Job Change And A Side Trip

 As we transitioned from the month of July to August, so transitioned our job.  Having run short of volunteers the Forest Service chose to close the buildings on the Swett Ranch and leave it to self-guided tours of the fourteen acres.  We are taking up a new post in the cab of the Ute Mountain Fire Lookout Tower.  Our commute to work is now a 15 mile trip, about half of which is a dirt road climb to the summit of Ute Mountain.

Like the Swett Ranch, the Lookout Tower is on the National Registry of Historic Places.  While there was voluminous history and hundreds of family stories to get to know about the Swett Ranch that was not the case of the tower.  It came into existence 28 years after the Swett Ranch was founded, was only operated during fire season, usually May to October, and went out of service in 1968.  Occupancy was a string of entry-level firefighters, rarely the same people from one season to the next.

So our stories to tell visitors was primarily about the physical structure itself, the operation of the lookout tower, the Forest Service's current forest management techniques and the transition of the tower from working part of the firewatch system to being a museum. 

Cyndee studying what little literature we had to work with.

What made this tower special, and worth turning it into a museum, was that it was one of only five ever built like it and only one of two left standing.  It is double the size of a standard cab at 14x14 and was built to live in, complete with two beds, a cook stove, tables and chairs, book shelves, and Forest Service provided china and dinnerware.  Of course all the usual firewatch tower tools and equipment as well.

The ubiquitous Osborne Fire Finder.
Virtually every firewatch tower in the world has one of these.

For the purpose of the museum we had a single cot as an example of how they lived in the tower.  But when in operation there would have been two single bedframes with mattresses.

We can attest to how drafty a night's sleep it would be in the cab of the tower.  The wind blew more often than not and those original 1937 wood-frame windows, every-other-one designed to slide left or right to open, were loose!  We had pieces of cardboard and folded paper stuffed in the frames all around the room to try to stifle the rattling.  When it rained the water just came right in.

The heat and cook stove.  It is dual-fuel, coal or wood.

One thing was for sure, we couldn't complain about the view!

So, how about that side-trip I mentioned in the title?  On one of our three-day weekends we popped over to Salt Lake City for a trip to the Great Salt Lake and Antelope Island.  Cyndee had never seen the lake and I had only really seen it from the air when I was traveling for work.  Going out to Antelope Island was to be a first up-close for both of us.

Antelope Island is a large island on the Great Salt Lake, 
accessed by a long causeway.

At 42 square miles Antelope Island is a lot more than a sandy bump in the lake.  It has a well done visitor and interpretive center, miles of paved road and a large historical ranch.  With its desert-like environment one wouldn't think there could be much grazing for large animals but this place supported cattle, bison, deer, and pronghorn antelope to name a few.  And all but the cattle are still on the island and thriving.

We saw more large wildlife on Antelope Island in an hour than we have seen all summer long at Flaming Gorge.

Semi-solitary bulls dotted the island.

Multiple herds with a lot of new calves.
That's a northern suburb of SLC up against the mountain.

As if the hundreds of free-ranging bison all over the island 
weren't enough, they also have a good number of these sculptures.

The island's name-sake was plentiful too.
Although with this being the first week of August 
they were not in a herding mood.

Lots of individuals scattered all around the island.

Yet another herd of bison.  I was surprised at how well they do grazing 
along the salty marshes of the shoreline of the island.

The historic ranch on the island is the Garr Ranch.  It was a much bigger operation than the Swett Ranch Cyndee and I are caretakers for at Flaming Gorge.  The State Park System of Utah has done an excellent job of preservation/restoration and they are rewarded with thousands of visitations.  One of the ranches operations was sheep.  Between the 1930's and 1950's they would sheer as many as 10,000 sheep in a 7 to 10 period in May.

Story board in the sheering barn at Garr Ranch.  In addition to explaining the 
sheering process it also gave the ranch hand's salaries.  Ranch Hand - $150/mo, 
Sheep Herder - $175/mo.

Purpose-built sheering barn.  Staging stalls on the left with an "alley" 
behind the stall for bringing in the sheep.  A "common-rail" belt-drive (all the 
pulleys above the stalls) provided power to the sheers.  The wide space in 
front of the stalls is the sheering floor.  And finally, the conveyor belt on the right 
would transport the wool to the bagging machine.

The ranch was well established before the sheep operation came to be.  It was founded in 1848 and epitomized the evolution of ranching in the Great Salt Lake Basin.

Camping is also part of the State Park's activities.  Facilities range from primitive to full hook-up RV sites.  During our August visit (hot!) we found far more unoccupied campsites than occupied.

This was the most densely occupied campground we saw.
This CG had power so these folks had the luxury of being 
able to run air conditioners to fend off the baking sun.

