Imagine a remote, canyon-edge view of beautiful gorges, plateaus, valleys and mountains. Imagine this site with the nearest human, other than yourself, an hour or more away. Confirm this isolation with a darkness of night where not a single earth-born light is visible. Only stars in the sky. Not one light on earth, not even on the distant horizon. No cars, no houses, no towns, not a single light. The profound silence is disturbed only by the faint murmur of river rapids 700 feet below. This would be solitude of a kind few modern humans ever experience. Some might find it frightening. I consider myself fortunate to have spent a night in such a place.
May 17-18 2006. A graded gravel road winds mostly eastward and a little south from Dewey Bridge and UT128 between Cisco and Moab. For a few miles Kokopelli's Trail [see foot note below] uses this road, until the Trail veers off on a shortcut which is essentially single track. The graveled road eventually leads one to a remote ranch but there are two junctions of note before reaching the ranch property. About a mile from the Dewey Bridge, an unmarked side road pops abruptly over a bank to the east. This side road will take you to the Dolores river -- 4WD required if the sand is soft -- where the adventuresome rider/driver can ford the river during seasonal low water and continue on to Glade Park in Colorado. But I digress. My interests lie farther to the southeast. If one continues on the graded gravel road another seven or eight miles (I'm guessing so give or take), about a mile or less before the ranch gate, a less defined road to the right crosses a stream, dry in summer, and disappears up and around an incline. This narrative follows that road to the right. For another five or six miles the road twists, turns, climbs and descends but ultimately reaches the higher country above and east of Fisher's Valley. The road is rough. A mile or so in, it rejoins Kokopelli's Trail. The Moab East mountain bicycle map marks this as a "dirt road, suitable for mountain bikes and/or 4WD." This road may be dirty but more specifically it is rock with powdered dirt and sand that can vary considerably depending on recent weather. Frequent stretches have been "improved" with river rocks, smooth and rounded ovoids, varying in size from golf balls to large oranges with the occasional grapefruit. A sensible motorcyclist must remain alert if he/she wishes to control direction of travel. Just over the top, this primitive road and Kokopelli's Trail part company again with the Trail beginning a rough, rock-shelf and loose-rock descent into Cottonwood Canyon and eventually to either Fisher's Valley or Polar Mesa. Just prior to this descent, the unmarked primitive road turns left (east) from Kokopelli's Trail and continues on yet another five or six miles to the confluence of Cottonwood and Dolores River Canyons. This road continues to be rough in places with some sharp climbing or descending hairpins made worse by soft powder and loose stones. The road finally dead-ends on a canyon rim at the Dolores River Overlook, 700 feet or more above the confluence of Dolores and Cottonwood Canyons. I camped there for the night. It was a lovely evening made even more enjoyable by a Greek salad, a chunk of Italian bread and a half bottle of Burgundy. It's a beautiful spot, well off the beaten path on unmarked primitive roads, not shown on many maps, not unknown but perhaps not known well or visited often. Perhaps I've been lucky. In my experience, except for a few hardy bicyclists tough enough to do these sections of Kokopelli's Trail, few people wander more than about 10 miles from the Dewey Bridge. |
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Verle Nelson — Cedaredge, Colorado
Dolores River Overlook, primitive camp.
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Dolores River Overlook, afternoon picture. |
Camp site at Dolores River Overlook. |
Cottonwood Canyon, afternoon picture.
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Dolores River canyon, evening light. |
Cottonwood Canyon, evening light. |
Cottonwood Canyon, late evening light. |
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Highlights:
Strange, inexplicable happening:
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