OCR Text |
Show -- it ::'' ' j . - i '"'.!. kO, .--" r' ttM: j, i -A- , Wf ? 'Pritchett Arch's 150-foot span has the appearance of great bulk due to its i width. Scenery from this point high at the head of Pritchett Canyon is fa-'. fa-'. bullous with two other arches in view and a third one on the trail. Visiting the arch on Sunday's "Behind the Rocks" excursion are the Rowe ' and Wilson families of Moab. " : " " ilreca Behind tlie KqcEis 'fell 'f ITAkti Surprises by DICK WILSON The Land Behind the Rocks where is it and what is it? It seems that everyone who has lived around Moab for any i length of time has their own concept of what should be called, "Behind the Rocks." iSome say. it's that smal! relative-flat region just west of Blue -Hill- as labeled on the USGS: topographical maps. Others who are direct de-scendents de-scendents of the hardy pioneers pione-ers who first came into the , area say it pertains to anything any-thing and everything immediately im-mediately over .the ridge to the southwest of Moab. And this ridge is sometimes called call-ed the ' Moab Rim, and at o-ther o-ther times and even in old issues is-sues of the Grand Valley Times (progenitor of Times-Independent) Times-Independent) it is simply call- ed "'The- Rooks." A trail touches into the "Land Behind the Rocks" in several places. But nowhere does it come close to penetrating pene-trating the bare crags and the canyons between the fins high on .the . slope east of Pritchett Canyon. It's mostly hiking and rope - climbing country. SAFARI TARGET The route became tempor- arily famous one year ago when the; Moab Chamber of Commerce sponsored its first Jeep Safari. 150 four wheel drive vehicles composing some 500 persons participated participat-ed in the loop trail which had recently been completed a few days previous. After last summer's severe rains, the trail isn't what .it was one year ago. It's more of a challenge, to be sure, and I would say that it's still not exceedingly rough, even for families out for jeeping excitement. Two families, at least, hie the memorable trail this past Sunday. One was the Daryl Rowe family of Moab traveling travel-ing in their new Ford four wheel drive pickup. The other family was my own being carried hither and yon in the Behind the Rocks country in a sand buggy.. These delightful delight-ful little made-over Volkswagens Volks-wagens are currently being rented by Tom Cloward of Southeastern Plastics. Test-one Test-one in the Land Behind the Rocks was my pleasure. Most folks are surprised how adaptable adap-table the dune buggies are to rough jeep trails. We certainly cer-tainly were. Tlie best place to begin a tour of the Behind the Rocks is 13 miles south of Moab at the crest of Blue Hill. Attempting At-tempting to take a jeep up and out of Pritchett Canyon would necessitate a winch in the trail's present condition. LOOK FOR WRECKED CAR A right turn (west) leads to a fork. A left turn in view of an oid wrecked car is the main trail to follow but a re-' re-' warding sidetrip to the north along the rim overlooking the highway can be taken by continuing con-tinuing on the right fork. A- bout two miles on this, keeping keep-ing to the right, brings a jeeping jeep-ing party to a deadend. On the crest can be seen a verv thin-looking arch. A. ten-minute hike and climb brings you next to a cute little arch that perfectly frames the La-Sal La-Sal Mountains, especially- Mt. Tukuhnikivatz. This 12,483 ft. pyramid-shaped peak-glistens with unbelievable whiteness against a blue sky and is. out standingly photogenic when ' viewed through this' small arch! The " arch itself would not be impressive due to its small ' size but its position makes it seem to me' one. of the notable arches of the area.' If someone asked me to suggest a name for it, I would call it Tukuhnikivista Arch. The name of course, is much longer than the span of ' the arch but adequately describes it. If you're out after a look at arches, which is one of the primary reasons for going to the Land Behind the Rocks, then don't forget. to go along the east side of the sway-backed sway-backed rock located five miles west of the highway. The large pothole-type arch facing east and the small square arch on the north side are both reached by a short jeep trip. A descent into a grassy valley val-ley is the next feature at which point is posible to choose between two routes. The one going north past a large red-topped knob is probably prob-ably the shortest to where you're going but certainly not the most traveled because of roughness. For an easy and pleasant trip continue southwest and round a point within eyesight of the great r and terrible gorge of Cane Springs Canyon.. There are a ' number of side roads leading to the edges of the cliffs. But ' the most notable overlook is ' a few miles further, north where Hatch Point . is seen ' to be terminating across Cane Springs Canyon. Angle left ' (west) here for a vista almost al-most comparable to Anticline Overlook on Hatch Point. Hurrah Pass is ..a . splendid . sight as seen from this. point. Head First The descent into Hunters . Canyon is not quite as bad as pliuiging headlong into a jeep driver's nightmare. By the time you've reached the canyon, you're ready to get out for an examination of solid earth. You don't fuid it by walking down Hunters Canyon. Instead you find a hole in the ground through which can be seen a deep, dark pool of clear water. A small natural bridge in the lavendar Kakenta formation is parked at the head of tha box canyon. The pool at the bottom of the box invites one to swim but how to get down is the major problem of the day. Pleasant springs are heard and seen gushing from the walls below the natural bridge and these are the origin orig-in nf t.hp Wnnfore Parnrnn stream. A seldom traveled jeep trail skirts the edge of Hunters Canyon for 2'2 miles on the north side. Two more arches are easily seen from this trail, one known as the Leaning Lean-ing Arch, which . is visited most frequently by hiking one-half mile in from the Cane Creek-Hurrah Pass road. The other arch is not so well known but is unique in appearance ap-pearance being that the opening op-ening is quite thin. El Arco Arch ..Pritchett Arch (or El Arco as Faun McConkie Tanner calls it in "A History of Moab, Mo-ab, Utah") is probably the most sought for scene in the Land Behind the Rocks. It is easily located and in view from the jeep trail one-half mile north of Hunters Canyon. Can-yon. A two-tenths of a mile side trip to the west is where jeeps may be parked. A foot trail ascends a Navajo ledge and yellow-painted arrows indicate in-dicate the way to a close-up of Pritchett. It is a bulk arch and the size itself is impressive. im-pressive. But it is when going go-ing around to the north side that you are able to see something some-thing equally as impressive to the east and across a small valley. A shaft of sunlight bounces upon the floor of a huge amphitheatre cave revealing re-vealing an arch whose girth is probably much greater than the majority of big arches. arch-es. Down the valley is seen Broken Arch with its triangular trian-gular opening. Another arch of the pothole variety is seen from the trail to Pritchett and still another, though almost too small to be classified as an arch, can be seen from near the Totem Pole. Driving Skill It's the hill north of the Totem Pole that became the test for driving skill and vehicle ve-hicle worth. Both four wheel drive pickup and two wheel drive VW dune buggy topped the challenge without difficulty. diffi-culty. The steep, loose bank descending into Pritchett also al-so gave no great concern but would have blocked progress if we had tried this trail from the north. If you feel the trip to this point has been too rough, it's, advisable to retrace re-trace your tracks to Highway 160, for it is the bed of Pritchett Prit-chett Canyon that gives the rough-country vehicles a real challenge. The Pritchett Canyon jeep trail is undergoing erosion rapidly and won't be passable after a good spring flash flood. Anyone planning to try the loop route from the Behind Be-hind the Rocks area should check the lower course first. If you like jeeping, go ahead and brave it. At least 590 others did and they're coming com-ing back with friends to see more. |