Beef Basin @en
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Still in Beef Basin…
1. It begins with a blurry picture! 😉 Just to show that it was chilly that morning…
While I was getting ready to break camp, I noticed a young stag who seemed a little nervous. I decided to approach it to try to photograph it.
 
2. After 15 minutes of approach, I crouched beneath a juniper not far.
3. Forty minutes later, as I tell myself I’m gonna go back to VivaLaVida, I saw a large male tumbling.
4. In fact, he was folloing a female as it’s the full rutting season. And the female had the good idea to walk fifteen feet in front of me without seeing me!
5. What an animal and what a meet… I’ll even get to see a mating the next day, about thirty feet away.
6. VLV have now to drive the trail back…
7. Nice wheel up… 😀
8. … And quite steep downhill.
9. That’s where we’re coming back.
10. On the other side of the Colorado River, Orange Cliffs and Sunset Pass where we slept with Jean-Luc last Spring.
11. Still in Beef Basin, while going down a side canyon to discover a permanent spring, I saw this Indian granary on a cliff.
12. I manage to go up the cliff to show you the inside. Both ends have collapsed or have been opened.
13. A pretty lichens and fungi that can be seen on certain blocks of sandstone.
14. Having spotted a very red cliff I went to explore, I had the chance to discover on the way this beautiful Indian granary. It is not on any map and excepted archaeologists who studied the area, few people must have seen it as it is away from everything.
15. This is certainly one of the most aesthetic that I could see to date.
16. Nearby, there are several ruins of houses.
17. The cliff above have a very red layer of the same rock I saw in Fort Bottom called Chert, a kind of silex.
18. And I’m still discovering another granary also almost intact.
19. Time to leave Beef Basin but on the road, a strong antifreeze smell made me stop. A powerful jet escapes from one of the pipes of the VivaLaVida’s engine preheater!
20. Temporary repairs with duck tape and hose clamps. We need to join Moab, a almos 100 miles away…
I will succeed the next morning and replace the pipe in question, which rubbed against a piece of metal because of a broken ziptie. I take this opportunity to do some other small works and replace the heim joints of the sway bar that had taken much of play.
That’s it for my exploration of the beautiful Beef Basin, a place that is worth the trip. See you soon. 😉
Ruins in Beef Basin.
Despite snow announced in the mountains, VivaLaVida headed south of Moab in the Beef Basin, an area which was the wintering place for Atabascan Indians between 2,000 and 700 years ago. It contains many relics like ruins and petroglyphs or petrographs.
1. Some tracks that VLV borrows are not hardly frequented…
2. Here is a first ruin Southwest of Beef Basin. It dates from the end of the period, about 700 years ago; its rectangular shape attests.
3. Remains a doorway of which the covered stays by the force of the Holy Spirit..!
4. First day after the black moon…
5. As it was already 24F around 7 PM, I cooked a good vegetables stew to warm me up!
6. Arrival in the grasslands of Beef Basin.You cannot see it but it was 20F when I took this picture.
7. The most well known ruin as it’s close to the trail. An ancient tower which there remains a wall angle.
8. Further away, here’s a small round tower.
9. After a short walk, I arrive to one of the best preserved ruins of those I had spotted the coordinates. There are still two windows intact.
10. There is also still the mud to stanch the walls.
11. Wall details.
12. Here is a community farm, larger, with different rooms.
13. I decided to lead VivaLaVida to a promontory above Gypsum Cayon, with a rather chaotic trail.
14. Fortunately is wheel travel huge!
15. Approaching the end of the trail, the prairie stretches before us again.
16. The mouth of Gypsum Canyon on the Colorado River.
17. Gypsum Canyon deep, inaccessible from here.
A nice meeting to tell you in the next update. 😉
D5 Creation