Day 5: July 10 Monday — White Wash Overlook to Sand Dune Overlook near Chaffin Ranch

Highlights: Oil derrick; Crystal Geyser; Green River shopping; Ray’s Tavern; Pickles; swimming in Green River; sand dune.

After our typically full breakfast we tried to pack up, except there were scores of bees gathered around every little spill of liquid at the campsite. Terry diverted the bees by putting out a paper plate of water so we could pack the water jugs.

We decided the first thing to do was to get another swim, so we drove back to the last night’s swimming hole on the Green River. After the brief dip we turned around on the Ruby Ranch Road towards the Interstate. Immediately after passing the turnoff to our campsite we came to that oil derrick, where we saw the first people since Grand View Point three days ago. The well was in operation but amazingly the derrick was now lying on its side, either for maintenance or disassembly. In contrast to the thousands of abandoned, and handful of established wells in Canyon Country, this was the only active drill site I have ever seen. There were a number of very large trucks parked here and further up the road.

It is possible to take the Ruby Ranch Road 12 miles to I-70 and then drive 13 miles to Green River, for a trip of less than an hour, but that wasn’t jeeping. Instead, a few miles after the oil well we found the left turn onto Salt Wash Trail. For some reason I expected a flat drive through boring desert, but instead this trail passed through colorful hills of hardened mud and sand, winding its way up and down and around the mounds. We got some nice vistas from the tops of hills, and could pick up some speed in the flats. The appearance of the land was somewhat creepy, a cross between the Badlands of South Dakota and the tailings of a strip mine, with little vegetation of any kind. It was a fascinating three hours.

The Salt Wash Trail would have taken us to a dead end at the Green River, but we didn’t need another swim, so a couple of miles before that we turned right onto the Crystal Geyser Trail, the one Barnes said we should not travel in summer. This trail was the one I most feared, because it was discontiguous on the newest topo maps (published in the late 1980’s). While we already drove many unmarked trails on this trip, they were all spurs or shortcuts, which were of no consequence if missed. If we came to an impassable section an hour up this trail, then we would have to take a five hour detour back via the Interstate, blowing a day of our precious vacation.

Thankfully, the Crystal Geyser Trail was not hard to follow. There was even one stretch up a slope that was graded. The part that was discontiguous on the map was obscure, but not invisible. There was one point where we had to make a decision at an intersection, where both forks went in the desired direction, but a 5-minute drive down the left fork indicated that it was not the correct choice.

An hour or two from its start the trail intersected a well-traveled gravel road. To the right was the town of Green River ten miles away. But first we turned left on a half-mile spur next to the river to see the main item of interest on this trail, the Crystal Geyser, a “cold water geyser that erupts periodically” according to Barnes.

I didn’t expect much, but I was impressed. A quarter acre of land around the geyser was completely covered with rock-hard mineral deposits in all possible shades of yellow, orange and brown, forming thousands of little terraces (“rimstone dams” in caver’s terminology) full of water just millimeters deep. Because these pools were all wet, I figured that the geyser erupted recently, and from the extent of the wet area it must have been quite high. The terraces stepped down to a mud bank at the Green River, where we acted out our instinct to hop into the water. For a photo, Mark jumped off the bank where people were standing waist deep. It was a good photo, but he emerged with a large red bruise on his back, possibly from hitting a rock under the water.

Viewed edge-on from the water level, the mineral terraces formed beautiful intricate patterns. At the center of the geyser is a eight-inch diameter pipe sticking out of the ground, and looking into it you could see bubbling water. Not knowing when it was to erupt again, I felt like I risked my camera, if not my life, shooting straight down into the geyser. But at least the water was cold, not boiling.

We reasoned later that this geyser was probably originally an oil drill site, abandoned after the drill popped into a geothermal pocket of gas and water. It is now an obscure tourist spot, though a tourist would have to be fairly desperate to drive the ten miles from Green River on a dirt road. Perhaps, if you can predict its eruption, it’s the only place to go for a cold shower.

We spent a long time at the geyser and then drove on the gravel road to Green River. As the road approached town it passed through the White Sands Missile Range Launch Complex. What most people think of as “White Sands” is far away in southern New Mexico. But that’s where the missiles land; here is where they launch them, I guess. Perhaps because it is not dangerous or secret, there are no travel restrictions in this area. The road became paved here, and soon in the middle of very flat desert we saw an I-70 interchange. Fortunately we did not have to get on I-70, since we still had our windshield down. This interchange was the exit for Green River, so we just passed under the bridge and kept going, immediately crossing the river on a low bridge and then into town.

