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Show 5jr ., . v. v--.t ... .. .... ' . . . , l. . y--f ,.'r -,. t ' ' ... H ' - - ' j - . " - n 1 "-;-r--c .-. ;--.v V:::' -S--& -vi . v: -V . ., -:: .': i b -AN,-- -. M v ' s ... . ,'."-.''.';, " ' , - - - " . .. , -- - v . , "w , ---... , .. . .-. - .:. , : --r- A-..- y...- . ,r - - - f : . I -- :rcCL r. . . . mi ;.. ' ' - -V-', hr:;w down Cane Creek Canyon from Hurrah Pass clearly shows -. r'ntic upthrust of an anticline has tilted miles-long blocks O -i dou-5 feet exposing ancient layers of sand- stone. The red Cutler sandstone in the valley floor is perhaps sixty million years older than the rounded homes of Navajo sandstone visible in the distance. : hrah Piss Offers Scenery, History 1 St Fran Barnes J ; VrMired rancher j xe.ury hose at the -: c: is trail as it e- :.e" a bigh, narrow ; :: ::rren rock the a : :( dried blood. He i his eyes against " sun and swiri-d::cs swiri-d::cs of red dust, ;:i; cccn:ing the caf-driven caf-driven by das:y jl : 3 dustier horses. Ij : i-i last shuffling' an-?7 an-?7 Aiied by, the ranch-I ranch-I 1 : tiered his count, his face lit up. he grabbed oft" his sweat-stained hat and with a loud whuop, slammed slam-med it to the ground. "Hurrah! 'W'e did it ag-a?ii!" ag-a?ii!" he shouted to the grinning horsemen follow- in? the cattle. "Didn't lose a single head!" . . Swinging low from his sadd'.e, the rancher recovered recov-ered his boadbrimmed hat, then urged his horse toward' to-ward' the other men as they started down the long twisting trail through a maze of standing red rock, into the relatively fertile valley below. And thus was named or so the story goes Hurrah Pass. Hurrah Pass is not far from Moab, and can bj reached, part of the time at least, by ordinary family fam-ily car if the car has fair road clearance, low gearing and a careful dii- ver. It offers not only a spectacular view from its summit, but the route to - - - -. . . , -,. , . '.vis'. , 5 ' : : V- -f;V Vr-r;''-X .: .-. ..: . .- .... i i-'s , ..r;- ' ;V . -.-.. - -wiiijiw .v. vd . ?; .' ,' ? ; J4---fc-j - . I I . ... ' ..: . - --- - . I, . '.v. ..-ri . jft0n?the road up to Hurrah Pass k;;, crazi'y eroded shapes in the I finij; rf'k: many of thcm resembling objCcts Amont; these arc a V n and on the skyline, a stone train chuffs along. Here, directly above the license on the buggy, on the skyline, is The Chinaman, sitting with legs and arms folded and wearing a peaked hat, watching out across Cane Creek Can-yon. Can-yon. . . . . - - the pass goes through quite varied and beautiful can-yonland can-yonland country. But Few Sea It Yet relatively few local people have ever been over ov-er the pass, virtually no tourists find it on their own, and it has long since ceased to be used for a cattle trail. Today, an occasional oc-casional truck labors up the fairly steep trail, laden lad-en with a sparse load of uranium ore from a remote rrune. And once in a great wmie a Aio;iu lour gume may take a small group of travelers over the pass and into the wilderness beyond. Aside from this, Hurrah Pass stands alone and silent sil-ent for days and weeks on end, unnoticed, unappreciated unappre-ciated and marked only by a faded, dilapidated Bureau Bur-eau cf Land Management algn noting its name. The story of the naming of Hurrah Pass may be apocryphal, another one of those stories that old-t'me old-t'me westerners like to start and tour guides-perpetuate guides-perpetuate but the development de-velopment and use of the. trail over the pass for cattle cat-tle drives is unquestionably unquestionab-ly true. Valuable Grazing At one time, back in the '20's and '30's, long befors the uranium found in this area was considered to b valuable, and even longer before Canyonlands National Nat-ional Park was ever dreamed dream-ed of, early Moab ranchers ranch-ers would use the high plateau now called Island In the Sky, in the northern section of Canyonlands National Na-tional Park, for summer top of the plateau received more moisture "than the low-lying, arid canyons and valleys below it, and thus provided fairly good forage for catitle during the spring, summer and fall. But during the winter, the catle had to be moved to the lower canyons where they could be either sheltered and fed for the winter, or driven on to rail heads for marketing. This sounds quite easy and conventional, and in most of this nation would be, but not in canyonlands country! To get from the Island in the Sky plateau to Moab, or some of the lower canyons nearby, was either a long, long trek through the barren, almost waterless desertlands to the north, then south down a long, equally arid canyon