Antelope Island was a whirlwind trip and we were back to Flaming Gorge in less than 72 hours.  The operation of the firewatch tower had to resume.  It was nice getting back to 60 degree weather.

A bonus when we returned to Flaming Gorge was that our hummingbird feeder was finally getting some visits.  We had it out all season but it was only getting a casual fly-by, now we had some that were sticking around.

We had a single feeder that was
hung from a Ponderosa Pine

This is a male Rufous Hummingbird

We had never been anywhere this species appears.
Their normal summer range is usually southern Idaho 
but this male and three females decided to stay a little 
south or they just laid over awhile as they were starting
their migration.

We haven't seen our gopher snakes in awhile but other reptiles have made a showing.

Our days in the firewatch tower are coming to an end.  It has been cold and wet of late but visitorship hasn't suffered.  The kids have all gone back to school and clientele has made a decided shift in the  "senior" direction.  Bow season for elk has also started and we are seeing a lot of hunters that stop in while scouting hunting spots.

We're just taking in all the views and high altitude living we can while it lasts. 

This Post May Not Be Your Cup Of Tea

 

In 2020 the pandemic lockdown was underway and we were in a place where there wasn't much to do except watch TV.  You would think with hundreds of DirecTV satellite channels, Netflix, Disney+, and Prime Video there would be plenty to occupy time.  But such is not the case.  We were endlessly searching for something we would like but had not already seen multiple times.  One evening while surfing channels I came across the History Channel just as they were premiering a new series, The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch.

From previous posts it is already known that I am a watcher of the series Ancient Aliens.  But generally I tend to avoid virtually all the other series that sensationalize paranormal or UFO activity but never gather any measurable and repeatable data.  Skinwalker Ranch showed promise to break that mold.  The "hook" that reeled me in was that the principal scientific advisor was someone I was familiar with from watching and reading about such as How the Universe Works, Space's Deepest Secrets and Ancient Aliens; Dr. Travis Taylor.  Dr. Taylor is an engineer and best-selling author who hold's PhD's in Optical Science and Engineering and Aerospace Engineering, as well as Masters degrees in Physics and Astronomy.  For the past twenty-five years, Dr. Taylor has worked on various high tech programs for the Department of Defense and NASA.

I also learned that the Skinwalker Ranch came with credentials.  It has history dating back to 1776 when the Spanish explorers Dominguez and Escalante (Franciscan priests searching for passage from Santa Fe, NM to Monterey, CA) came through along Skinwalker Ridge.  The Utes and Navajo have oral histories about this area having frequent paranormal occurrences and objects in the sky that coincide with the Utes joining forces with U.S. troops in a campaign against the Navajo.  This 1860 campaign was the origin of the Skinwalker curse.  When the Uintah Basin reached levels of enough settlement to have towns with newspapers there were reports of "RUMBLINGS HEARD IN UINTAH BASIN", "Strange Noises Cause New Settlers Much Uneasiness" in the Theodore, UT newspaper, December 30, 1906.

The ranch was originally established in 1937 by the Myers family.  There was a documented UFO sighting that occurred in 1940 (well before Roswell and all the hysteria around it) and again in 1960.  In 1979 another major sighting was reported by the Arnold family.  The ranch changed hands from the Myers to the Shermans in 1992.  The Shermans were plagued by strange noises, paranormal phenomena, UFO sightings and cattle mutilations.  In 1996 the Shermans wanted nothing more to do with the ranch and sold the property to billionaire Robert Bigelow who, in partnership with the Defense Logistics Agency (The Nation's Combat Logistics Support Agency), secured the ranch with fencing, gates, surveillance equipment and all sorts of monitoring devices.  The ranch went under a lockdown and Bigelow never shared anything about what he was doing on the ranch, not even when he abandoned the project in 2015 and sold the property to the current investigators. 

Okay, that's a lot to unpack but hang with me I'm getting to what this post is about.

The current team of investigators are the antithesis of the Bigelow team.  While it is necessary to keep the ranch secure, mostly from tourists like me, they share pretty much everything else on their weekly History Channel series and skinwalker-ranch.com.  While I singled out Dr. Taylor, he is not a one-man team.  The core team is comprised of nine people, including Dr. Taylor.  The team is made up of everyone from the owner of the ranch, Brandon Fugal, to fellow investigator Erik Bard, ranch manager Thomas Winterton, head of security Bryant "Dragon" Arnold, security Kaleb Bench, ranch caretakers Kandus and Tom, and community outreach director Jim Morse.  There are auxiliary members that are high tech experts, aerospace engineers and even the governor of Utah.

The Team
L to R: Kaleb, Tom, Kandus, Jim S, Thomas, Dragon, Brandon, Erik, Jim M, Travis.
Another star of the show is in the background, The Mesa 

So where is all this going?  It is a whole bunch of background to give meaning to what is next.

