Starvation Knoll

Bears Ears National Monument

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I stopped by the ranger station to see if I could get wifi or otherwise make a call from there. Sure, if I've got Verizon. This is the second time I've found a station to have a Verizon repeater and wonder what they do to deserve such favoritism. She suggested that some people get signal on Starvation Knoll. I won't, but I may as well give it a try as it is the high point in the area. This is another developed site that will continue to be free although there are no bathrooms. The trail up to the top of the low hill is dotted with interpretive signs about the Mormons building road to come and populate this area. There is some mention of how there were already people here, so no myth of the empty land is going on, but they still felt they needed to spread here.

And it ain't half bad being up so high looking out over Cedar Mesa.

Out across the popular dispersed camping area is the flatter part of Comb Ridge and some distant mountains.

Since the particular part of road building represented here was when the lost and starving scouts climbed this knoll on Christmas day and finally found the Blue Mountains (Abajo, that is) and figured out where they were, there is a certain amount of geography getting pointed out on the signs. I finally get to really see Comb Ridge, which is a particularly distinct piece of land, but mostly because it is pointed out as a significant challenge to get a road past.

That distant cliff with a top that undulates quite a lot is Comb Ridge.

It doesn't take much to get to the top and determine there is no signal. Actually, it says emergency calls only, but apparently this isn't that.

Abajo Mountains once again. They're all blue from here, why call them that?

It might be a little thing, but it is still enough to give a grander view.

I still have time in the day, so decide to make a little excursion out onto the mesa. First a little way along the road, then down one of the creeks. Well, the washes.

Sometimes it is not so hard to navigate a thing like this.

The cows have been here before me. Why are there cows out here, again? I saw one grazing beside the highway as I drove from the roadside ruins.

Did I say little? Not so easy to navigate. I'm not going down that.

When the reasonable downhill runs out, I take the sidewalks instead. They are a little slanted and require some excursions once in a while to avoid the crusts. Sometimes there are footsteps in the dirt. They do say it can take 20 to 250 years for the biological soils to erase a footprint, but most of these are in loose dirt.

Anywhere you go, there will be something grand.

Looking back to Starvation Knoll. Or was that the smaller one just west of it?

Another way looks like it will be easier to find places to step. There were a couple challenges on the way. I take it and it turns out to be a big mistake. It is an awful, horrible, no good route. Why would I forsake the sidewalks and wide wash? Why?!

But nature does come up with some interesting sculptures. How did these two rocks of different color get to fitting together so well, but without touching?

I find my way into a new, wide wash and it is better except that there are still some big steps up. I have to back off once and take a very well trod deer trail. Or maybe the cows have been here too.

This step isn't actually so bad once I get to the very end.

A pair of aluminum cans from very different eras alert me that I'm getting close to the road. There is more and more trash in the last 200 feet or so before I make that one last step to the fresh pavement and back to the knoll.

A little bit of a sunset, but again it is rather blank without some clouds.

©2019 Valerie Norton
Written 3 Nov 2019