This issue features Moab and Arches and a ways upstream and down the Colorado River. Almost all of them are from the early 1990s thanks to Paul, but a few of the Arches images date back to the late 1970s and early 1980s via those Arches pot patrols.
These photographs are especially notable, because they show just how much the town and the river have changed over the last few decades. So strap yourself in and take a flight…Swanstrom is a damn good pilot…
I was a newly initiated Boy Scout, officially a Tenderfoot, and had traveled with Troop 246 to a summer Boy Scout camp at Rough River, Kentucky. We had planned a canoe trip for the next day, but early that afternoon, we set up camp in an open field. As I sat in the tall grass chatting with my pals, I suddenly felt an uncomfortable itch emanating from the most sensitive part of the male anatomy. I said nothing at first, and was not about to share my problem with my buddies. Besides, I was a Boy Scout. It was still okay to be stoic, to admire stoicism, and endure discomfort bravely, and quietly, like Gary Cooper or Jimmy Stewart might do. I said nothing…
For decades, the iconic routed wooden signs, in national parks across America, were a familiar sight to tourists. They were works of art…
But leave it to the government to find one. Someone in the Department of Transportation, his/her identity lost to history, decided to take a look at the park signs and saw red flags everywhere…
“These signs! These signs are NOT in compliance with federal highway safety standards!!!”
On December 11, 1998, twenty-five years ago today, my friend Herb Ringer passed away in Fallon, Nevada. He was 85 years old. His health had been failing for a few years. In 1994, Herb was forced to give up driving — the greatest joy of his life — when he was diagnosed with a rapidly deteriorating case of macular degeneration. I had met up with him that summer at a high mountain lake above Crested Butte, Colorado. Earlier that week, an optometrist in Salida had diagnosed his condition and warned Herb that he needed to head home to Fallon immediately. Herb took the news stoically, maybe better than I did, and he left for Fallon the next day.
…this story is personal; it’s more about our friendship than his special artistic talents, though both are forever intertwined. I’d like to tell you more about Herb Ringer, the good-hearted, decent man and loyal friend that he became to me. We were connected in a way that I have rarely experienced. Herb once said, “You’re the son I never had.” The feeling was mutual.
According to the NARA site, “In 1972 David Hiser was one of several photographers chosen by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to document locations in the United States as part of the DOCUMERICA Project. Over 460 of Hiser’s photos can now be found in the National Archives Catalog.” Hiser moved to Aspen, Colorado when he was 25 years old, and would enjoy a successful career as a photographer, including 66 contributions to National Geographic.
Here is a selection from those images that feature Moab, Utah and the Canyon Country of southeast Utah. I arrived in Moab just months after Hiser completed his photo work and have added my own commentary to his photos…JS
Sometime in late September or early October of 1844, Utes attacked Robidoux’s Fort Uintah trading post… One contemporary story stated that at the time of the attack, the fort had very few of its usual inhabitants present, many having already departed because of the increasing tensions with the neighboring Uinta-ats. Denis Julien seems to have been one of these.
Far to the south, in the Devils Garden section of present-day Arches National Park, is the last known, chronologically, Julien inscription. It has been scratched into the dark, desert-varnished side of a tall sandstone fin and reads, “Denis Julien 9 6 me 1844.” The “6 me ” is the French equivalent of 6 th in English, sixth in French being sixième. The preceding numeral “9” is representative of the ninth month, September…
Delicate Arch…the name sounds familiar. In its online literature the National Park Service at Arches National Park calls Delicate Arch “the best known arch in the world.” In years past, the State of Utah considered the arch “so iconic” that it stamped the arch’s image on all state license plates. Visitation to Delicate Arch has recently become such an event that it is virtually impossible to experience the arch alone, or even with a small group of fellow tourists…
…As far back as the late 19th Century, ranchers and cowboys and maybe a few sheepherders had come across the arch. None of them were impressed; tourism was still an industry that had only occurred to a few. Even the uniqueness of this sandstone span failed to attract many visitors.
John Wesley Wolfe moved West from Ohio for health reasons. His doctor thought the desert air might extend his life. He and his son Fred found their way to Southeast Utah, to the Salt Wash area below the arch and established a ranch there in 1898. He built a primitive cabin and eked out a living. When his daughter Flora Stanley and her husband Ed visited him in 1907, she was appalled at the living conditions and made him build a new cabin. At some point he mentioned the arch to his daughter who made the two mile trek and is credited with the first known photo of what was then called “The School Marm’s Bloomers.” According to early Park Service reports, the arch sported a variety of nicknames, from “Pants Crotch,” to “Mary’s Bloomers, to the less colorful “Salt Wash Arch.” It most likely depended on which name the various ranchers preferred.
Most of us are afraid to pick up hitchhikers these days, and many potential hitchhikers are afraid to thumb for a ride. I don’t think I’d take the risk these days, after a few close calls many years ago. You never know if the stranger who’s offering you a ride is just a nice guy trying to be a Good Samaritan, or if he wants to take you out to some remote corner of the desert and dismember you, and have your liver for lunch. Scary times indeed.
But I’ve known a few of them. Traveling by thumb was their way of life. And many of them loved it. I even gave it a try myself on a very bizarre cross-country, mid-winter hitchhike with my dog Muckluk—from Los Angeles to Louisville, Kentucky (part 2 of this hitchhiking story will include that little misadventure). That was so many years and decades ago.
Whenever I picked up a hitchhiker, I’d ask him about the risks involved in thumbing, and just dealing with the extreme weather conditions. I remember one old fellow said to me, “It may be too cold or too hot, and scary as hell sometimes, but how much did you spend on gas today?” He had a point.
“The kids, like all kids, loved the dog and I just want to say this, right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we’re going to keep the dog.” –Richard M. Nixon Many years ago, a decade after…
While sheer numbers of tourists can overwhelm the most patient of park rangers, even I would acknowledge that among those masses could be found some of the best people on the planet. I haven’t worn a badge and a smoky…