Little Wild Horse Canyon...

and Bell Canyon loop. 

This 8 mile hike is the most popular trail in the San Rafael Swell. Then again, there aren't many true trails there to begin with. (Many require overcoming gnarly 4X4 axle breaking roads to arrive shaken but not stirred at the trailhead). 

It's a great hike. It features squeezing through three foot wide cracks. (Don't allow an obese person to get ahead of you, they might become wedged between the walls). There's also an alluring amount of scenery and serenity. I only saw two humans and one dog. 

With the spate of rain in the region, the narrow gashes had a lot of pooling water. For a normal sized person, this frigid muddy liquid mess would be knee-deep. For a smallish person like me, the water was invading the Sambur-family-jewels region. Now that's a wake up call.

From Dead Horse State Park in Utah,

Cheers!

Horseshoe Canyon, Utah...

It was a 32 mile drive on roads smothered with washboard ruts to get to Horseshoe Canyon. Even if there were no Great Gallery panels to gander upon the scenery alone is worth the jouncing and rattling.

I was fortunate to be at the right place at the right time. Mark a volunteer for the NPS was heading into the canyon when I arrived. I scored a guided tour featuring natural features and human history. I took notes. 

The so-called Archiac culture artists who created the Great Gallery were estimated to be about 3,000 years older than this Blog. Who the heck knows why they painted the Holy Ghost and his entourage of groupies? What's the ingredients of that magic paint! Why do modern men have to paint so often? Why can't we duplicate this amazing coating? Why are our paint professionals clueless to the knowledge of those Archaic dudes?

Jeff just wondering...

I shot this photo of Venus the Vandal in a nearby canyon. I hope her work won't last 3,000 years. I wish it wouldn't last three hours. 

Long ago in a Galaxy not so far away...

there existed two Superpowers vying for Earth's domination. This period of history was known as the Cold War. There was a lot of in-your-face threats, plenty of chest thumping and one Nikita Khrushchev slamming his shoes upon a desk at a United Nations session. 

The teams were engaged in the Nuclear Arms Race. That was the silent competition of overkill, measured in how many times they could radiate the entire human race. 

The safety feature in this war of words and weaponry was the concept that no country would go MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) leaving the World to cockroaches and Hostess Twinkies. The End of the World would have really messed up Happy Hours too. (The thought irks me).

Now to my point: In order to make all those multitudes of nuclear bombs and missiles, the U.S. required uranium and lots of it. That is where Temple City, Utah and other western locales came into play. In these remote locations, the main ingredient was harvested for all those horrendous weapons. It took wide scale mining operations to get the "yellowcake" out of the ground. And that is what I saw in the San Raphael Swell at the former town of Temple City, Utah! Old uranium mining operations and here's the photos to prove it. 

PS. I was exposed to the tailings for a few hours, I don't think I'm glowing yet. 

Remember, better Dead than Red. I love those old Cold War propaganda sayings.