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Show ): Greisiii River - Sqnd Busies Piwicle :StriluEig Ciiitast -Canyons' 1 BY DICK WILSON California is not the only state that can' boast of its sand dunes. Grand County has thern- too,-. enough' ' to get dune buggy enthusiasts I excited. , . 'There's an "extensive group ot'sanA dunes im ; tihis county whose, beauty and setting ri: vals those found almost anywhere.. any-where.. It was only a ' few weeks -ago that Tex... Mc-Clatchey Mc-Clatchey informed other, lo-al lo-al dune bbggy 'fanciers of the .dunes.- McClatchey - had spotted them, from . the . air I and thought they 'looked in- viting. , 'He was right. Nine dune N Ibuggy families, headed, for the dunes this past Sunday j for the Sport 'alid spent the. . j whole day riding the rolling M sands. ' J Sand dunes are formed i only under special circum-L circum-L stances. First of all there has to be a source of sand of which Grand County has .' ample quantities in the vast ,1 beds' of sandstone. When the. layers disintegrate, the I grains of sand are taken by the wind and whipped into small dunes. Big winds keep spreading the sand without forming dunes. j But then if the prevailing wind is in the direction of a natural corral formed by surrounding heights, the circumstances cir-cumstances are right for the forming of extensive and large dunes. Such is the case with the dune paradise found near the it Dunham Land and Livestock Company, formerly the Ruby I Ranch as it is called on the j topographical map. j The dunes are about three lles east of the Green IR'ver and the ranch. They have been corraled along the course of. White Wash, a wde sandy bed penetrating i cliffs of Entrada Sandstone aid capped by the Morrison , formation. Traveling along U. S. 6 .V jSO from Crescent Junction i 10 the town of Green River 'J'our eyes rest on a horizon ' o the south that is any- t:llltg but inviting. The low, rounded hills of Mancos iha'e and the barren rocky I sopcs of the Morrison for-t for-t nation don't reveal to the passerby what treasurers lie I w'thin and beyond. Oil and gas companies nave roads leading into that ert area from the high-av high-av and have producing hmis there. The rockhound-p rockhound-p members of the Moab roints and Pebbles Club "ave valued the area south 1 Jloy Wash turnoff for the mount of gcms and agates '""nd there. SnilPr0Ximatolv 12 miles turnoff (hioh is seven Jlthn Crescent Junction) moJad' Passable aut0-Jb aut0-Jb los when. drVj follQWS g Prom ,? Ve Wnit'e ' Wash lnni . ride visitors can , 'iw.uth south ee jwethe great mass of - - int. i.,i - ? r V 4 J ,?v The dunes a?ong White Wash are extremely Some cf the dunes are threaded through conducive to fun and recreatibni Their re- narrow canyons, moteness has kept them retatively unknown. sand has been corraled and has formed miles and miles of dunes. An automobile can get tg, (within three-quarters of a mile of the dunes and the area is exceedingly rewarding reward-ing for hiking. Jeeps may flounder in the deep, soft beds of sand but . the buggies bug-gies bust the dunes with joy. The setting of Grand County's Coun-ty's sand dunes is unusual 'and needs special comment. The notable dunes of the nation na-tion are located mainly in the middle of barren areas with no variety other than rolling sand dunes. Great Sand Dunes National Monument Monu-ment in Colorado and White Sands National Monument in New Mexico have beautiful beau-tiful forested slopes several miles from the dunes which provide a diverse backdrop than' the ordinary groups of dunes. Grand County's dunes, however, have an even greater amount of variety, right ; within the dune area and available for complete recreation. To be specific, the dunes have been rolled up into imasses several miles long. Cliffs of . colorful Entrada sandstone rise up and out of some of the dunes. Other dunes have well nigh taken over islands of the red rock. And in still other places the dunes have tried to beat a retreat by entering enter-ing into narrow-walled canyons can-yons so that these have now become dune buggy corridors. corri-dors. If the red cliffs surrounding surround-ing the dunes and making islands of slickrock in the area did ' hot present enough variety, there's still something some-thing else quite unique about Grand County's dunes. There's a bed of moisture beneath those dunes and cottonwood trees are numerous numer-ous in the low places among the dunes. Where else could it happen hap-pen but here? The buds of the cottonwoods were about to burst over the sand dunes Sunday. On the hotter hot-ter days in weeks to come the trees will provide shading shad-ing potential for picnickers in the dunes. You just don't have water-requiring trees growing out of beds of sand-dunes sand-dunes but you do here. White Wash, at the base cf the dunes to the north, had a small stream of water flowing in it this weekend. This is probably not a summer-long flow -although it it coud very well be due to the many springs that exist in the area. In view of the upcoming Jeep Safari sponsord by the Moab Chamber of Commerce, Commer-ce, perhaps it would not be too wicked to mention the possibilities of having future fu-ture sand buggy meets. Kanab's club, the Sand Rover-Dune Buggy Association Associa-tion (SRDBA) started an event a short time ago. The Utah State Parks and Recreation Rec-reation Department gave the club permission to hold a dune-buggy competition meet in Utah's Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park. In fact they held three last summer, the first in May with two others following m July and August. Officials reported that they had visiting vis-iting dune buggy enthusiasts enthusias-ts from several states including in-cluding considerable numbers num-bers from southern California. Calif-ornia. Similar events coui be held at Grand County's sand dune paradise with tours on the back - country trails, Safari style, thrown in. The club in Kanab, by the way, cleaned up all it-ter it-ter in the State Park after the event and were com-minded com-minded for their public spirit. The names applied to features fea-tures in and near Grand County's dune area are full of color. White Wash as mentioned flows right at the base of the dunes. An extremely interesting way to approach the dunes, and the closest route from Moab, is to turn west one mile south of Canyonlands Airport. The road heads northwest at the base of tile Blue Hills as the topographic topo-graphic maps call them. The main traveled route forks to the south toward Dub inky Well, but the way to the dunes is still northwest. north-west. Don't go over the cattle cat-tle guard at the next junction; junc-tion; take to the left instead in-stead which parallels and passes through Tenmile Canyon. Can-yon. There's a small set of dunes in this vicinity. Don't get confused. The big ones are 10 miles further. A topo map will help you find this jeep trail (or rather duna-buggy duna-buggy trail) to the dunes. From Moab this route is -10 miles to the dunes and takes approximately one - and -a-tialf hours. The other route through Crescent Junction and down Floy Road is quicker by about 15 minutes min-utes but is longer (53 miles) and lacks the variety of tin? back-country trail). The names applied to features fea-tures in and near Grand County's dune area are fu'l cf color. White Wash as mentioned men-tioned flows right at the base of the dunes. You cross Red Wash on the trail discussed as well as skirt- ing the Blue Hills. And if these colors of RED, WHITE and BLUE are not enough, then there's the GREEN River three miles away, BROWN'S Wash and the ROAN Cliffs further north, and RUBY Ranch nearby. And a mixture of all the colors is FRECKLES Canyon which runs into ten-mile. ten-mile. The vast bed of sand dunes along the western edge of the county does not carry a name on the topographical topo-graphical maps. Due to the nearby location of the Green River Missile Launch Complex, a part of White Sands Missile Range, perhaps per-haps ,it would be appropriate to call this area, "Little White Sands." |