can-yon and earth-fault system to Moab or follow a more daring route almost directly toward Moab, one which was often fatal to stumble-footed cattle. Thvs route led down off the Island in the Sky on a narrow, dangerous trail, worked its way through a maze of broken canyons to one of the few places the Colorado River could be crossed by cattle, then up from the river through another labyrinth of colorful col-orful canyons, up 'still more aJoncr the windinc. twist- iing trail that climbs to Hurrah Tass, then down to the hospitality of Cane Creek Canyon, with its cheerful, flowing creek and fairly easy access to Moab. Trail Improved In late years, the trail over Hurrah Pass was widened wi-dened and improved so that uranium explorers could reach the wide expanse ex-panse of land along the Colorado River's southeart-ern southeart-ern side. The pass trail provided, pro-vided, and still provides the only access route into this isolated stretch of terrain. ter-rain. Sheer cliffs, and the river, itself, block all other oth-er approaches but one, and that no longer is usable. During the heyday of uranium prospecting and mining, in the 1950s, Hurrah Hur-rah Pass saw considerable traffic. Hopeful prospectors, prospect-ors, with dollar signs in their eyes, and Geiger counters in the war surplus sur-plus jeeps, crossed one way. Ore-laden trucks, from the few worthwhile mines in the area, labored up the tortuous trail and over the pass, headed for Moab and its mill, and each truck that clawed its way up the rocky trail, left the trail that much worse for the next truck. Today, the disillusioned prospectors have all gone chasing other rainbows, or have settled into more practical prac-tical careers, and all the mines beyond the pass have played out leaving Hurrah. Hur-rah. Pass, and the wilderness wilder-ness that beckons beyond, standing silent,- undisturbed undisturb-ed -once again, as it had stood for megayears -before the advent of scurrying, scurry-ing, .hurrying, wealth-seeking men.. Take Trip Today. . Take a trip to the summit sum-mit of Hurrah Pass, ake it .today, or . tomorrow at the latest, for. once again, men who care more for what is beneath the earth's crust than for the match-Continued match-Continued on page B-2 Hurrah Pass . . . Continued from page B-l less beauty on its surface are disturbing its timeless tranquility. Not so closely, so intimately this time, but eye and ear pollution are there already, and growing grow-ing each day. To reach the pass, drive south through Moab on its main street. Just before reaching Miller's Shopping Center turn right on Cane Creek Boulevard, at the Standard Station. Stay on this paved road as it reaches rea-ches the Colorado River, then enters The Portal and parallels the river for several sev-eral miles. Along the way, on the time-stained rock that walls the road on one side, are ancient Indian petroglyphs, some clearly visible, others hidden behind be-hind brush and trees. Shortly, you will come to Miller's egg ranch, where chickens live out their productive lives in the cool dimness of caverns dynamited dy-namited from solid rock. Soon, the pacement will give way to a good gravel road which immediately deserts the Colorado and twists up between the sheer walls of Cane Creek. Follow rthis road on and on, for several miles, past sheer -overlooks into- the canyon, huge 'boulders decorated dec-orated with petroglyphs, down. a breathtaking switchback, then past a spring that gushes cool, sweet water from solid rock. Continue on as the road, now close to the creek, works its way up the narrow canyon, crosses the occasional trickle from Hunter Hun-ter Canyon, then, soon enters en-ters the broad valley that Cane Creek has worked for millions of years to carve from a gigantic anticline, or "blister" in the earth's crust. As you enter this wide, isolated valley, notice that the road passes through a stratum of grey-colored, sofiter rock. This is the .Chinle formation, stained and layered with the dust and fallout of primordial volcanoes which so often bears uranium and other heavy minerals from the bowels of the earth. With your eye, follow the Chinle Chin-le as you enter the valley. Watch it soar upward, along al-ong with the other strata above and below iit. Notice how it is disfigured by mineral mi-neral exploration trails, and the gaping holes and skeletal scaffolding of abandoned ab-andoned mines. Notice also how the various vari-ous strata exposed on the right side of the valley arch high to a notched summit, then more gradually start descending. This is the "anticline or upswelling of the earth's thick hide. Ana one or tnose notcnes that you see high above