas of ever returning by that route. ahead of us or we were done for. Our trail dropped in step-like fashion for at least 1,000 feet. The steps were sometimes three foot drops. Of course, the best place to leave a jeep is at the top of Cottonwood Hill Only five mile;' from there brings you to the edge of the lake right across from Hole-in-'the-Reck. We made it while the moon wa still full, at 2 a.m. and looked in vain f( r our companions, com-panions, and food, and sleeping bags. We fired a pistol and the resulting reverberation re-verberation from the mighty migh-ty cliffs across the lake sounded like great rolls of thunder. Still no sign of our boats. Wc gathered driftwood and huilt a fire on a bare rreekbed and lay there till morning, shivering and miserable. When dawn gave our bone-; flexibility again, we found our sleeping companions less than 200 yards away. I say those old pioneers were made of a tougher breed than we of today. I'll tell you why in next week's column and also begin be-gin the tale of a memorable memor-able cruise down Lake Powell a blue jewel in the desert. ; Bullfrog jS? I V ff f Basin JT H V 'iPf 'VV Clay milSy?y LAKE f 4 Vu XV I POWELLl ) tN: i A -f i Crossing jffc Cottonwood A,,- x ffjfjr Hill oivct - 1 fWW lTotent ; - -V Vallcv J |
