< more recent | 28-31 October 2020 | older >
31 October 2020: Back to the familiar eastern woodland environments and the very end of tent-camping season as autumn nighttime temperatures dip down around freezing. Some of the trees at this elevation still have their leaves and the fall colors along the river were stunning in the morning. Drove until dark and crossed into Ohio before stopping for the night …
30 October 2020: The sun finally came out today. Took some time in the morning to do a touristic “river cruise” on the Mississippi at the Gateway Arch National Park. Funny mental “east-west” comparison of this man-made metal “Gateway Arch” with the natural rock arches of “Arches” in Moab, and yesterday’s “showcave” versus the canyons and caves of the San Rafael Swell. Back on the road in the afternoon and into Illinois for the last campground of this trip …
29 October 2020: It was still cold and wet out, and not really a day for being outdoors, so decided to make a stop and visit a “showcave” while in Missouri. The touristic attraction is called “The Fantastic Caverns” and boasts itself as the nation’s only Jeep Tour in a Cave. The caverns were beautifully lit and it was surprisingly interesting to hear about the geology and the history (which included being the site of a speakeasy during prohibition). Then it was time to get back on the road heading east across the rest of the state. Stopped for the night in St. Louis on the banks of the Mississippi, the old dividing line defining the boundary of the “western frontier” …
28 October 2020: The snow turned to rain at some point along the way, and though not a nice day for driving, at least it was no longer quite so dangerous. Decided to pick up the historic Route 66 alignments for a while, and meandered from Oklahoma into Kansas before arriving into Missouri along a stretch of the Mother Road we had taken back in 2010 on our original Great American Roadtrip. The grey skies and wet weather gave the route a very different feel …
THIS MONTH:
Making our way back across the U.S.A. and home to New York after more than a month on the road and in the backcountry around Moab camping, hiking and off-roading. Time to start wrapping up the details and begin the long editing process…
COMING UP SOON:
Joining with the crew of Many Hands One Mission for a Thanksgiving Turkey Run to Island Harvest on November 15th to bring donations of non-perishable food items and frozen turkeys for area food banks. USnomads will be donating a Jeep-ful of food and participating in the convoy to the Island Harvest distribution center …
The 5th Annual 2020 Ladies Offroad Challenge started on May 4th. Ladies will participate in a series of challenge tasks that are built to educate and encourage stepping into some unknown territories. The Challenge goes on through October this year with participants striving to “Do the Best They Can” at each of the tasks. Ten Participants from the Challenge will be invited to the very special Top 10 Weekend hosted by Charlene Bower…
Holiday road trip time. Getting ready to load up the Jeep and heading south for warmer climates and fun times on- and off-road (and maybe discovering some new places on the way)…
Looking ahead to a return to Paris as soon as possible to reconnect with friends and some favorite places in the city of light. Timing is still uncertain due to the pandemic, but we hope the trip is back on the calendar for early 2021…
BUCKHORN WASH PICTOGRAPHS
The Buckhorn Wash panel located in a scenic sandstone canyon of the San Rafael Swell is a spectacular example of Barrier Canyon style rock art. The ghostly red figures seem to stand watch over the San Rafael River. The site includes both painted (Pictographs) and pecked (Petroglyph) prehistoric images, but the main panel, over 130-feet long, consists of a series of red pictograph figures pained over 2,000 years ago. The Barrier Canyon people were an archaic hunter-gatherer society that produced a distinctive style of rock art which appears mostly in Utah. The largest concentration of Barrier Canyon style sites are in and around the San Rafael Swell and Canyonlands National Park, but the full range extends as far as western Colorado. The red pigment was created using powdered hematite, and possibly mixed with animal fat, eggs, or some other fluid. For a brush, they may have used fingers or brushes made from animal fur or slender grasses. When painted on freshly exposed sandstone, the stone absorbs the pigments, thus preserving them for thousands of years. No one knows for sure what the images represent or why they were painted. Much speculation centers on shamanistic or religious figures. Typically, the billboard-sized galleries are not found near habitation sites but are often in very visible locations near the mouths or junctions of long canyons. Large elongated anthropomorphic figures predominate both in size and number. According to David Sucec of the BCS Project, five general style features seem to characterize the Barrier Canyon style: 1) Large “gallery-like” rock art sites often from 90 to 300 feet in length, 2) Consistent attention given to aspects of visual form and virtuoso painting techniques, 3) life-size to heroic scale anthropomorphic figures, 4) an unusually large number of variations, variety of form-types, particularly spirit figures, within the image-inventory of the style, and 5) compositions apparently representing friendly associations of animal, bird, snake and plant images with anthropomorphic spirit figures.
