Road Trip # 17---Mexican Hat, Utah, Big Horned Sheep, Ridgway and Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Colorado

Mexican Hat---Sixty feet across and twelve feet thick---Ain't that something?

     To any of you who are keeping score, this was day eleven of our road trip, and we left Page, Arizona, before Ten AM, still heading east.  We crossed back into Utah at Monument Valley, and after a visit, continued east through the desert.  About the only settlement on that road is Mexican Hat, Utah.  Eighty-eight people live there; fifty-two of them are American Indians.

     I have always loved the name “Mexican Hat”.  In this case, it identifies a rock formation which resembles a sleeping Mexican covered with a huge sombrero (sixty feet in diameter and twelve feet thick) and was obviously named before everyone got so all-fired politically correct.  Mexican Hat has a sort of ring to it.   “Spanish Stetson” or “Hispanic Headpiece” just wouldn’t have the same magic.

     We eased into Colorado near the village of Slick Rock.  Wayne and I both have a preference for back roads and we enjoyed a lot of them on this leg of our journey.  We were on a narrow, curvy section of a narrow, curvy highway when we rounded a narrow curve and came face to face with three big-horned Big Horned Sheep.  They were within ten feet of the roadway and either of the three had a trophy size rack. Wayne slammed on the brakes and said,”Get my camera!  Get my camera!” The sheep stared curiously at us for a moment, and then loped up the hill.





      “Get out of the middle of the road,” I shouted.  “You’re gonna get us kilt!”

     “Where’s my camera?  I gotta get a picture!”  Wayne cried.

     “If some dude comes around that curve and runs us over with a cattle truck, you want me to take his picture.  The sheep are gone.”  I answered.  Wayne examined the ridge where the sheep had disappeared and reluctantly started forward.  Our moment had passed.  Big Horned Sheep are shy at best and ones this size are downright anti-social.

     We put Wayne’s camera on the dashboard and continued along little back roads, with fantastic views in every direction.  The snow- covered Rockies were off to the north and east, ahead of us, providing a backdrop for the intricate little valleys spread around us.  Wayne, white knuckled from paying serious attention to the road, said, “Boy, this is quite a drive.  Beautiful country.”

     “You ought to see it from the passenger seat.”  I said.  He was less than overjoyed by that observation.

      We followed similar narrow, curvy two-lane highways almost to Telluride, and then turned left onto the main road into Ridgway, Colorado.  Our friends, Bill and Sybil Hallmark live there and that was our destination for the day.  About a mile before we reached town, we turned left and climbed the mountain to the Hallmark’s home.  The house is perched on the edge of a cliff, about 2500 feet above the town of Ridgway.   At night, the lights of Montrose, forty miles away, are clearly visible.

      The Hallmarks grew up in Lubbock and Wayne and I have known them since high school.  Bill was a year ahead of us and was an All-District running back on the Lubbock Westerners.  That was big stuff in 1954.  Sybil was a year behind us and a legendary beauty.   Bill decided to live in the mountains as soon as he realized there were mountains.  When you grow up in Lubbock, a mountain is a pretty special thing.  Ditto an ocean, and sometimes, even a tree.

     Their magnificent home, (Sybil is an interior designer by trade), is perched on a granite cliff, high above the valley.  Step off the deck, walk twenty feet and you are standing on a flat granite rock overlooking the valley far below.  It is breathtaking.  I have included pictures, because the view is indescribable, at least for my limited vocabulary.



I took this picture about 20 feet from the Hallmarks back door--Just off the deck.



     We arrived in the late afternoon, and Sybil had steaks to grill outside.  The wind was horrible.  Well publicized wildfires were burning on the Arizona/New Mexico border and the smoky haze was spoiling the unbelievable view.  The wind was blowing about thirty miles per hour and gusting while playing havoc with the charcoal grill, but Sybil managed beautifully and the steaks were delicious.

     “One time, when we were about sixteen, Charlie Moore and I took a road trip.”  Bill said, as we talked after dinner. “Dad loaned me a gasoline credit card— the first one I ever saw---and Charlie and I took our bedrolls and headed to the mountains.  We went to Pecos, New Mexico, and decided to go see Pike’s Peak, so we drove up to Colorado.  Then we went to see Jackson Hole, Yellowstone and Glacier National Park.  I didn’t care if we ever went home.”

     “We’d been out more than three weeks,” Bill continued,” and were standing at the Little Big Horn Battlefield Monument in Montana and I got out the map and asked Charlie what he wanted to do next.  He was fighting back tears when he said, ’I want to go home.’”  To this day, no one I know loves to travel more than Bill Hallmark.



Wayne's on the left--I'm the slender, youthful one.  Town of Ridgway is over Wayne's left shoulder.

       Our visit at Ridgway was too short, as all visits with old friends tend to be, but we enjoyed one of Sybil’s great breakfasts next morning and loaded the truck.  Bill apologized for the wind and assured us that it was a rare occurrence.  All four of us had grown up in Lubbock and a little wind was no bother.  We said goodbye, and headed east. Our final destination today was Gunnison, only about a hundred miles, but first, we would see one more National Park.

       The Black Canyon of the Gunnison was designated a national park in 1999.  The canyon was created by several different geological events, followed by a long period of erosion.  The river established  its path through layers of relatively soft volcanic sediment, and then, after its route was determined, it hit the very hard igneous rock.  These layers were very difficult to cut, so consequently, the canyon is deep and narrow---only a half mile wide and over two thousand feet deep.   The river carved out the canyon at the rate of one inch every hundred years.  If my math is correct, that means it took 2.4 million years to cut the narrow canyon.  Far downstream, at about the same time, the Colorado River was cutting the vast Grand Canyon through relatively soft red sandstone.
 

     After a pleasant visit at the National Park headquarters, buying gimme caps and tee shirts for our grandchildren and watching a fascinating film on the history of the Black Canyon, we continued our trip to Gunnison.  We were on our way to visit James Collins and Neil McMullen, also high school friends, and do some fly-fishing at the fabled Anthill.  Stay tuned.



Black Caynon of the Gunnison.  Forty-eight miles long, half mile wide and over 2000 feet deep---all carved by that little river down there.