Orienteering in Dinosaur National Monument

CMC student Dustin Eldridge revels in sandstone, desert rivers, and several nights sleeping under the stars during a recent CMC outdoor trip.  This article was first published in Dustin’s blog, Steamboat Livin‘.  Photos by Derek Beers.

Late afternoon light on the soaring walls of Dinosaur National Monument.It all began with the SWAT team and a Dewalt angle grinder.  Arriving at the school on the morning of our trip, policemen and SWAT trucks filling the parking lot, I knew the class would be in for an interesting trip.

While the SWAT team was only using the semi-demolished Bogue Hall for tactics training, our teacher, trailer lock code escaping his memory, needed the angle grinder to get the trailer loaded and the trip on the road.  Never have I seen a lock cut so discretely.  As with all CMC outdoor trips, the characters involved in our group’s dynamic were colorful and everyone’s personalities shined bright throughout the trip.  Out in the boonies, and off of the grid, its much easier to connect with the folks around you.  Throw in a hike past Doodoo Canyon, up Horse Trail Canyon and you have a recipe for an epic adventure and lesson in human nature.

Students walking down river in Dinosaur National MonumentSoon enough we were on the road west towards Dinosaur, which is about a three hour ride from Steamboat.  The scenery changed from rounded, tree-covered peaks to sharp, brush and sand covered ridges jutting up from river valleys.

It isn’t often I find myself in the desert, and it is a great contrast to the mountain locales I’m often a part of.  On the drive into our campsite, we pulled aside to look at petroglyphs left by the Fremont Indians from around 1,000 years ago.  The puzzling shapes and designs only leave clues about the Fremonts and the figures that were deemed to be important enough to be immortalized forever on these huge sandstone walls.  This wall served as a type of time-machine, linking two humans 1,000 years apart, and it was inspiring to see firsthand the legacy of our human ancestors.

Our campsite was located along a bend in the Green River that was sitting beneath Split Mountain Canyon.  Looking out on the river from our campsite I could see Split Mountain rising sharply from the river, sandstone rock formations sitting precariously on precipitous slopes and the sharp ridges that define the topography of the Monument splayed out as far the eye could see.

The desert is typically seen as a desolate place devoid of life.  Most people hold this conviction until they visit the desert.  It was apparent on our first day of the trip, that life is not so uncommon out in the desert.  Juniper trees, cottonwoods, elk, coyotes and deer all call this high desert their home.  As we were wading up the river back to camp on day one, we had the fortune of spotting a bear searching for food across the river.  This was the last place I would expect to see a bear, and here it is, foraging for food in the desert.

After spending a warm night directly under the stars, no tent necessary, we geared up for our biggest hike of the trip.  This day would test our orientation skills we had been practicing the previous day.  Our goal was Horse Trail Canyon, approximately three off-trail miles from camp.  We estimated it would take us about two hours to get to the canyon.  We started hiking up a drainage that would lead us in the direction of the canyon.  Once it was time to abandon the drainage for more cross-country travel, it was apparent that our time estimate was very short indeed.  It had taken us two hours just to get halfway to the canyon that was supposed to take us two hours to get to.

The ziq-zagging nature of the drainage had probably doubled the real distance we had traveled.  We continued on across 8 smaller drainages.  This was a true test of our orienteering skills, because it was very difficult deciding which canyon was actually the one we were looking for.  After talking with the group, we decided we had made it Horse Trail Canyon.  We climbed up into the canyon and the walls gradually grew tighter and steeper on each side.  Impressive sandstone formations grew skyward, with gigantic ponderosa pines, seemingly out of place in such a dry environment, reaching further skyward.  Life in this canyon had evolved almost completely separately from those outside its rain-funneling walls.  We took a different route home, choosing the straight-shot of the road versus the winding drainages.  In all, it was about a ten mile day.

As with all of my outdoor trips, it was sad to see it end.  Each CMC class is so unique because of the chemistry of  the classmates, teachers,and the outdoors are rarely replicated in any other setting.  Never again will the same blend of characters and circumstances come together that created the first experience. The only thing you can do is to keep going out of society, to get closer to those you share it with.

Thanks to Derek Beers for all the photos!