For the third time in the last week to ten days was looking for cone fossil time. I'll just have to call them that until I find the real name. Was going about the same as the last two times and then I remembered coming across a bunch of them years ago and I've been thinking about where it was for three days now. It hit me as we were going through another search with not much in the way of results. This time we found them.
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Even if I find the petrified wood on the Anti-Cline it probably weighs a couple hundred pounds about the limit on collecting petrified wood per person per year. It's about an hour hike out there and I can't carry two hundred pounds for an hour. Maybe there is a way to attach it and lower it down. Teresa, Jax, and I head out there to see if that's the case. It doesn't look good.
Finding your way back from Skinny People on the high route is not easy. Teresa says she is unsure about one place so her, Jax, and I are off to do Land of the Skinny People.
Years ago, ten or so maybe I was driving over to Last Hurrah on a very warm summer day and saw a guy in front of me on a street bike with street tires, wearing black leather with a full shield helmet. Might as well wear a microwave.
I caught up to him in the Jeep and rolled my window down to ask him where he thought he was going. He motioned he couldn't hear me. I motioned to turn the key off so he could hear. I had. Then I ask him again. He motioned he couldn't hear me cause he had his helmet on and was playing music. I motioned to him to take his helmet off. I could see the sweat on his face. Then I ask him again.
He said he wasn't doing very well in the sand. I said you have the wrong bike, the wrong tires, the wrong clothes, the wrong trail and the wrong day. He said he was going back to town but he wasn't. I told him to follow me back to the lodge. When we got there he said he wanted someone to escort him to town. Nicole who Linny and I ride trials was staying here and her son and his friend. They said they'd do it. So they each took an ATV and escorted him to the pavement. He generously paid them a lot though I can't remember how much.
A day or so later he emails me and says he wants to do the White Rim Trail which is about 100 miles of not fun if you don't have the right bike, tires, clothes, and skill level. I declined. Says his name is Ewok.
Teresa drops Jax and I off on Hurrah Pass and then turn around to start hiking down. There's a guy on a motorcycle watching me. He looks familiar. He says "I know you. We met a few years ago." I said "Ewok? You're a doctor in Michigan or Indiana or some place similar." He says "That's right." We talk for awhile. He found a bulletin board about the While Rim Trail and found four guys that wanted to go, changed bikes, and said he still wouldn't have made it if not for the four guys who helped him numerous times. I told him I had to get going before it got too hot for Jax on the hike back. He said maybe he'd stay here next time in town. I said I'd like that and I think I would.
Jax and I catch a ride to the top of Hurrah with Teresa who is on her way to town and we hike back down to Base Camp. There is a tour vehicle there, Big Iron. I always take a picture of the sign but they have beaten us to it.
Years ago I found a real cool piece of petrified wood high up on the Anti-Cline. It's divided into a few pieces but just so neat. The last two or three times I've gone up there I haven't been able to find it. I know of only three people that knows where it is/was. I've lost contact with one and the other one said he hadn't been up there in years. So Jax, Teresa, and I are headed up to find it.
I haven't found any place to move, nor do I really want to. I was hoping to buy Doug's hogan up on the hill but the price went from six to eight hundred thousand and then when the folks across the river bought the former Caveman Ranch of six or eight million, I forget. Then Doug decided he wants $1.8 million and if the place across the river is a comp it might be worth that and I'm out. Still I might find something or things change so better wrap up all the little things I still have to do.
Out of all the fossils out here and there are about a billion years worth the one fossil I think is the coolest, though I don't remember it's name anymore is this one that it like an ice cream cone on top. A few years ago it was best somebody leave early and I noticed her carrying a couple boxed to her vehicle but didn't know all the cone fossils were gone off the outside fossil wall until after she was gone. I've been thinking about going to get some more but never made it.
Collin came back from a hike of Skinny People and thought he might have seen fresh cow tracks in the creek so Teresa, Jax, and I headed out. No luck.
Temps are in the 90s and heat starts to break around 4pm but it's 6pm before you want to venture out. Jax doesn't like the heat.
River is rising an inch or two a day and you can get straight in the river from the boat ramp without carrying or dragging the kayaks through the mud.
