Category: People

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Grandaddy Basin

Grandaddy Basin: Oft Have We by Alfred Ralph Robbins Courtesy & © Shannon Rhodes, Photographer
Oft Have We
by Alfred Ralph Robbins
Courtesy & © Shannon Rhodes, Photographer

Oft have we, my friends and I,
Left cares of home, and work day woes
To find a haven, there cast a fly;
And where we’ll camp–God only knows.

Oft have we hiked the trail uphill
To see it pass, and again return–
Walked mile on mile, to get the thrill
Of a meadow lake and a creel filled.

Oft round the lake we’ve cast and fussed
And wished it something we might shun;
But something deep inside of us
Just holds us fast till day is done.

Breathtaking Beauty by Alfred Ralph Robbins Courtesy & © Shannon Rhodes, Photographer
Breathtaking Beauty by Alfred Ralph Robbins
Courtesy & © Shannon Rhodes, Photographer
Utahn Alfred Ralph Robbins loved exploring the Grandaddy Basin in northeastern Utah’s High Uintas with a group he called The High Country Boys. He compiled his labeled-and-dated sketches of camp and lake adventures among a sprinkling of black-and-white photographs in a scrapbook spanning the 1920s through the 1960s. They were casting at Governor Lake in 1927 and resting at Pine Island Lake in 1952 with 125 trout strung between the trees. I know they fished Pinto Lake, Trial Lake, Betsy Lake, and just about every lake in the area for 40 years. I know they, outfitted by Defa’s Dude Ranch, even stopped “on top of the world” on their way to Hatchery Lake with Alvis Newton Simpson, Robbins’s son-in-law and my grandfather, because he captured and preserved it.

Alfred Ralph Robbins and Grandson Jerry Newton Simpson 1947 Utah Courtesy & © Shannon Rhodes, Photographer
Alfred Ralph Robbins and Grandson Jerry Newton Simpson 1947 Utah
Courtesy & © Shannon Rhodes, Photographer
As my father handed down copies of this family fishing scrapbook to his grandchildren, my sons and daughters, after what they called a Fishing-with-Grandpa Simpson Saturday, he included a cover photograph of his Grandaddy Robbins, in his fishing waders, holding five-year-old grandson’s hand. My father added, “I only made one horse pack trip to Grandaddy Basin with Grandpa Robbins, but it was a very eventful week. It stormed one day and we could hear the rocks tumbling down the mountain when the lightning would strike and dislodge them. Another day there was a mayfly hatch as we were fishing one of the lakes. When that happened, the fish would bite on anything that hit the water. The mosquitoes just about ate us alive, and repellant didn’t help much. We saw some fish about three feet long near the rocks on shore, but we couldn’t get them to bite. We caught plenty of other fish and ate fish for supper most days that week.”

Do you have similar memories in the wild with your grandparents recorded somehow? Turning to one of my favorite books, “Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place,” I read again how Terry Tempest Williams described the memories with her grandmother among avocets, ibises, and western grebes during their outings in Utah’s Great Salt Lake wetlands. Grandmother Mimi shared her birding fascination with her granddaughter Terry along the burrowing owl mounds of the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. Williams wrote, “It was in 1960, the same year she gave me my Peterson’s Field Guide to Western Birds. I know this because I dated their picture. We have come back every year since to pay our respects.”

I’m not a grandmother yet, but I will one day make a trek over Hades Pass again, gaze at the Grandaddy Basin below, and capture nature’s poetry with pen, camera lens, and little hiker hands in mine. Bloggers have technologies today to share instantly with me and the rest of the world their adventures in this Grandaddy Wilderness region. Documenting autobiographical history has evolved from dusty diaries and scrapbooks with black-and-white photographs to today’s digital image- and video-filled blogs in exciting ways that can include the places in Utah you love with the generations you love. Consider it your contribution to history.

Grandaddy Ohs and Ahs by Alfred Ralph Robbins Courtesy & © Shannon Rhodes, Photographer
Grandaddy Ohs and Ahs
by Alfred Ralph Robbins
Courtesy & © Shannon Rhodes, Photographer

I would not miss the Oh’s! and Ah’s!
I’ve seen in Doug’s and Noel’s eyes,
When first they saw Grandaddy Lake
From the summit, in the skies.

They are thrilled I know, and so am I.
They show it in their face;
While I just swallow hard and try
To thank God for this place.

I am Grandaddy Basin poet Alfred Ralph Robbins’s great granddaughter Shannon Rhodes, and I’m wild about Utah.

