3rd annual Muley Point overnight camping,
April 30 & May 1, 2006.

It rained a couple times and the wind blew all the time, sometimes hard, sometimes harder, all of which reminds me that the good riding season is over until fall and winter.

On April 30 I camped overnight at Muley Point near Mexican Hat, Utah, because the view is truly beautiful: from the mesa to the valley 1000 feet below, the San Juan River another 1000 feet below that and the great mesas, buttes and spires of Monument Valley in the distance. It's beautiful even when it rains a little and the wind blows hard and even harder. What wasn't fun was putting up my tent in the hard, gusty winds, parking the KLR where it wouldn't blow over, eating in the tent where I had no view and trying to sleep while the tent slapped furiously with each gust. To top it off, I had the misfortune of stopping for breakfast at the Twin Rocks Cafe the next morning in Bluff just as a giant tour bus unloaded a huge crowd of French tourists. But, despite everything, the view from camp was great as it always is and riding, of course, is what it's really all about.

San Juan River: 2000 feet in elevation below where I took this picture.
Jamie and I traveled this road to John's Canyon.
Pictures don't show the wind, making this scene appear peaceful and serene. It wasn't.
The various storms, though, were quite pretty.
Sunset approaches.
Sunset.
My camp at sunset.
Sunrise on May first. The storms were gone but the wind still blew although much subdued.
I wasn't alone. In addition to rabbits, chipmunks, lizards, birds and bats, I discovered this snake approaching my camp just after sunset. At first I tried to shoo him away. Snakes don't shoo. If I persisted, he would assume a striking stance, but it was always defensive, never offensive, which probably says a lot about why humans infest the earth rather than snakes. He soon crawled into a hole near my tent and in retrospect, I can see that all he wanted was to get home before the rocks cooled. He wasn't going to bother me. He probably had waited almost too long hoping I would leave. No such luck. I hope my proximity bothered his sleep less than the wind bothered mine.
—Verle Nelson, Cedaredge Colorado