A short(ish) day
July 25, 2016

A day to take it a little easier: start later, I think, and have a short day (laughing hysterically).  If there just weren't quite such an interesting world out there, that would work.  Such is not the case, though; there is a whole passel of fascinating places, people, animals, rivers, birds, rocks, mountains - well, a bunch of stuff to enjoy, no time to waste.

A place of rare energy . . .

Rainbow Park and Island Park - those nebulously named end-of-the-road places were our destination for the day.  As often happens, the journey trumped the destination.

On our way out there driving along one of the dusty roads that Utah is so good at, the bleak monotony of golden grassy hillsides was relieved in one drainage by fresh green cane topped by feathery seed heads.  At the lower end of that riparian seep, we halted for a climb up a steep incline to the base of a cliff.  Sheer rock walls towered far above us as we picked our way around boulders that had fallen onto our narrow precarious path.

A series of petroglyph panels there were very different from any we have seen in the area.  They were limited in number, mostly very clearly devised, and almost all had a common theme, something we have not noticed in other sites.  Almost all the figures are holding an object that we could not readily identify: a triangle shaped object with a downward pointing straight line at the bottom.

This gives an idea of the size of the large figure.  It is an impressive piece with a powerful energy that conveyed to me a sense of balance, serenity and timelessness. 

This last piece in the panel was faint and doesn't show well in the photo; however, I included it because I want to explain about it.  It is unique in that both feet of the figure are pointed in the same direction as well as the head.  It appears to be a walking figure carrying a burden basket on its back, and gives the impression that it indicates the direction in which the people departed.  It is the final piece and located at the end of the cliff face.

This is why we were so warm climbing up around that south facing rock cliff in the middle of the day.  Definitely our hottest temp of the trip.

Island Park . . .

We were awed by the views of the Green River at the Island Park overlook and down at the river, too.  Its color had turned mud brown, undoubtedly because of rainfall upstream.

Rafters were enjoying a leisurely float.

There were lots of brightly colored mountain bluebirds down at water's edge.

Ruple Ranch . . .

The Island Park region is now included in the Dinosaur National Monument, but was much earlier homesteaded by Hank and May Ruple.  In 1882, they ran cattle there and it was later a sheep ranch held by the Ruple family until 1945.

Island Park was named by the John Wesley Powell expedition in 1869. 

In 1825, William Ashley, a trader on a scouting trip for the first mountain man rendezvous, traveled down the Green and hunted buffalo and elk in this same area.

Our journey took us down from the overlook to the plateau where the ranch headquarters was located above the river. 

I was taken by the sod-roofed cabin and wanted to take additional photos of it and the nearby corrals; however, biting insects were voraciously imbibing of our life blood.  Between them and the overgrown prickly vegetation, our stop at the ranch was disappointingly brief indeed. 

The sod-roofed cabin is shaded by a Fremont cottonwood tree that is touted to be the oldest of its species in Utah.