Credits:

Images: Courtesy & Copyright Shannon Rhodes, Photographer
Audio: Courtesy & © Kevin Colver https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/
Text:     Shannon Rhodes, Edith Bowen Laboratory School, Utah State University https://edithbowen.usu.edu/
Additional Reading Links: Shannon Rhodes

Additional Reading:

Williams, Terry Tempest. 1992. Refuge: an unnatural history of family and place. New York: Vintage Books. https://www.amazon.com/Refuge-Unnatural-History-Family-Place/dp/0679740244

Andersen, Cordell M. The Grandaddies. 2015. https://cordellmandersen.blogspot.com/2015/06/photoessay-backpack-1-2015-grandaddy.html

Wasatch Will. Fern Lake: Chasing Friends in Grandaddy Basin. 2018. https://www.wasatchwill.com/2018/06/fern-lake.html

Delay, Megan and Ali Spackman. Hanging with Sean’s Elk Party in the Uinta’s Grandaddy Basin. 2015. https://whereintheworldaremeganandali.wordpress.com/2015/09/05/hanging-with-seans-elk-party-in-the-uintas-grandaddy-basin/

Rhodes, Shannon, Wild About Nature Journaling, Wild About Utah June 22, 2020, https://wildaboututah.org/wild-about-nature-journaling/

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Putting the Pieces Together

Putting the Pieces Together: Reading the World Through the Comb Ridge Ruins Courtesy & © Shannon Rhodes, Photographer
Reading the World Through the Comb Ridge Ruins
Courtesy & © Shannon Rhodes,, Photographer

Fragments EBLS San Juan Expedition 2021 Courtesy & © Stuart Baggaley, Photographer Fragments
EBLS San Juan Expedition 2021
Courtesy & © Stuart Baggaley, Photographer

Cobs and Adobe Courtesy & © Shannon Rhodes,, Photographer Cobs and Adobe
Courtesy & © Shannon Rhodes,, Photographer

In Linda Sue Park’s novel A Single Shard, young Tree-Ear and his wise mentor Crane-man suggest that “…scholars read the great words of the world. But you and I must learn to read the world itself.” My own experiences reading many of Utah’s chapters on plants, animals, and landscapes expanded this year as I explored the Comb Ridge area. I saw my first tadpole in the creek meandering through Arch Canyon and marveled at the corn cobs mixed with handprints in the cliff dwelling adobe walls sprinkled along the red rock. Reading the evidence this land holds of other times and seasons begs me to put pieces together outside in ways I haven’t done before by tracing words on a page.Putting the Pieces Together
My friend Stu Baggaley, a teacher at Edith Bowen Laboratory School, has taken sixth-grade students down the San Juan River every fall for the last five years. On the most recent trip he described to me a serendipitous learning experience as they found themselves on a knoll sprinkled with shards of rock and pottery. “The kids scoured the area,” he said, “picking up as many interesting finds as they could, and we put them on a rock to see the differences. It was amazing to be able to see pottery fragments that were black with white markings, some were striped, some had wavy coil lines, and others were pieces of rock that had been chipped away for tools. We made a collection and took a picture of it.” That photograph speaks volumes to me, but the story gets even better.

Later that evening when they were back at camp, they listened to a podcast from Mesa Verde Voices. “We learned what it means to break pots and why the Ancestral Puebloans did that,” he continued. “One of the reasons was as a farewell ceremony when they were saying goodbye to an area.” Reflecting on their finds on that knoll, they used Lisa Kearsley’s San Juan River field guide to identify what the pottery sherds were. “It was a transformative experience to be able to notice that there were hundreds of years between different pottery sherds, and this could have been a place for many different people to break their pottery and say goodbye and move on. We realized we were walking in the same place as people did a long time ago.”

Saying goodbye and moving on. Many speculate about the why, when, and how these people left as well as the significance of the breaking pot ritual I had never read in my Utah history textbooks. Perhaps, as Tree-Ear decides, “there are some things that could not be molded into words.” How many sherds and shards and clues have I missed? Reading the world is a miraculous skill for learners of all ages who encounter not only words but the wonder of putting together the pieces we find all around if we just look.Putting the Pieces Together

I’m Shannon Rhodes, and I am Wild About Utah.

