Colorado Plateau Workshop

The Saga of the Utah Trek

Attendees:

Sean Brady
Andrew Carroll
Michael Carroll
Dr. Dan Durda
Paul Hoffman
John Kauffman
Erika McGinnis
Sandon McGinnis
Jon Ramer
Anil Rao
Judy Riviere
Betsy Smith
Aldo Spadoni
Kara Szathmary
Ursa Szathmary

Arrival Day - the Gathering of the Tribe - June 1, 2008, Sunday

Sean Brady had already arrived in Las Vegas NV from Loch Lomond, Scotland UK, the night before by the time Judy Riviere and Kara Szathmary boarded our flight from Panama City FL to a connecting flight through Atlanta GA. Jon Ramer, our workshop coordinator, of San Pedro CA and Aldo Spadoni of Rancho Palos Verdes CA were packing the rented IAAA van in Los Angeles with art supplies, food and water as they readied to drive east to fetch artist workshop arrives Paul Hoffman, Ewing NJ, and John Kaufman, St Charles MO at the Las Vegas International Airport around 2 PM local time.

Erika McGinnis and husband Sandon were already on route from their home in Boise ID, by the time Ursa Szathmary, Kara's daughter, arrived in LV by 11 AM from Ottawa ON, Canada. It was her second Utah workshop, the first since the 1989 Moab Arches IAAA-Soviet Cosmic Group encounter. Within a couple of hours Betsy Smith would be arriving from Hancock NH to pick up her rented car and head off to Slot Canyon Inn our home for the duration of the workshop in Escalante UT, some 300 miles northeast from Las Vegas. Kara and Judy too would be arriving around 1 PM to pick up their rented car, and Ursa to head off to Utah following a similar route. Jon and Aldo would arrive around 2 PM to pick up Paul, Sean and John who would be waiting for them at the Las Vegas airport.

Kara's travel:

After picking up our rented vehicle just before 2 PM, we went out to pick up some water and food supplies for our week's stay. Before leaving Las Vegas, I made a quick call to Jon's cell phone to verify that we had arrived safely and that we were heading off to Slot Canyon Inn in Utah. I also wanted to verify that he and Aldo were on track to arrive safely to the airport for their rendezvous to pick up our artist waiting for their ride. They were still some 45 minutes away to the west. Rather than wait and proceed as a convoy, I informed Jon that we would move out head and would meet that evening at out lodging.

We stopped in St George UT just inside Utah in the southwest corner of the Utah- Arizona state line for a quick supper about 5:30 PM. At Cedar City some 50+ miles to the north, with maybe a couple of hours of sunlight left, Judy suggested to take highway #14 from this town through the Dixie National Forest and an altitude of 10,000 feet to follow a much shorter route north of Zion National Park to our destination, rather than taking highway #20 another 45 miles to the north. As it turned out this was a tremendous rout... snow along the tree edges and within the forest. Too numerous deer to keep count of fed along the route into the waning evening hours only to be punctuated by a massive elk standing in the middle of our road well after sundown with twilight and deep mountain shadows shrouding our route.

We emerged at Long Valley onto highway #89 and headed north to Red Canyon to take highway #12 east to Escalante. We arrived around 9 PM in darkness at Slot Canyon Inn after having left Las Vegas around 3 PM. The entrance to Slot Canyon Inn wasn't at all marked nor clear after the 54 mile marker so a couple of errors were made finding route in. First we took a dirt road off the highway to our left which took us up along a boulder strewn windy route that overlooked what appeared to be our possible destination. Turning around wasn't so easy, but it did offer the only way back down into the valley and get back onto the highway to find another entrance closer to the town of Escalante. The next dirt road to our left was sealed off with a closed gate. Meanwhile we saw another set of headlights up on the ridge that we had parted earlier, saw them turn around and vanish into the darkness on their descent. Ursa eventually suggested trying a narrower dirt road off the dirt road that originally had taken us up and into a dark and windy mountainous canyon pathway to find the entrance way to the Inn. Following her hunch lead to our arrival at the Inn and my astonishment to find Jon and Aldo already there with the IAAA van, especially since we left before they did from the Las Vegas airport. Even Betsy Smith had arrived moments before we did. Presumably it was her car's head lights we had seen off in the distance in the hills where we too turned around.

Jon greeted me with a beer and then after making the introductions Aldo appeared who helped us unload the car. Later after checking into our Hole-in-the-Rock rooms where we met our roommate Betsy Smith, my Nicaragua and Death Valley III artist workshop cohort, we reconvened in the dining room to share our travel stories et cetera when Paul Hoffman, Sean Brady and John Kauffman came in. It was great to see Paul again since Death Valley III and to finally meet Sean and John. I was later informed that Mikey Carroll and son Andrew would be delayed from Littleton CO as his car had blown a fan belt. He would be arriving later the next day with Dr Dan Durda and Anil Rao both from Boulder, CO. I was very surprised and disappointed to learn that both Sam Dietz and April Faries had cancelled within a month of the workshop as now I would have to decide with the board whether the IAAA would be in the position to pick up the costs of their rooms since Jon had rented the whole Inn for our workshop assembly. We all chatted up a storm of conversations until around midnight before we ventured outside to see the dark desert night sky in all its full glory where we collectively decided to call it a night to rest up for our launch to our Day One scouting trek to Capital Reef National Park, another 80 miles to the east.

Next: Day 1

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