North Salt Lake City, UT

From Fremont Indian State Park, I continued North.  I stopped in North Salt Lake City, Utah staying in the same RV park I have stayed at previously, Pony Express RV Park.  While the sites are too close together, I like that it is adjacent to a nice paved bike trail.  Also the location is a good central location, there are a lot of things to do within an hours drive.

I enjoyed the bike trail several times, except for the day I had a flat tire!! Luckily I was only about a mile from the RV park, so I pushed my bike back to the park. 

I enjoyed the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge so much I went twice. 

I love Yellow-Headed Blackbirds and this area had a lot of them.

They don’t have the prettiest song, but it was interesting watching them.  Sometimes when they sang (or squawked) the turned their head and neck in what looked to be an awkward way. 

I saw several Whimbrels just at the entrance to the refuge. 

I have always like Stilts and Avocets and there were many in this refuge.

Stilts -

Avocets -

Avocet and Stilt feeding -

White-Faced Ibis – The first picture has a fish behind the Ibis.  Most of the water was very shallow and I saw many fish swimming around. 

Western Grebe

Ring Necked Pheasant

Other Birds -

Scenery -

Mule Deer -

My next stop is Idaho, where i spent about 2 months touring around.  I will start posting those in a few days.

Sevier, UT Fremont Indian State Park, part 2

Since I like Petroglyphs and pictographs so much, I had to break my Fremont Indian State Park visit into 2 blogs. 

The blanket pictograph below is about 16 feet wide and 4 feet high.  It is across the interstate from the park, but they have a spotting scope on one of the trails for it.

Below is a picture from the park, across  the interstate and you can just make out the blanket pictograph.  I circled it in red.  I started thinking about the traffic on I-70.  I am guessing most don’t have any idea what they are passing.

I walked the Canyon of Life trail 3 times.  I saw several petroglyphs, but I could not find the Marao Panel that was described in the publications.  Even though I knew the general area from the publication and I found what I thought was the trail people used to look at it, I could not find it.  After walking it a couple of times I asked at the visitor center, but the person I talked to didn’t know where it was.  I also looked online, but could not find anything that helped.  On my last day there I was determined to find it and I did!!

Spoiler alert, if the hunt is part of the fun don’t look at the rest of this post as I am going to give away the secret!!   I enjoyed searching for them so seriously skip the rest of this post if you enjoy finding them yourself.

The panel was much higher than I expected, so look up.  The picture above is the cliff the panel is on, I circled in red where it is.  Below is the panel.

Sevier, UT–Fremont Indian State Park part 1

In late April on my way North, I stopped for a few days at Fremont Indian State Park in Sevier, Utah.  I stayed in the Sam Stowe Campground where there are 7 or 8 Full Hookup sites.  Most of the sites needed a good bit of leveling, but I found one that wasn’t too bad. 

This state park had some great “brochures” which I downloaded to my phone.   Using these, I found many petroglyphs and pictographs.  Some required short hikes, while others were along the road. Also, there were many that were not in the brochures I downloaded.  I enjoyed the search for this ancient art.  The main road in the park is basically an access road to I-70 so you can see the interstate and traffic quite often. 

Even though it is next to the interstate, it is out in the country.  2 of the 3 days I was there I got caught by thousands of sheep.  One of those days, I was sitting on a bench beside the road looking for petroglyphs.  One of the cowboys (?sheep herders?) rode up to me on his horse and said I could stay there as the sheep would go around me, but I decided to sit in my car as they moved by. 

 

I started at the visitor center.  The main loop is paved, but there are several trails off of the main loop. 

Heading up on the Court of Ceremonies Trail -

A cyclops!  The eye is a bullet hole.  

Kilt Man -

Newspaper Rock - Looking up at one of the cliffs from the road. --

Below is one of the newer petroglyphs.  This one is called Hunkup’s Train.  The brochure said that Hunkup was a Paiute (who didn’t live here, but traveled through the area regularly).  During the 1870’s Hunkup took a train to Chicago and then came back and documented his journey on the cliffs.  Below there are trains and 2-story houses. 

  

See next blog for the rest of this trip!