Prickly Pear cactus, Canyondlands National Park, Utah, September 25, 2011

Highway through Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona, October 9, 2011

Art on Sunday #9

Memories; sculpture by Ken Payne.
Bronze of a Cowboy and Young Boy on a Horse,
outside of Mountain Trails Galleries
on corner of Center and Deloney in Jackson, Wyoming
July 16, 2010

Vic Payne (bio) has bee sculpting for over 35 years

Memories

Study – Edition of 100, Approx. 28.5″H x 26″L x 14″D, Created 2005
Monument – Edition of 7, Approx. 13’H x 12’L x 7.5’D, Created 2005

“Where have all the years gone? It seems like yesterday that I was running with my granddad at the ranch. We did every thing together. The mornings started off at five thirty breakfast prepared lovingly by my grandmother. She was the kindest of ladies of the old west and had been married to my grandfather for over sixty years. She had married him when she was fifteen and had followed him and stayed by him through all troublesome seasons.

Texas was young then and granddad had always made his living looking down the back of a horse. His father told him of his long rides up the Chisholm Trail in 1881 and his brief stay with the Texas rangers. Our family was full of western history and it was being hand down from generation to generation. The stories were vague in his mind as he reminisced of the stories that his dad had told him and now he handed them down to me

Hunting season was a special time for our family as uncles and cousins filed in from all over the country. It wasn’t just killing a deer but to build memories that would make our family stronger. The hunt was great even when we came back empty handed. Funny how my granddad’s cowpony Old Blue, could always spot deer before any one else.”  (Vic Payne Studio)

Teton Range viewed across Antelope Flats
Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming,
October 19, 2010

The Teton Range is a mountain range of the Rocky Mountains in North America.

A north-south range, it is mostly on Wyoming’s eastern side of the Idaho state line. It is south from Yellowstone National Park. Most of the east slope of the range is in Grand Teton National Park.

Early French Voyageurs used the name les trois tétons (the three breasts).It is likely that the Shoshone people once called the whole range Teewinot, meaning “many pinnacles

The principal summits of the central massif, sometimes referred to as the Cathedral Group, are Grand Teton 13,770 feet (4,200 m), Mount Owen 12,928 feet (3,940 m), Teewinot 12,325 feet (3,757 m), Middle Teton 12,804 feet (3,903 m) and South Teton 12,514 feet (3,814 m). Other peaks in the range include Mount Moran 12,605 feet (3,842 m), Mount Wister 11,490 feet (3,500 m), Buck Mountain 11,938 feet (3,639 m) and Static Peak 11,303 feet (3,445 m). (Wikipedia)

Upstairs bedroom in Post Surgeon’s residence, Fort Laramie National Historic Site, Wyoming, July 9, 2010

Crossroads of a Nation Moving West

Originally established as a private fur trading fort in 1834, Fort Laramie evolved into the largest and best known military post on the Northern Plains before its abandonment in 1890. This “grand old post” witnessed the entire sweeping saga of America’s western expansion and Indian resistance to encroachment on their territories.  (National Park Service)

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Fort Laramie National Historic Site

• National Park Service
• Wikipedia
• CyArk
• WyoHistory.org
• LDS

Balanced Rock trail, Arches National Park, Utah, September 22, 2011

Balanced Rock is one of the most popular features of Arches National Park, situated in Grand County, Utah, United States. Balanced Rock is located next to the park’s main road, at about 9 miles (14.5 km) from the park entrance.

The total height of Balanced Rock is about 128 feet (39 m), with the balancing rock rising 55 feet (16.75 m) above the base. The big rock on top is the size of three school buses. Until recently, Balanced Rock had a companion – a similar, but much smaller balanced rock named “Chip Off The Old Block”, which fell during the winter of 1975/1976.

Balanced Rock can be seen from the park’s main road. There is also a short loop trail leading around the base of the rock. Balanced rock was formed through a process known as weathering.  (Wikipedia)

On July 13, we were camped at a site on the shore of Pathfinder Reservoir, south of Casper. We planned to take a short drive and then spend the rest of the day relaxing and reading.

Pathfinder Reservoir, Pathfinder Dam and Fremont Canyon all are all named for John Charles Frémont – the 19th century military officer, explorer and political candidate. Frémont was known as “The Pathfinder.”

Pathfinder Dam and Fremont Canyon:

The flow during the summer is usually much lower than this due to drawdown for irrigation and power production.  Exceptional rainfall combined with good winter snowpack had resulted in almost all reservoirs along the having higher levels that had been seen for several years.  Some, in fact, had campgrounds that were closed due to flooding.

Looking downstream, the bridge below us is an old footbridge:

A closer view of the footbridge and the canyon:

A view from the bridge:

We found a couple more locations downstream where we could view the canyon:

After our drive, we went back to the camper.  While we were gone the wind had picked up and, with the heat, it very uncomfortable sitting outside.  There was no power at the campground and we didn’t want to run the generator, so we decided to forfeit on day’s camp fee and move on down the road (see Wind Blown).

From Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office:

The Pathfinder Dam, is a masonry arch dam which completely blocks, from bedrock to canyon rim, the course of the North Platte River. Construction of the dam was completed in 1909. Fashioned from huge blocks of granite, quarried nearby from the same formation into which the river had trenched its canyon course, the dam stands 214 feet high, has a crest length which reaches to 432 feet, and tapers from a base 97 feet wide to a top which is no more than 11 feet in width. The building of Pathfinder Dam was a successful testing of the late nineteenth century concept of arid lands reclamation in the western United States. The reservoir basin had a shore line greater than 75 miles in extent and afforded opportunity for storage of more than one million acre feet of irrigation and industrial water to previously arid lands.

Park Avenue Trail, Arches National Park, Utah, September 24, 2007

From Park Avenue parking area, the trail descends steeply into a spectacular canyon and continues down the wash to Courthouse Towers. (1 mile, one-way)

One of the reasons we camped at Pathfinder Reservoir in July 2010 was its proximity to Independence Rock.

Independence Rock is a major landmark along the westward emigrant trails (Oregon Trail, California Trail, Mormon Trail.)

In 1841, Jesuit missionary Pierre Jean De Smet wrote, “The first rock we saw, and which truly deserves the name, was the famous Independence Rock.  It is of the same nature as the Rocky Mountains.  At first I was led to believe that it had received this pompous name from its isolated situation and the solidity of its base, but I was afterward told that it was called so because the first travelers who thought of giving it a name arrived at it on the very day when the people of the united States celebrate the anniversary of their emancipation from Great Britain… lest it might be said that we passed by this lofty monument of the desert with indifference, we cut our names on the south side of the rock under initials (I. H. S.) which we would wish to see engraved everywhere, and along with a great number of others, some of which perhaps ought not to be found anywhere.  On account of all these names, and of the dates that accompany them, as well as the hieroglyphics of Indian warriors, I called this rock on my first journey ‘The Great Record of the Desert.’”

When we climbed to the northern highest point on the rock, we didn’t know that the trails had actually passed on the south side – today’s modern highway and rest area  is to the north – so we didn’t really search for names on the south, though we did take the trail all the way around.

We did find some old name carvings on the top and, unfortunately, some more modern engravings and markings, though it is now illegal as this is a state historic site.

More information:

• Independence Rock – WyoHistory.org
• Independence Rock State Historic Site
• Emigrant Trails – Independence Rock
• National Park Service – California National Historic Trail
• Wikipedia
• LDS Church History