Hello Everyone,
It’s been a cold week out here in southern Utah and the snow which came down on Thursday and Friday has decided to stick around for a while. Despite the cold and wind, the skies have been sunny most of the week and it’s really hard to complain about that. I hung around St. George, avoiding the worst of the snow and then made my way out to Kanab for the Balloons and Tunes Festival. From there I cruised out to Coral Pink Sands State Park and then north to the cute little historic town of Panguitch, where I am writing this post from today. I know it’s only Monday, but I don’t think there’s going to be much opportunity to jump on the internet for the next few days so I thought I would just finish this up today and then next week will just pick up where I leave off.
When I left you last week, I was in the library in St. George. After I finished up with my newsletter for the week, I headed up the road to the old opera house to catch a local performance of the musical Kiss Me Kate. I love the fact that St. George is supporting local theater and even though there were probably only 30 people there on a Wednesday night, the show did go on. There were some parts of this show that are particularly dated, but it was a great performance and all of the actors seemed as though they were really having fun out there. The building itself dates back to the early days of St. George, having been built in 1864 as a wine cellar. It was sold in the 1870s and became a social hall and performance center, and later an opera house in 1886. During the Great Depression the building was used to process sugar beets and wouldn’t be restored to its earlier function as an opera house until 1988. It’s a cool building and I was happy to see the inside of it and I also really enjoyed the performance.
I had a bunch of errands and phone calls to take care of on Thursday morning, so I didn’t leave St. George until early afternoon, but when I did I headed north to the old ghost town of Silver Reef. The museum there is housed in the old Wells Fargo Office/General Store which is really the only building that’s still intact in Silver Reef. Upon entering, I met John who was one of the docents there and John gave me an excellent rundown on what had gone down in the area starting in the 1860s. Silver was discovered there in 1866 by John Kemple, but he found it in the sandstone which nobody had ever encountered before. It took almost a decade for people to believe that this was even possible and even ore samples sent to the assayers at the Smithsonian called it one of the better hoaxes they had seen. In 1875 a few men came down from Salt Lake and staked some claims and sent out word of their “discovery”. Soon miners were coming from nearby Pioche, Nevada and found mining the sandstone considerably easier than mining hard rock and for the same pay. The company took about $500 million worth of silver out of the area (in today’s dollars) over the next few years. When the global silver price dropped, the managers said they could no longer afford to pay the miners at the same rate and that they would have to take a pay cut. Instead, they packed up and moved on to other mining areas and the mines had to close. They’ve been reopened several times since and even pulled out some uranium in more recent years, but nothing has lasted too long. It wasn’t the most photogenic of ghost towns, but it was really interesting and I’m glad I stopped in.
During the time I was in the museum, it started to snow and by the time I left it was really coming down. I walked around for a little while, but there wasn’t much to see except for a few old foundations as all of the wood had been scavenged for other buildings in other towns. When I left Silver Reef, I headed down the road to Hurricane (pronounced “Her-a-kun”) which got its name when Mormon Apostle Erastus Snow was on his way from Virgin City to St. George and a wind came up and blew the top off of his buggy. He named the hill he was on Hurricane Hill and the name stuck. It was still snowing pretty hard when I got to town, so I tucked into the library for the rest of the day. In the evening I went and got an ice cream at the local Dairy Queen and hung out in a nice warm booth, reading my book for a while before calling it a night.
On Friday morning I ducked into the local history museum for a while to learn more about Hurricane. There were some cool things to see there, but I found the story of the Hurricane Canal to be the most interesting part. The plateau where the town now sits is about 100’ above the Virgin River, and they would need to have access to that water before they could build a town. The solution they came up with was to dig a canal – by hand – to divert the water from further up the canyon. The canal took them 13 YEARS to dig which is just staggering to me, but once it was completed the town became an agricultural center, producing fruit for the entire region. The most famous piece in the museum is a wedding cake from 1907 which apparently was saved for some unknown reason and now is quite old and gross. The lady there agreed it was gross, but also interesting in its way. Leaving the history museum, I went across the street to the other museum in town in the old Bradshaw Hotel. This was the first building completed in Hurricane, so it had served as a community meeting point, a school, a dance hall and eventually as a hotel. It was a cool old building with some typical housewares on display and an extensive doll collection. I struck up a conversation with the lad working there, Theresa, and she was very interesting. She had spent a week in Washington D.C. many years ago when she went to a wedding there, and she remembered every detail as it was quite memorable for her. We probably chatted for about an hour and then I took my leave and headed out of town.
I headed southeast from Hurricane and passed through a bit of northern Arizona known as the Arizona Strip. This strip of land in the north of the state is cut off from the rest of Arizona by Grand Canyon so it is far removed from the government in Phoenix. The main town in that part of the state is Colorado City which is pretty famously populated by fundamentalist Mormons who still practice polygamy (the Mormon Church officially ended polygamy in 1890 and began excommunicating members who took “plural wives” in 1904). Colorado City is a weird little place with some massive homes housing some massive families, but there’s not much to it at the end of the day. I would have loved to have stopped and talked to some people about their lives there, but they’re pretty tight lipped after the publicity they got from Jon Krakauer’s book about Mormon fundamentalism, Under the Banner of Heaven. I drove on to nearby Pipe Springs National Monument which is run by the National Park Service in conjunction with the local Kaibab Paiute Indians. Natural springs are essential in the desert and Pipe Springs has been the lifeblood of the Kaibab Paiute for centuries. When Mormons were sent out by Brigham Young to establish outposts between Salt Lake City and the Pacific coast, Pipe Springs and its natural water source seemed like an excellent choice (this was the same reason the Mormons were the original white settlers of Las Vegas). This obviously created tensions with the Paiutes and many skirmishes led the Mormons to fortify their position. The fort is still there and the site interprets the interactions between the Mormons, the Kaibab Paiutes and the United States Government and I found it all quite interesting.