the valley floor, high above a maze, a labyrinth, a city of fantastically eroded dark red Cutler sandstone to-w-ei-s, is Hurrah Pass. Anticline Overlook Just to the left of the pass you will see a tall-standing, tall-standing, gray-streaked tower tow-er of rock, and overlooking 'both, higher still, will be the soaring butte of Anti-clline Anti-clline Overlook. Later, as you ascend the trail to-Hurah to-Hurah Pass, look up at this overlook. You will see the jutting point has a wire fence around it, and a shade pavillion. You may even see an ant-tiny person there, too, if you are lucky. And while you look up at that remote point far above, ab-ove, marvel at the fact that while it is almost directly direct-ly above you, a thousand feet or so, it is about 90 miles away by road! Despite Des-pite the fact that one popular popu-lar oil ocmpany road map shows a continuous road from Hurrah Pass summit, past the Anticline Overlook, Over-look, then out to U.S. 163 some twenty miles south of Moab! Jeep Road Shortly after passing the Monte Cristo mine to the road's left, and the HapDy Turk balanced rock (TI February 4, 1971), the gravel gra-vel road ends at a ford of yane Creek. Beyond this point, road maintenance is a chancy thing. Grand County road crews generally gener-ally keep the road in. . good aw repair to this food but only occasionally work on the ford, itself, or the graded dirt road that goes on to the summit of Hurrah Pass. And beyond the summit, sum-mit, the road becomes a no-man's-land trail. So if you are lucky, you might get across the creek and on up the road as it sweeps to the right and climbs the tilting Cutler sandstone strata toward the pass. And if you are lucky as you climb this snaky road, you won't encounter any washouts that will block your vehicle. Jeeps and similar rough-country vehicles can always get across the pass, but street machines can be blocked waiter-cut gullies crossing the dirt road. But if you get this far, and can spare the time and energy, walk on to the summit. sum-mit. It's only another couple cou-ple of miles from where the steep grade first starts, and passes through extremely extrem-ely spectacular formations and past views down into and onto wildly eroded canyons, towers and shapes shap-es of weird and beautiful Cutler sandstone. Unspoiled View Just before you reach the summit, take the time to (walk the few yards and look back down into Cane Creek Canyon. This direction, direc-tion, the view is unspoiled unspoil-ed and beautiful. Far below, be-low, on the other side of the valley, if you know where to look, is the tur-baned tur-baned head of the Happy Turk, and the tips of the ALaSal Mountains can be seen peeking above the Wingate cliffs opposite you. And of a late evening, the gigantic statuary of puller stone that graces ithe valley floor, casts long dark shadows across rain-bow-hued expanses of sand and rock. From the pass summit, the view to the west was once even more spectacular. spectacu-lar. Below, more Cutler tfantasyland gave way to,-, , low bluffs over the Colo-,, rado River. Then more ex-; panses of red Cutler faded into the distant soaring plateaus of Dead Horse Point State Park and the Island-in-the-Sky. Now, although this view lis still magnificent, it is rapidly losing its unspoiled unspoil-ed charm. On the far side of the river, the noisy machinery ma-chinery of a vast mining operation shatters what was once dead silence. And the spreading blight of surface sur-face operations are spoiling spoil-ing forever thousands of acres of delicate red- desert des-ert benohland, scarring it with roads, ditches and ugly metal buildings, scabbing scab-bing it over with vast artificial arti-ficial lakes for evaporating mineral-laden soups pumped pump-ed from deep within the earth . From a little jutting tip of land just a few yards toward the river from the pass summit, it is possible to view the main plant of this mining operation, a huge cluster of garish green buildings, set in the midst of an otherwise unspoiled panorama of red and pink ; and brown and beige and .. salmon and white sand-'', sand-'', stone as old as the hills of home, and older. But most of us have long lago been forced to blank out in our minds such, ble-unishes ble-unishes on this beautiful earth, so do this now. And while you can, and to the extent still possible, enjoy the unparalleled view and thrill of Hurrah Pass, pumps and blat of heavy machinery, hear in your mind, instead, the tramping tramp-ing hooves of moving cattle, cat-tle, the almost singing shouts of men urging them on and the triumphant shout of a dog-tired and dusty rancher hollering "Hurrah! We did it again !" |