Credits:

Images: EBLS San Juan River Expedition 2021 Fragments Courtesy & Copyright © Stuart Baggaley, Photographer.
Images: Cob Ridge Ruins & Cob and Adobe, Courtesy & Copyright © Shannon Rhodes, Photographer.
Audio: Courtesy & © Friend Weller, https://upr.org/
Text:     Shannon Rhodes, Edith Bowen Laboratory School, Utah State University https://edithbowen.usu.edu/
Additional Reading Links: Courtesy Shannon Rhodes

Additional Reading:

Wild About Utah Posts by Shannon Rhodes https://wildaboututah.org/author/shannon-rhodes/

Canyon Country Discovery Center. https://www.ccdiscovery.org/

Edith Bowen Laboratory School San Juan River trip. https://edithbowen.usu.edu/students-parents/4corners

Hueston, J. What Pottery Can Teach Us About Ancient Pueblo Cultures. Real Archaeology: ARCH 100 Searches for the Truth. Vassar College. 2017. https://pages.vassar.edu/realarchaeology/2017/09/17/what-pottery-can-teach-us-about-ancient-pueblo-cultures/

Kearsley, Lisa. San Juan River Guide: Montezuma Creek to Clay Hills Crossing. Shiva Press. 2017 (third edition). https://shivapress.com

McPherson, Robert S. A History of San Juan County: In the Palm of Time. 1995. Utah Centennial County History, Utah State Historical Society. https://issuu.com/utah10/docs/sanjuancountyhistory

Mesa Verde Voices. https://www.mesaverdevoices.org/ and https://www.nps.gov/meve/learn/news/17-20_mesaverdevoices.htm

Park, Linda Sue. A Single Shard. 2001. Clarion Books. https://lindasuepark.com/books/books-novels/single-shard/

Toll, J. Wolcott. Making and Breaking Pottery in the Chaco World. American Antiquity, Vol. 66, No. 1 (Jan., 2001), pp. 56-78. Cambridge University Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2694318?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents



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To Be a Dog in the Sun

To be a Dog in the Sun Courtesy and Copyright Katarzyna Bilicka, Photographer
To be a Dog in the Sun
Courtesy and Copyright Katarzyna Bilicka, Photographer
Every winter comes with its ups and downs, and the downs are not always on the slopes. Sometimes we catch a bug or a nip. Sometimes we get those winter blues. Sometimes it’s even not safe for us to be outside and take a deep breath. Those are my most down days I feel: when you look out your window in the morning and see… thickness. Those are the days where we must hunker down indoors, though we long for the out of.

What I tend to do on these days in order to build that down into an up is lean in. I’ll do chores, bake something, stew something up, and make the most of it. If I must be indoors, then by god I shall be indoors. I keep myself busy so that I am still doing something. But what does one do when it’s been days or over a week of staring out that window at the thickness? What does one do when the house is clean, more bread is imprudent, and the stews all begin to form a beige film on your palette? What do you do when making the most of it becomes completed?

Now, I’m sure for every person there are different strategies for these issues. Maybe some folks don’t ever run out of steam. For them, that must be lovely. For the rest of us, though, Plan B is truly where creativity can shine, can it not? For where does imagination come from when our habits can no longer be relied upon and we must remember a bit of play?

I have found that my Plan Bs on those lingering thick sky days are a countermeasure to my Plan A, naturally. What I have discovered, from peering about my home, is that when the air is so bad outdoors and there is no more work to be done, the next best thing you can do is be a dog in the sun.

Me and my partner have three dogs, and from them we get so much. Endless fur on our clothes, large vet bills when they chase porcupines, barrels of love, and life lessons aplenty. When the air is too poor out, even for our dogs who typically love running and wrestling about in the yard and on hikes, they all do one thing which for its naturalness makes incredible sense. What they do is they find any ray of sunshine which peers into our home, even if dim and gray, lie squarely within its frame, and sleep like they’re storing fat for spring. What this means to Plan B can be straightforward. Have I ever plopped myself on the carpet alongside the pack and also napped in the light which happens to peer through the smog? Absolutely. It’s delightful. I highly recommend it. It’s warm, and soft, and the gentle snores from all make it an especially delightful respite. But what this also means to me is to be cozy in the light. Natural when possible, lamplit when not.

In the day I’ll put on the kettle, make some tea, and do any work I must in the sun with the aroma of spring leaves seeping into my nostrils and pores. When the sun is poor and my work is through, perhaps I’ll sit under a good lamp, maybe even stoke a fire, I’ll have a wee dram of uisce beatha fresh from aged shores and pull up a good book. I’ll read about a land where the air is clean but the company kept not even fiction can muster better, for that is another perk of having dogs: the good ones are good company, and those that aren’t are not themselves truly to blame, and therefore are good still the same.

So, when you find yourself noticing that the air once more is beginning to yellow, which makes your blues turn to gray, do what you can to keep your mind at ease while giving your lungs not their daily dose of PM2.5 and 10. And, if you find yourself like I often do after these long winter stretches, of having a cost benefit analysis of mind or lungs, remember that there can be a Plan B. Remember, that you can also be a dog in the sun. Find a book, have a slow down, drink something hot, warm, or neat, and gather yourself to the sun. Find your square of white light on the carpet, and give it a lie. Soak it up, feel the warmth, and remember that even on those days where to be in the wilds of Utah would do more harm than good, good still always may visit you from the wilds themselves.