ABOUT THE NEEDLES
The Needles forms the southeast corner of Canyonlands National Park and was named for the colorful spires of Cedar Mesa Sandstone that dominate the area. There are hundreds of them poking up from the desert floor. There are also entrenched canyons, natural arches and sheer-walled cliffs in this vast, rugged landscape. About 50 miles of challenging backcountry roads lead to campsites, hiking trailheads, and natural features such as Tower Ruin, Confluence Overlook, Elephant Hill, the Joint Trail, and Chesler Park. One of the most technical four-wheel-drive roads in Utah, Elephant Hill presents drivers and mountain bikers with steep grades, loose rock, stair-step drops, tight turns, and tricky backing. Once over the hill, equally challenging roads lead to various features as well as BLM lands south of the park. Elephant Hill leads to a collection of parallel, vertical-walled valleys formed by rock faulting, known as the Grabens that continue to Beef Basin and the Manti-La Sal National Forest, south of the national park. Within the backcountry area of the Needles centered around Chesler Park there is quite a complex network of interconnecting paths, mostly along canyons and/or across slickrock benches. A reminder from the National Park Service: All of these roads require high-clearance, low range four-wheel-drive vehicles. Inexperienced drivers should not attempt these roads. There is a high risk of vehicle damage, and towing costs usually exceed $1,500.
Nesconset | Paris | Belgrade | Howard | Toledo | Silver Lake | Chesterton | Prairie City | Grand Island | Halsey | Gering | Buford | Hayden | Grand Junction | Moab
MORE NOTES FROM THE ROAD:
22-27 October – Moab
15-21 October – Moab
8-14 October – Moab
1-7 October – Roadtrip West
16-30 September – Roadtrip West
1-15 September – Long Island
16-31 August – Long Island
1-15 August – Summer Roadtrip
22-31 July – Summer Roadtrip
14-21 July – Summer Roadtrip
1-13 July – Long Island
16-30 June – Long Island
1-15 June – Bald Eagle
16-31 May – Central PA
1-15 May – Re-opening Trails
April – Lockdown NY
16-31 March – Lockdown NY
9-15 March – Roadtrip Home
1-8 March – Moab
23-29 February – Vegas to Anza Borrego
15-22 February – Southwest Roadtrip
8-14 February – Southwest Roadtrip
1-7 February – Glamis to Vegas
27-31 January – Yuma to Glamis
15-26 January – Nevada to Arizona
1-14 January – Starting the New Year
24-31 December – Holidays on the Road
16-23 December – Cross-Country Drive
9-15 December – New York
1-8 December – Paris
16-30 November – Paris & Rennes
1-15 November – New York
Archive
EVENTS
LADIES OFFROAD NETWORK NONCON 2020
Recap from the Ladies Offroad Network camping and wheeling event, dubbed the “NonCon” as in “not the convention,” that came together after the official convention was cancelled due to the pandemic… [read]
RE-OPENING
Report from the first trail run with the Off Road Consulting group at Rausch Creek Off Road Park as the post-pandemic phased re-openings begin in Pennsylvania and some of our favorite local trails re-open to the public after the two-month shutdown… [read]
REFLECTIONS
EGYPT: CAIRO REFLECTIONS
A quick overview of impressions from a stop in Cairo during our recent scouting mission in Egypt and Sudan … [read]
SPECIAL REPORT
A look into south-eastern Algeria on the border with Libya and Niger: overlanding with the Tuareg in one of the most remote corners of the Sahara … [read]