During our duties as docents for the Swett Ranch, Cyndee and I would give tours of the 14 acre historically registered area.  We divided the tour, I would great visitors at the parking lot gate and give them the origin story and a walking tour and history of all the out-buildings, making a circuit that would bring us around to the gate to the yard where the cabins and house resided.  Cyndee would pick up the group from there and give the low-down on the family and what their ranch life was like and how it changed from 1912 to 1972.  Our tours were not monologues, there was lots of Q&A, some of which had nothing to do with the ranch.

On one such occasion I had toured a family, a couple our age as well as an adult son, nice people.  I handed them off to Cyndee and didn't see them again until they were departing.  There was a little more than the casual goodbyes, there was some extra smiling and a little more "nice to meet you" than usual.  When I next saw Cyndee she said that I had given a tour to one of the producers of "The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch". What!? Who!? Where!?  In a casual conversation with Cyndee (the "where are you from", "what brought you here" type thing) the guy my age said that they were visiting their son at his job producing the History Channel's series "Skinwalker Ranch".  Cyndee had told them something to the effect that I was a huge fan of the show and it was probably a good thing they didn't tell me who they were or I would have pestered them to death with talking about every episode.

Cyndee also told them of our adventure of coming to their gate and taking pictures in front of the "STOP" sign and all the surveillance cameras.  It was when we were driving to Roosevelt, UT for Cyndee's pre-surgery doctor's visit that she pointed out we just passed the road for the entrance to Skinwalker Ranch.  Notice I said Cyndee pointed it out, I was totally unaware that the ranch was right there.  Well!  We're turning in on the way back.

Almost Skinwalker Ranch.
The "STOP" sign and no trespassing and barricade and surveillance cameras 
kept us a fair distance from the actual front gate of the ranch.
But I was there and Cyndee took a picture, so it happened.

And you thought I was through.  Nope, there's more.

A couple of weeks later, after we had transitioned from the Swett Ranch to the Ute Mountain Fire Watch Tower, we were going about our business when in walked the producer and his parents.  The dad entered the cab of the tower, looked at us and exclaimed; "You just can't get rid of us".  This time I knew who they were and had them in a small room three stories above ground.  Let the conversation begin!  And it did.  The producer, Mike, was most gracious and entertained all my questions without a single eye-roll.  In fact, he made it a two-way conversation asking me questions about what I thought about certain episodes and volunteering some neat stuff that got edited out because of time constraints.

After a really nice visit and just before leaving, Mike asked me if I would like an autographed photo from the crew.  Figuring he had some stock, mass reproduced copies I said "Sure".  To my surprise Mike said he would go back to the ranch and get everybody's signature, they were all on-site filming the last shots of the season and everybody was getting ready to go home for the winter.  Upon hearing this I said; "Oh, no, I don't want to bug anybody for an autograph" to which Mike said he had already told them about us and that they would be happy to do it.  Okay then, it just got really special.

Mike and his parents descended the tower and I had a feeling I was never going to see that autographed photo.  After all, Skinwalker Ranch was over an hour-and-a-half away, down in the Uintah Basin.  I just couldn't let myself think that Mike would go to the trouble of getting the signatures and spend the better part of four hours driving, round-trip, to bring me an autographed photo.  But two weeks later Mike proved to be a man of his word.  In he walked with a large manilla envelope in his hand.  They had finished filming for the season and he was making a last tour around to some favorite spots before going to his apartment in California.  He opened the envelope and slipped out an 8.5 x 11 photograph of a sunset taken from atop the mesa and on the back-side of the photograph were eight signatures of the team.

Evidently they didn't just blindly sign.  Dragon personalized it.

Mike had personally taken the sunset photo and circulated it for signatures.  He also brought me a pebble from the spot where he took the picture.  Weird thing is that the rock split, I'm talking clean, smooth split, as he picked it up.  And to top it off, he also included a frame to put the picture in.  Wow!

This whole experience was unexpected.  I/we didn't go looking for any of this.  From my perspective it was all by pure coincidence.  But what a nice coincidence.

Flaming Gorge as seen from Canyon Rim Trail

 Continuing from the last post I am doing a little fast-forwarding.

July 2023

While Cyndee was convalescing from her surgery I did some hikes.  The anesthesia had some lasting effects and she was sleeping for long stretches so it was possible for me to get in some short hikes during her "naps".  The Canyon Rim Trail was close enough to the volunteer campground that I could just walk to it and take in the sights.

Looking east into the gorge.
It is 1,380' (421 m) down to the water from where I am standing.

This is pretty typical of how close the trail parallels the canyon rim.

Red Canyon Rim Trail.
It is loaded with rocks that are perfect for rolling an ankle on.

