FAREWELL TO THE GREATEST EARTH ON SHOW

April – Mat, 2019

While walking around the small town downtown of Kanab, Utah we couldn’t help but notice that there was a plaque, about every 10 steps, recognizing the Hollywood stars that had come to town to work on western movies or a TV show.  In its day the Parry Hotel was the local home to all the stars, whose pictures line the walls of the old hotel and playhouse ’round back.

If a western movie was made during the early years of Hollywood, it probably was filmed near Kanab.  Up until 2001 TV shows and movies filmed here included Gunsmoke, The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Lone Ranger, Death Valley Days, The Six Million Dollar Man, Have Gun Will Travel, The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams, Lassie, Wagon Train, How The West Was Won, F Troop, The Misfits, Sargent’s 3, The Desperados, Mackenna’s Gold, The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again, Windwalker, Beastmaster II, The Flintstones, Point Break, Broken Arrow, and Planet of the Apes.  Since 2001 things have slowed down dramatically.

We toured the Little Hollywood Movie Set Museum. There’s no charge to wander about the movie/tv set, but you do have to walk through a gift shop and out the back door…the set is outside. The reconstruction of a small western town is pretty rundown and in need of some attention, but on each building there is posted a list of the movie/tv show, the year and stars that were involved in the filming.

Moqi Cave is a museum housing Native American Artifacts, dinosaur tracks, fluorescent minerals, rocks and fossils.

The docent is the granddaughter of the founder, Garth Chamberlain. Garth had been a professional football player for the Pittsburgh Steelers in the mid-late 1940s.  He grew up in Salt Lake City and attended BYU in Provo.  When asked by a friend to come back to where he grew up and play semi-pro football, he didn’t have to be asked twice.

Garth and his wife Laura purchased the cave in 1951, and they turned it into Southern Utah’s first dance hall and bar.  During the week, one could grab a bite to eat and something cool to drink at their fully functional bar, and a live band would come play on Friday and Saturday nights. The movie and TV stars in town became regulars.

A museum was always in their sights. The exhibits on display are Garth’s personal findings after years of studies and collecting.  Thein collection includes more than 1,000 arrowheads, ceremonial points, jugs, pots, bowls and working tools from the Puebloan Era. There is a sizeable collection of dinosaur tracks and fossils, most of which were found in the surrounding area. Their fluorescent mineral displays is one of the largest in the U.S.  We felt it was worth the $5 admission to view one man’s marvelous collection, but more so for the stories Garth’s granddaughter would share if asked.

Within shouting distance from downtown Kanab there were other marvelous adventures waiting for us.

Pipe Spring National Monument – Our Paiute docent told us that there were 3 stories for us to learn during our visit to Pipe Spring National Monument:  the importance of water in the desert, the history of the Kaibab Band of the Paiute Nation, and the impact of the Mormon settlement that stands today as an artifact of that era.

Water rules in the desert, and settling here was natural – this place has water.  As far as the eye could see the grasslands were as tall as a horse’s chest, crops and game were plentiful.  The ancestors of the Kaibab Band of the Paiute Nation are the Puebloan Peoples.  (Sound familiar?  The Puebloan Peoples are also known as the Hohokam or Anasazi…we’ve encountered them as Native Americans indigenous to the Western US in many communities we’ve visited.)  The Paiutes thrived, becoming experts at hunting, growing crops, pottery and basket weaving.  Spanish explorers and Catholic missionaries had visited the area from the early 1500s, and they lived in peace with the Paiutes.  The Mormons came to the area in 1858, and they built the “fort” that stands to this day.  Their job on behalf of the Church was to maintain a dairy herd to supply butter, cheese (made on premises), and cattle for surrounding settlements.  They overgrazed the grasslands and enslaved the Paiutes to their task.  By the time they abandoned the “fort” in 1895 the grasslands, with the aid of a sustained drought, had been decimated, and the number of Paiutes reduced from 1,200 to under 400.

Johnson Canyon –  10 miles east of Kanab a turn north onto Johnson Canyon Road took us along a 16-mile driving tour past the Gunsmoke TV Set, a lion’s head rock formation, the eagle gate arch, Indian writing, Cowboy glyphs, a Pioneer billboard, and a road sign for Grand Staircase – Escalante.