Green River is a sleepy town compared to Moab. Perhaps it was once bigger than Moab, but Green River seems stagnant relative to Moab’s growth. The big recreational attraction here appears to be a place to put in rafts and canoes for the trip down the river, as the rafting theme is evident throughout town. The only other attraction is that it is the only major town in the 220 miles of Interstate west of Grand Junction, 100 miles from here.

Our first job was to visit Ray’s Tavern for lunch, with the best food in town according to a tip Lou got from a colleague. We easily found it on a side street on the left, and inside it was wonderfully cool, relaxing and dark. It was deserted this time of day, but instead of sitting at one of the many large empty tables we strung ourselves out along the bar. Perhaps people were unconsciously driven to Pickles, the very attractive and friendly bartender, who served us mugs of draft beer and took our orders for cheeseburgers. (Ed wanted pork chops, but it would have been a 40 minute wait.) We were as impressed with Pickles’s strength as her looks, as she single-handedly swapped full kegs of beer under the bar. Tacked up around the walls of the tavern were rafting-related T-shirts that people have apparently donated. Maybe we will offer them a Greenshit T-shirt some day. In conversation with Pickles we learned that Crystal Geyser erupts every 12 hours, so our odds of having gotten zapped were not that great. After asking where we could get water and dump several large Hefty bags of trash, Pickles was kind enough to let us use the tavern’s facilities (though some people complained later that the tavern’s water didn’t taste that great).

Our hamburgers were individually prepared by Cookie while Pickles set the table behind us, and during lunch we went through our shopping list in preparation for the awful chore to follow. A major item of discussion was how much beer to buy. After using up 3 cases in 3 days, Lou wanted us to buy 9 cases for remaining 6 days to be on the safe side. But Ed decided that 8 cases would be enough if he bought an additional bottle of booze as a supplement. We also planned to buy some real beer, but this time in cans, not bottles.

After many, many draft beers at Ray’s we split up into several contingents to do the shopping, gassing, and watering. Pickles mentioned two food stores in town, unable to recommend one over the other. The one we chose, Mellon Vine, down the street from Ray’s, was little better than a glorified convenience store. An interesting feature that I have not seen since the Hilltop Steak House store in Saugus was that half the store was actually a doorless walk-in refrigerator that housed all the produce, meat, dairy, etc. even though it seemed just like another part of the store. It was very strange to see meat and vegetables just lying on the shelves. But the store had a limited selection, so those of us preparing the next few meals had to make some more last minute menu alterations.

As we loaded the coolers, I decided to experiment with a new ice management strategy. Reasoning that a cooler filled with nothing but ice—no food—would keep the longest, we packed the large cooler full with 9 blocks of ice, strapped it shut, and planned not to open it until the ice melted enough to make room for already chilled items from the other coolers. By only opening the two smaller coolers on a routine basis, the length of time there was ice in the big one would be stretched out. Unfortunately the two small coolers didn’t have much room for ice after being filled with all our food, so we had no place for any drinks or some of our vegetables. Instead, we put some chilled drinks into our soft insulated bags for use the rest of the day.

After filling up our tanks, I calculated that the three jeeps together averaged 4 miles per gallon. It was clear that Great White was the Big Hog. It may have needed a tuneup, but at least it was not stalling on all the difficult moves like last year.

By 5 p.m. we were ready to leave town. From Green River our plan was to spend three more days on points along the river, this time working our way south on the west side of Labyrinth Canyon. Then we would spend four days within the boundaries of Canyonlands National Park, which is centered around the confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers, and finally out to a paved road over 100 miles south of here at the Hite Marina where the Colorado River becomes Lake Powell.

We departed town on a back road that leads to the municipal airport, and then branched off a major dirt road known to locals as the Green River Road, but whose official name is Lower San Rafael Road according to DeLorme. The Green River Road goes for about 60 miles south across the scenic San Rafael Desert, well inland of the canyons near the river, and then turns west for 45 more miles, where it intersects Utah 24 about 20 miles north of Hanksville. At that turn to the west a dirt road continues south, which will take us to Canyonlands several days from now. The Green River Road provides the only access into the thousands of square miles of the San Rafael Desert, and it is one of only two roads that lead to the Maze District of Canyonlands National Park. While the Green River Road is accessible to most autos when dry, it is risky to drive because in bad weather the road becomes impassable to all but 4WD. Also, though it is a very nice drive in its own right, most of the spectacular sights and Canyonlands itself are accessible only by 4WD spurs off this road. In several trips down this road, I have encountered only a handful of other vehicles, all 4WD, and most of these have been park rangers on resupply missions from the Canyonlands ranger station.