If you don't take a picture, it didn't happen.

I started the hike in the middle of the trail and hiked to the terminus at the Red Canyon Visitor Center.  Walking into the public area and campground I was treated with another encounter with our local herd of big horn sheep.

The lambs have put on some size since I saw them a month ago.

Some tourists from the visitor center got too close trying to take pictures 
and started a small stampede.

As soon as they crossed the road their "buffer" between them and people
was re-established and they went right back to grazing.

Moving away from the crowd of people put them to where I was the closest 
human and they were keeping an eye on me.

Only three days after abdominal surgery Cyndee was ready for a day trip so we loaded up a cooler and headed for Jones Hole National Fish Hatchery.  

Jones Hole Fish Hatchery really is down in a "hole".
Entering from the plateau above it is a 10% grade down a 
lengthy road to the bottom of the canyon.

It doesn't look like much from this angle but the hatchery building had 
dozens of large raceways (water troughs) with tens of thousands of fry in 
different stages of development.  Some with the yolk sack still attached.

We arrived after the release of the mature trout.  In May these 
raceways are chock-full of trout and being prepared for release into the Green River, 
beyond the trees in the distance or loaded into trucks for shipping to other rivers.

This hatchery is so remote that they are required to have 3 months of rations on hand during the winter months.  When the snow comes it comes quick and heavy.  The location is so remote that plows don't even bother with clearing 50 miles of road just to make it possible for six people to commute to work.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch we've had a break-in.  One of the two herds of angus cattle breached a fence and found their way into the 14 acre portion of the historic site.  It is not the first time I've had to move them out of this pasture and there is a couple of times since that they have found their way all the way up to the cabins and house during the night.  There are a couple of bulls in this herd that are gigantic and they are always fighting over control.  They have smashed a lot of fencing during their fracases.

A few members of the red angus herd of cattle.

As we entered the heart of summer, although it was hard to tell with us having to run heat every morning, the native plants are maturing.  Generally I'm not a fan of thistle but we have a few plants around us that are impressive.  They are not bushy, rather they have a few long stems with a flower on top at about four feet tall.

One afternoon while making a quick trip to the Visitor Center to turn in time sheets I came across this scene.

Fire on the mountain!  In mid-July we had an intense thunderstorm that resulted in a double lightning strike on Mustang Ridge, directly across the reservoir from us.  Luckily a ranger happened to be looking right at the tree that took the double hit and she was able to immediately call the Forest Service Fire Fighters.  Two helicopters with water buckets were called in and a bulldozer was used to cut a fire line.  To be safe a campground adjacent to the ridge was evacuated and even we were told to be ready to go without notice.

But the Forest Service got things under control and had the fire contained within 48 hours with little more than 100 acres scorched.  Good job!

Back to the flora and fauna.  Just out the back of our rig is a stand of milkweed.  The milkweed I am familiar with is usually a small clump, no more than a few inches tall.  I've planted hundreds of them as attractants for Monarch butterflies.  But like all the other flowering plants around here, the milkweed is huge.  It stands chest-high to me.

Really tall milkweed right out the back of our rig.

All kinds of insects were taking advantage of these flowers,
bees being the most prominent.

Swallow-tail butterflies were the next most abundant insect.

I really enjoyed taking these pics.
It was a real challenge getting a sharp image because of 
the motion of the insect coupled with blustery winds.

Towards the end of July our son, Chad, came to visit us at Flaming Gorge.  He packed a lot in while here - went to a swimming hole in the reservoir, 4WD backroads all over the place, Dinosaur National Park with us, the ranch, the fire watch tower, and the Sheep Creek Geological Loop to name a few.

The geological loop is interesting just from the car but getting out 
and taking a closer look just takes your breath away.

Tower Rock.
That big old thing is just sticking up there, free-standing.

I'm going to wrap up July with a youth group that came to the ranch to do a civic project.  I gave them saws, lopping shears, pruning shears and rakes and we all went to the spring house and two-seater outhouse and cleared a tremendous amount of overgrowth that was beginning to push on the buildings and displace them.  Let me tell you, these kids and their adult chaperones worked hard.  This part of the ranch hasn't looked like its former self in years.

The outhouse is not yet visible due to brush.
The entrance to the root cellar can be seen in the upper-right corner.
The foot bridge is for crossing Allen Creek, the ranch's sole source of water.

There it is!  The outhouse is getting back to looking like it 
did when the ranch was occupied by the Swetts and their nine children.

Not a slacker in the bunch.  These guys worked hard.

As July comes to a close it is time for a change for us.  The Forest Service is losing some volunteers and some hard choices are having to be made.  It has been decided to close the ranch for the season and move us to the Ute Mountain Fire Watch Tower.