Clockwise: The Bicentennial Highway snakes through spec- tacular red rock vistas, the bare footprint of a “FiveFinger” shoe, the orchard and the antique farm wagon let us know we’re close to the Community of Fruita
the various red rock formations go by, we were reminded that their shapes can be a lot like psychologists’ ink blots—often they resemble something. We passed a pair of flat-topped mesas that Native Americans called “Bears Ears” and then another mam- moth red rock configuration that the early Mormons dubbed “Jacob’s Chair.” Even though no one keeps cheese in a box any more, we instantly recognized the forma- tion called “Cheese Box” when it appeared ahead of us. No sooner did these fanciful forma- tions fade into the distance behind us than the Bicentennial Highway began a series of marvelous turns and descent as it carried us toward Glen Canyon Dam. This stunning portion of the road was so exhilarating that I could barely sit still in my seat. Much to Mark’s surprise, at one point I practically climbed out the truck window so I could get photos of the magical landscape around us, especially as we approached the Hite Crossing Bridge at the confluence of the Colorado and the Dirty Devil rivers.
There is a fabulous viewing area where visitors can get a bird’s eye view of the waterways and valleys from several dif- ferent vantage points, and we wandered around these viewpoints for quite some time, reading the plaques that described the geology and history of the area. Glen Canyon Dam was built in the 1960s, and when it blocked the Colorado River to form Lake Powell, the water not only rose above ancient Native American settlements containing artifacts, petroglyphs, and precious clues to the ancient human history of this raw land, but it drowned the more recent mining town of Hite City. After World War II, uranium was eagerly mined in this area, and the folks who created the subsequent boom town were said to have “uranium on the cranium.” Naturally, a bust eventually followed, and the remains of Hite City weren’t considered worthy of preserving in the 1960s com- pared to the power, water, and flood control that the new Lake Powell would provide to the region.
Once we left Glen Canyon in our wake, all these fabulous images and his- tory gave us much to ponder and chat about as the sights along the Bicentennial Highway grew more ordinary and we settled back into routine driving. In the tiny community of Hanksville, we turned left onto SR-24 to continue our journey west on the Capitol Reef Scenic Byway. In no time we were craning our necks once again as exotic rock formations in shades of grey and maroon began to loom up out of the landscape around us. This portion of the Capitol Reef Scenic Byway is characterized by pale, tower- ing cliffs, and swirling rock patterns that look like the gods dipped their fingers in finger paint and smeared the colors on the rounded domes. After a while, these smooth, colorful surfaces gave way to bold, jagged red rock cliffs with flanks resembling cathedral buttresses. We had arrived at Capitol Reef National Park, a long skinny park, about 5 miles wide by 50 miles long, that runs on a north-south axis along a huge buckle in the earth’s
SUMMER 2015 COAST TO COAST 13
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