The Utah desert

I'm interrupting the Pima pics for a bit of other travel.

One of the cool things was a day spent out in the Utah BLM lands with Eric of The Warrior Class and Angus, his trusty sidekick.

We loaded up one morning before it got too hot and drove off into the high desert.


The first thing that they took me to see what this spot where dinosaur tracks were still evident in the rocks some millions of years after they'd passed.

There's a sign there, but nothing else. No fence to keep anyone out save a small cattle fence because it is open range land.

What I really like is that you can have stuff like this out there with no fences and no security and no one messes with it. Try it back east, or in California, or anywhere else that the liberal left holds sway, and this stuff would have been vandalized out of existence years ago. But Utah and much of the rural west still seems to reflect the values that made Yesterday's America great.

Here's Angus, checking things out.

And Eric and Angus. I gotta admit, Angus is better trained than my two dogs...at least better than Murphy. Eric's done well with him.

Leaving there and driving on, we went to this old fort, originally built by the Mormon Militia to protect their territory from the U.S. Cavalry Indians.

As you can see, it's on a rise overlooking the only real pass through the low mountains to the west and it covers the only wash that might hold water even part of the year. It's in a great spot strategically, and it would have been hard to bypass.

It was known as Fort Pierce, and like the dinosaur tracks, it's been unmolested for over a century despite being unguarded and open to everyone.

Well it was almost unmolested. I did find and point out a spot where someone named Frank Cannon had etched his name into one of the stones, causing Eric to about blow his stack before we looked closer and saw the date when it was done: 1900.

As Eric pointed out, there weren't any roads leading to this place in 1900. There weren't even any cars, the first ones would not even be invented way back east for a few years yet. This was obviously the work of some cowboy or saddle tramp, who was a long ways from any settlement when he came along and did this. Utah had only gained statehood four years prior and this area was even more remote then than it is today, and that's saying a lot. Here's the view behind it.

The Utah high desert is a harsh but beautiful place. Here's a video pan I shot, showing the terrain in detail. Those of you who live or have visited places like this might find it boring, but as a first-time visitor, I was fascinated.

I could see myself moving out somewhere like this in a few years. And when the wheels fall off what's left of our society in the not-too-distant future, it'll be a great safe haven to watch and mourn from.