From there I made my way back into Utah and on up to Kanab, a small city of about 5,000 people which serves as a central jumping-off point to Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce and several other wonderful parks and hikes in the area. I have passed through Kanab a hundred times in my life, but haven’t spent much time there. I was there for the Balloons and Tunes Festival, hoping to get some photos of hot air balloons in the red rock desert. I arrived in town in the afternoon and found a good parking spot for the weekend and then cruised over to the festival grounds. There were the usual fried food vendors and some nice local artisans hawking their wares. I watched two of the bands play on the main stage and then enjoyed the “lantern launch” which released hundreds of candle lanterns floating up into the night sky. By then it was particularly cold as temperatures dropped into the teens and the wind chill didn’t help, so I went for some Mexican food and called it a night.
I was up early on Saturday and headed out to the launch field to watch the hot air balloons take off. Unfortunately the winds were apparently pretty high once they got off the groun, so in the end only one balloon decided to give it a whirl. Sadly, this would be the only balloon to go up all weekend. Temperatures were unusually cold for February in Kanab which made hot air ballooning and open air concerts after dark a difficult sell, but I respected everyone who persevered and tried to keep it all on track. I spent some time that afternoon at the library and then went for an all-you-can-eat pizza lunch buffet for $7 which was probably the highlight of my weekend. I ducked over the border to Arizona for a beer at the Buckskin Tavern which boasts “The Longest Bar in Arizona”. It was a long bar and I had one beer there by the woodstove and then headed back to Utah. The “balloon glow” that was scheduled for the evening was cancelled due to high winds, but they did set up their baskets in the middle of town and light off their burners for a while. This was fun and warmed up the night and was better than nothing. The headlining band for the whole weekend played at 8pm and I bundled up in several layers to go watch them play. The band was Groovonix and their music was the soundtrack of an early 1980s movie. It was okay but I respected them for playing on a freezing cold night in front of about two dozen people.
Sunday morning’s launch was also a bust, so I packed up and got out of town. Just north of Kanab is Peekaboo slot canyon (one of at least two in Utah with the same name – this is the less famous one). You can drive out to it if you have a 4 wheel drive truck or dune buggy which I certainly do not. The hike in is about 3.5 miles each way down the same dirt road and is normally loose sand and really hard to walk in, but because of the recent snow it was pretty well packed down so I gave it a go. It wasn’t the most beautiful hike I’ve ever done, but it took me just over an hour each way which made it all worth it to me. I did appreciate that everyone who drove past stopped to ask if I was okay or needed anything. The canyon itself was gorgeous and I really enjoyed it and was glad I went. I had it mostly to myself while I was out there so I could take all the photos that I wanted. The hike back was a little warmer and a little muddier as the sun had had an extra hour or two to muck things up, but wasn’t too bad. From there I headed out to Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park for the night. This was not my favorite state park as it really was just a big sand dune which is mostly used by dune buggies and off roaders. It was pretty, but there were no real hikes to speak of and I’ve seen a lot of sand dunes in my life so I spent my afternoon reading and relaxing. A hot shower was amazing and I did build a campfire which I enjoyed for a few hours before it got too cold to be outside, even with the fire.
Today I made my way out of the park and stopped at the Thunderbird Restaurant in Mt. Carmel Junction for a slice of pie. This roadside restaurant has been in business since 1931 and I have driven by it no fewer than a hundred times. They seem proud of their “ho-made” pies and I was looking forward to finally trying a slice on this trip. I got their signature apple pie with a bourbon butter sauce and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. It was probably the best slice of apple pie I’ve ever had would give my current favorite pie, a strawberry ice box pie from Strawn’s Eat Shop in Shreveport, Louisiana, a run for its money. Happy with my morning pie stop I made my way north on Highway 89 all the way to the little town of Panguitch. Panguitch was settled in 1864 and is the only “real town” in many miles so I stopped in to hit the grocery store and finish up this post for the week here at the library. I enjoyed a wander around the little downtown area and some of the cute little vintage hotels in town.
When I wrap this up, I’ll probably head out to Bryce Canyon for the night. It’s on my way and I have an annual National Parks Pass, so it won’t cost me anything to get in. Bryce is always beautiful and it’s always good to be there even in the cold of winter. It will be snowy, so I probably won’t get a hike in, but it will be nice to be there nonetheless. From Bryce I will head across south-central Utah, hopefully checking out some cool museums and little towns as I go. I will stop for a day or two in Capitol Reef National Park and then continue on to beautiful Goblin Valley State Park. From there I will double back south and head towards southeast Utah to see Natural Bridges National Monument and the town of Blanding. There’s a lot of beautiful scenery between here and there and I’m really looking forward to it. I’m not sure where I’ll be when I write next week, so you’ll just have to check back in and see what I get up to and where I end up. Have a great week out there and thank you, as always, for reading.
-Mike