The last named place

 To understand the significance of this trip, I must take you back to when I was 17.  When I was enthralled with Edward Abbey, and obsessively read (and reread) "Desert Solitaire" in my college dorm room during bleak Chicago winters. Which led me to Wallace Stegner’s "Beyond the Hundredth Meridian" about John Westley Powell and his expedition down the Green and Colorado Rivers in 1869. I loved how one-armed Powell climbed up above his camp each evening after a hard day to survey the landscape. Tireless, bold. He named the Henry Mountains, the last named, mapped, and explored mountains in the lower 48. Member of his expedition explored the Henrys during their second trip down the Colorado.  Inaccessible, rugged places filled me with longing, and I daydreamed about what it took to venture to places like this. A seed was planted.

It was not by accident that I ended up at Arches last January. More like a wish fulfilled. Since then, I've asked around but haven't found anyone who’d actually been to the Henry Mountains. "Road's too bad." "Too hard to get to." Which only added to their mystique.

I thought I'd leave without ever seeing them.

But then, Jan came.
 

At the ranger station, they say, “Haven’t heard if the snows have melted enough for you to drive up there. Just head and see how far you can get.”

"What do you think, Jan?" I say with a lump in my throat.

"Let's try!"

And this is why Jan is the definition of a good friend.

Jan drives over cattle guards, through washes, near an old stone miner’s cabin, steadily upward. “Turn here,” I say, “Now veer left.” I’m practically jumping out of my seat with excitement. We. Are. Here.

“How will we know when we get there?” Jan asks.

I’m madly flipping between my GaiaGPS topo maps and the Avanza map that they recommended we download at the ranger station. There isn’t really an obvious boundary line. No sign. But when we see pinyon and juniper and smell the mountain air, it feels like we have arrived.

Here.

Bursting out of Jan’s car, I can’t stop dancing and singing. Woohoo.

The red desert stretches out behind us. Snowy peaks ahead. I’m closer than I ever imagined. A journey that has taken half a lifetime.

I tuck my tent in the trees at a dispersed campsite littered with rusted tin cans and beer bottles. No one else for as far as the eye can see. The La Sals turn pink on the horizon, the Abajos too. I can see all into Canyonlands. These places that I love. So much.

Sunset.

Full moonrise.

Moonset.

The next morning, Jan drives us as high as we dare to venture in her "baby 4WD" vehicle, about 8000 feet. Then we follow forest service roads on foot. There are a few recent tire tracks, trash, a set of footprints. Maybe these mountains aren’t so remote. Are there really no wild places anymore?

Into the ponderosa

Into the aspen and snow.

But it feels remote even though we are on roads. I love the starkenss and the views. I love the history. I am bursting with joy.

Do you think were were having fun? (Photo by Jan)

We turn up a slope that had less snow rather than going around deep snow to the pass to climb Mt Ellen.

Then above treeline

No trail here. An old ATV road though, but it's packed with deep snow so doesn't help. Jan postholes up to her knees as we climb towards our unnamed peak.

“Come on, Jan. It’ll get easier once we get above this snowy spot,” I lie.


The hiking is hard. I don’t know if we will make it or not. So I sing all the way and do little dances and decide it doesn't matter.

Here you can peek over to see Capitol Reef National Park in the distance.

More up.

We are in the heart of the Henry Mountains. The summit of an unnamed, 11,116 ft peak. With 11,527 ft Mt. Ellen in the background. (Photo by Jan)

Changing socks and putting on "bagtek" on the way back down.

More hiking the next day, looking southward

Clark’s nutcracker

Being somewhere I'd been dreaming about for so long felt incredible. It reminds me of the importance of sticking with things. Following through. Making it happen.

Perhaps the greatest gift on can give another person is saying simply, "Lets see how far we get." Which is giving it a try, despite the unknown. I love that attitude. Honestly, with everything I'd heard about the roads, I didn't think our chances were very good. But we tried, and this time we made it. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Jan.