The first ten miles down this road pass through “moon country,” surreal landscape of gray dirt and mud hills, where you would be hard pressed to find more than an isolated shrub of vegetation. A few miles from the start is a spur to the left, less than a mile long, to a great swimming spot on the Green River, on the opposite side of yesterday afternoon’s drive on the Crystal Geyser Trail. Well, it was a great swimming spot last year, with a gradual bank and a wide area of gravelly bottom that was pleasant to the feet. This year, with the river so high, there were precious few feet of shoreline where the furious current wasn’t too fast to enter. On almost the same date last year, we could walk completely across the 600′ wide river, despite the rapid current, as it was never more than a couple of feet deep. But we were determined to get wet here, regardless of the obstacles, so we carefully managed our usual swim and wash in the shallow area.

There is a nice campsite near here, a half mile away from the river next to the dry Nine Mile Wash, but this year the wash was flooded and the area was dense with mosquitoes, so we went back to the Green River Road to find a campsite away from the bugs. A little further south we passed by Horse Bench Reservoir that last year was a mud cesspool, completely dry on the surface but liquid underneath. This time it was like an oasis, a vast lake stretching for 100 acres among the desolate hills. We stopped to look at it, but nobody wanted to risk venturing in, because I told the story of how I stepped on the “surface” last year and plunked into two feet of soupy black mud. Besides, we just had our swim so we weren’t in the need to get wet.

Although no storms were nearby, I could see some in the distance, so I was still worried about camping in the open. By studying the map, I found a likely campsite at a pass, a couple hundred feet above the surrounding area but below nearby cliffs, on a loop road or trail that branches off from the Green River Road a few miles south of here. The drive beyond the reservoir departed moon country and entered into the open prairies of Horse Bench, the huge plateau along the eastern edge of the San Rafael Desert, just before the land drops into the canyons. The greenery here was particularly brilliant and many plants were in full bloom.

The turn we were seeking was easy to find, and the pass with the potential campsite was a mile down that trail across landscape dense with small shrubs. The last fraction of a mile up the pass was a steep grade on loose sand. Ed kept yelling at me for not going fast enough for him to keep his speed, as he was concerned that Harpoon couldn’t handle it. I’m not sure whether Harpoon was worse than Pequod on sand, or whether his paranoia about sand (from getting stuck in his jeep on the dunes of Cape Cod) was getting the better of him, but Harpoon did have a little trouble at one point that necessitated backing down to get more speed.

Just over the top of the pass we again found a pleasant surprise much like the night before: a large expanse of flat slickrock ideal for camping with a fantastic panorama of the landscape to the south. This campsite was so similar to last night’s that they would blur together in our memories, except for an amazing quarter mile long ridge of pure “beach sand” angling up 300′ from the basin to the top of the hill across the pass. It was one extremely long dune a hundred feet high. This was our first sight of sand dunes that exist in a number of areas throughout Canyon Country. While one might expect dunes in the desert, this one surprised us. The sterile, golden sand seem incongruous on top of the scrubby rocky terrain around it. The sand did not resemble the surrounding soil: it looked exactly like someone with a gargantuan bucket laid down a line of sand on top of the ridge.

There was little dead wood near the campsite. We found some small stuff after considerable searching, but it wasn’t enough until Chris picked up a large dead tree trunk, about six inches thick and as big as a person could carry. A few feet from it, I found another one, and then a third. Then I noticed that these trunks were lying in a straight line extending out to the prairie. These were in fact posts of an old fence, long ago collapsed. In the distance we could see some of the posts still standing, and there was still fence wire on the ground. Knowing that this was a fence, I felt uneasy about using the posts for firewood, but they were clearly unserviceable and probably legally abandoned. Even though they were used as posts, they were unmodified from their original form as tree trunks so the unobservant could easily mistake them for natural deadwood.

The fence posts allowed us to have a roaring fire and coals that we used for Mark’s pork chops. He originally planned to make his famous ribs, but we found no ribs in Green River, and at least Ed would be happy finally getting his chops. It seemed to take forever for the fire to die down to coals, and then it took forever to cook the chops. When Lou asked Mark impatiently how much longer it would be, Mark replied “five more minutes.” Five minutes later, when asked again, he repeated “five minutes.” With empty plates on the table and the sun setting in the west, this scenario was played out five or six more times, until we decided five minutes would never end and coerced Mark into relinquishing the chops. For the rest of the trip, “five more minutes” was our euphemism for “a long time.”

That evening we played with the laser pointer and looked again at moons of Jupiter. While we were sitting outside in the peaceful night Ed suddenly let out a yell. This time it was not Dave’s, but a monster insect at his feet, about two inches long. It was probably a dung beetle, which is harmless but can be frightening to us Yankees not used to big bugs. A few gnats and blackflies showed up at the beginning of the evening, but by dark most of us decided that it was bug free enough to sleep outside. It was a good sleep, aided by fantasies of Pickles from Ray’s.