 

 

 

Belly of the Dragon – 16 miles north of Kanab, a turn west brought us onto a dirt road for just a short distance.  After parking our car, a short walk and then a climb down some concrete pilings we were able to walk through a carved tunnel (Belly of the Dragon) that goes under the Highway.  Once through the tunnel we were able to walk a mile or so along the wash.

 

Sand Caves – Drive 5 miles north of Kanab, park on the side of the Highway, and plan on a half-mile round trip hike that begins and ends with a trip up and down some severe slickrock until you’re on the same level as the caves.  Originally dug as part of a mining venture they were quickly abandoned, and they have become a challenging hike with a wonderful view through the remaining eyes of the caves.

Dinosaur Tracks – Drive 3 miles north of Kanab and park near the porta potty at the back of the Port of Entry parking lot, and then walk through the sage brush until you see an old dirt trail and head east looking for an opening in the rocks that will take you up to the next level.  Look for cairns along the way.  Follow the faint trail to the right and along the ledge to the top of the butte.

Catstair/Detriot Rip-Rap – 39 miles east of Kanab there is a break in the guardrail on the southside of the road.  Carefully turn in and park at the end of the road.  The trailhead starts off down a short hill.  We turned “downstream” in the wash, walked a short while and then the canyon began to narrow.  Wow – 2 nice neat stacks of old crushed cars that have been wired together and placed against the sandy hillside.  Why?  Some think it’s to stop the erosion of the hillside…we thought it was someone’s crazy idea.  Atlas Obscura strikes again!

We had to go a little further in the canyon, and we encountered some pretty cool “slot canyon” sandstone formations.

Dark Ranger Telescope Tour – Bryce Canyon is an official International Dark Sky Place (as are all of Utah’s 5 National Parks), and we hoped that the Rangers would be offering a dark sky lecture similar to what we had experienced in Yosemite some years ago.  Unfortunately Ranger-led dark sky programs would not begin until after we had left the area, but an independent company run by some folks (both professional and amateur astronomers) out of the University of Utah had set up a dark sky viewing area in the shadow of Bryce Canyon.  There was a group of about 12 of us, and after a brief discussion and lecture about “the sky” we were able take turns gazing through the eyepiece of each of the 3 telescopes, and the 3 young men guiding our evening would periodically change the vector on their scope so we could observe different parts of the sky.  What a terrific opportunity to see some incredible sights in the sky, ask a million questions about the sky, stars, planets, black holes, dark matter and dark energy, and just wonder at the vastness of our universe.  The temperature fell into the lower 30s as the sky got darker, but our guides kept things going until we “cried uncle.”

Mount Carmel, Utah – Just a quick shout out for the Thunderbird Restaurant, home of “Ho Made Pies.”  Notable because this motel/restaurant/gas station/9-hole golf course started life as a gas station.  The owner’s wife would give the truckers a piece of pie with their fill-up.  She was told her pies were so good that she ought to start a restaurant.  The neon sign did not have room to spell out homemade, and the legend of “Ho Made Pies” became history!

Farewell to The Greatest Earth on Show – Trying to describe the landscape in Southwest Utah and Northwest Arizona is nearly impossible. The diversity of shapes, configurations and breathtaking bluffs, unconceivable colors, mesas, plateaus and monolithic edifices are incredulous. There is nothing in our traveling experience to date that compares to what we witnessed here.  Over time these giant limestone and clay structures have been altered by rain, wind and snow, daily erosion, and the movement of tectonic plates that has resulted in an incredibly beautiful landscape.  Millions of years of geology stare us right in the face!  It’s a geologist’s library – a wealth of geologic history catalogued over time by the stacks and stacks of millions of years of the results of repeated deposition, uplifts, drainage, and erosion.  The infinite number of layers of rock often resemble fine flaky pastry, precise and defined; colorful and uniform. Some of these grand structures have collapsed in places; others are just huge mounds of swirling color.  The telltale evidence of the seas that once covered this entire part of the continent are evident everywhere.  Tall and gangly spires and hoodoos look like chess pieces or Terracotta Warriors – powerful guardians standing watch over this unimaginable landscape. We thought we would get jaded or tired of seeing the same old places, day after day. No way! With the ever-changing and unpredictable weather patterns in Utah, we were treated to different perspectives daily.

It’s hard for us to imagine anywhere else that will be as special to us as this part of the Country.  But finding that out is what our adventure is all about, isn’t it?

Barbara and Brian