Their remnants are scattered throughout eastern Utah, one only has to look.
Today I head to explore nine mile canyon, to find the Fremont.
The area is all BLM land ( Bureau of Land Management) and is contracted by gas & mine companies. Fracking drilling rigs are dotted along the rim, but down in the canyon it is only I and the occasional rumbling truck. I set off to explore.
In the solitude of a serene blue sky and surrounded by majestic mountains wearing snow caps, I find ancient rock wall drawings of the Fremont. Lightly touching the images with bare skin, I think I hear flute sounds in the wind. I contemplate the meaning behind the drawings; are they stories of a past people, markings of a place to hunt, celestial communications to the heavens?…
Some things are better left as contemplative mysteries. Finding my way deeper into the canyon, I find a side slot canyon begging me to climb inside. I comply and go deep, crawling up crevasses, through wind carved caves and immense boulders cracked by ice and time.
As the sun sets and the temperatures drop in this open landscape, I pass the the oil and gas rigs and think to myself that man will soon destroy this history, and replace it with our own marking of our civilization.
Maybe in another couple thousand of years, another human will set out on a similar adventure, wondering about remnants left behind by our people.
You so just made my day!
Man I love these trips out you take. That's the same sort of thing I would do; follow a cave or valley just to see where it ends. You posts are some of my favourites on the web.