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Show The Zephyr's TOP TEN LACES" "SECRET OF THE CANYON COUNTRY!!! #5: THE MAGICAL MYSTERY BUS About 20 miles north of Moab, a rocky mesa protrudes from the outback desert like a rusty and mangled fist. Its rim is sheer and mostly unbroken, except for an old foot trail, maybe wide enough to accommodate a motorcycle, but nothing bigger. The view in all directions is stunning, but rugged. And not particularly scenic in the True Tourist sense of the word. But there...there on the rim of the small isolated mesa, upside down, belly to the sun and the wind, lies a full sized tourist bus, 42 feet long, with Colorado plates from the 1950s, waiting to make the last ride back to town. How did it get there? Who was driving? Why did they leave it there? Is Agent Mulder involved? We just don’t know. HE LAST INDIAN WAR ito the 20th Century, tensions between white settlers and Native | high in southeast Utah. Mormon ranchers in San Juan: County claimed 1s, and. particularly a man named Posey and his band of “renegades, their grazing lands and did not “act like good Ind lans." The Utes 2s were destroying native habitat. In 1923, two teenaged Utes convicted escaped from the Bluff jail and raced to Blanding. Posey and his there and the two groups fled into the canyons toget her. The county te the governor for a plane load of machine guns and the sheriff iteer deputies "to shoot anything that looks like an Indian." Posey was eventually shot and died from his wounds after a long chase into the rugged country near Navajo Mountain. One of the last armed conflicts between Whites and Native Americans was Over. This location, just a stone’s throw from the White Mesa Mill, marks the site of the second encounter between Posey and the deputies. One horse was killed and several of the combatants narrowly escaped death. For years, only a homemade and cryptic sign (above left) marked the site. Today a interpretive BLM sign, riddled with bullet holes, tells the sad story of Posey’s Last War. (For an excellent account of Posey’s War, see The ea Aug/Sep 1996, by Barry Scholl) #4: ROCKWORM CANYON Is that Bob Castaldo’s latest 4WD? An.oil & gas thumper truck? A support vehicle for a Sierra Club outing? Whoever it is, they’ ve found the spectacular rim of Rockworm Canyon, one of the best-kept secrets in SE Utah: Accessible by foot or vehicle, it’s particularly spectacular at sunset. Baptist Carl Rappe led The #6: THE KEYSTONE PIT In the late 1980s, our county commissioners leased some ‘land near Lisbon Valley and charged drilling companies to dump their salt water waste on it. Unfortunately some unknown culprits started dumping a lot of other stuff too. Pretty soon, the Keystone Pit et Place. He found it one day was one big, smelly toxic mess. Commissioner Knutson called it “primordial ooze" at the TERY is is all about. Desert Mystic 1e Arches boundary in search ad this memorial to mountain What does it mean? time. Eventually Grand County got out of the business, let the tailings ponds evaporate, and pushed some dirt on top of it, so now it’s impossible to take an afternoon swim. Bummer. (The photo is from 1991.) . THE ‘TOP 10’ LIST CONTINUES ON THE NEXT PAGE... |