I’m Patrick Kelly, and I’m Wild About Utah.
 
Credits:
Images: Courtesy and Copyright Katarzyna Bilicka, Photographer
Audio: Courtesy & © Shalayne Smith-Needham AND J. Chase and K.W. Baldwin. https://www.upr.org/
Text:    Patrick Kelly, Director of Education, Stokes Nature Center, https://www.logannature.org
Included Links: Patrick Kelly & Lyle Bingham, Webmaster, WildAboutUtah.org

Additional Reading

Wild About Utah, Posts by Patrick Kelly

Stokes Nature Center in Logan Canyon, https://www.logannature.org/



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Vinegar Honeydew

Vinegar Honeydew: Cucumber Pickles Courtesy Pixabay, CongerDesign, Photographer
Cucumber Pickles
Courtesy Pixabay, CongerDesign, Photographer
Winter is the season of withholdings come free and taboos undone. Those things we tell ourselves which are not for the warm months come to roost, and our allowances to ourselves grow as the season’s light shrinks.

Winter is when we get to have a sit by the fire and exhale from our work like young exhausted parents, listening to the world’s sleep because of our good labor done. It’s when we can crack open our stores and taste the results of our year on this earth from the gardens and fields; the flavors of hope without fear of waste. Vinegar truly is the honeydew of the long nights.

It’s also when we can have freedom in the snow. The snow is that sweeping medium which allows us to climb mountains and then descend at speeds which in any other season would be a cause for concern, even if moderate.

Each mode of winter travel has its partakers and dissuaders, though none is surely the best for all. Cross country, sitski, telemark, downhill, snowbike, snowskate, snowboard, sled, tube, and contractor bag all each have their place for us to slide at speeds too great to pass up. Some have edges for control, some have fewer for fun, yet all allow for wind to blow through your hair and to dance with gravity, more apparent than ever in the cold.

Winter also gives us stories not available elsewhen. Many skilled naturalists have given many good lessons to me on how to read the snows over the years, yet not one lecture can compare to what happens when you go out by yourself and see what the world itself has to say. I’ve spent good hours finding a good track and following it, whether it’s a hare to its burrow, deer to the nearest alfalfa field, or my eyes wandering skywards to see whose wings caught the vole which once did scurry all a tither. The words though melt in the sun, and so the snow is the rarest of books. Perhaps it is also the most precious. Stories carved in stone seem mortibund to those on paper, and so those tattooed upon tree pulp seem to the cuneiform in the nivian ether.

So this winter, do not forget to enjoy the allowances you’ve worked all year: warming your bones by the fire; reading the precious snows; sliding down hills; and vinegar honeydew from your stores.

I’m Patrick Kelly, and I’m Wild About Utah.
 
Credits:
Images: Courtesy Pixabay, CongerDesign, Photographer https://pixabay.com/photos/cucumbers-pickle-jar-preserves-886036/
Audio: Courtesy & © J. Chase and K.W. Baldwin. https://upr.org
Text:    Patrick Kelly, Director of Education, Stokes Nature Center, https://www.logannature.org
Included Links: Patrick Kelly & Lyle Bingham, Webmaster, WildAboutUtah.org

Additional Reading

Wild About Utah, Posts by Patrick Kelly

Stokes Nature Center in Logan Canyon, https://www.logannature.org/

Strand, Holly, Snowshoe Hare, Wild About Utah, February 18, 2010, https://wildaboututah.org/snowshoe-hare/

Larese-Casanova, Mark, The Shape of Wildlife in Winter Wild About Utah, January 26, 2012, https://wildaboututah.org/the-shape-of-wildlife-in-winter/

Larese-Casanova, Mark, Utah’s Rich Skiing History Wild About Utah, January 23, 2014, https://wildaboututah.org/utahs-rich-skiing-history/

Strand, Holly, A Utah Skier’s Snow Lexicon Wild About Utah, January 29, 2009, https://wildaboututah.org/a-utah-skiers-snow-lexicon/

Nummer, Brian, Getting Crisp Home Pickled Vegetables, Extension, Utah State University, https://extension.usu.edu/preserve-the-harvest/research/getting-crisp-home-pickled-vegetables

Food Safety & Preservation, Extension, Utah State University, https://extension.usu.edu/saltlake/home-family-food/food-safety-preservation