A Day With Zeus and Phorcys

June 21, 2015

Two Greek gods were present today: Zeus on Zenobia and Phorcys, a god of the hidden dangers of the deep, on the Green River. This was my day off, but I often stay in camp to assist rafters have a safe boat launch. You develop a sense of responsibility for their safety as you advise them about both the awe and dangers of the ever changing river and the requirements for safety equipment.

My day began with three rafting groups each vying for spaces on the boat ramp: one commercial and two private groups. They were all ready to launch sooner than normal so that afforded me more of the day to go do something different on my day off. Go up into the sky I thought...

Zenobia Fire Tower, Dinosaur National Monument

About 12 miles to the south as the crow flies is the highest peak in the area along a ridge of the Uintas called Douglas Mountain. At its 9,022 foot top is Zenobia Peak. Zenobia means "life of Zeus" It’s about 3,400 feet higher than the campground and has a commanding view of the region. Those 12 miles require 28 miles of travel along poor county roads and then about five miles on a very rugged and steep jeep trail across some private land and then into the eastern approach to LoDore Canyon.

It took me about three hours to drive up to the peak and two hours to drive down. You need the padlock code to get through the Park Service gate about four miles below the summit. Frankly, I was surprised I made it all the way to the top in my little, low-slung 1999 Honda CRV all-wheel drive vehicle. Some of the road ruts were wide and 16” deep from the spring rains. Tough little car!

Atop Zenobia Peak is a National Park Service fire tower staffed by one man on ten out of every 14 days. The fire observer makes his frequent trips to and from the tower in an extended cab, 4-wheel drive pickup that the National Park Service provides.

View from Zenobia Fire Tower NE to Hwy 318

Zenobia Basin, West of the Tower draining into Green River, CO

Pot Creek Drainage Area along the Green River (location of fire that started during my trip)

The Road to Zenobia Fire Tower

The next nearest fire tower is about 12 miles to the south and can be seen with binoculars from Zenobia. Each tower is about 35 feet tall and built of heavy timber, is solar powered, and equipped with a weather station and assorted radio and fire spotting gear.

Amazingly, in the short time I was there we spotted a fire to the northwest that had just started and already burned about six acres. Fire fighters were quickly dispatched from several local agencies in the region to contain the fire. Of course, the views from the tower were outstanding. With a 360 degree panorama I could see 40+ miles. I could have seen up to 100 miles (e.g. Steamboat Springs) but for the haze from recent California fires that has drifted into the region. 

I returned to the LoDore Campground by dinner to be greeted by sad news that Phorcys had likely claimed a 34 year old man from Denver that I helped launch onto the Green River only four days ago. He was lost about 12 river miles below the LoDore Campground in Triplet Falls, a Class III rated rapid where another raft party was rescued just last week.

Soon after my arrival National Park Service river rangers, Moffat County Search and Rescue volunteers, and Colorado Parks and Wildlife came to the campground boat launch from their respective headquarters. They risked their lives to go as far downstream as far as they could in the remaining daylight so they could devote tomorrow to recovery of the still missing body.

The Bassetts, Barons and Bandits

Toad Haul Manor Journal – June 18, 2015

Josie Bassett was born four years prior to her more notorious sister Anna M. Bassett. Their parents, Amos Herbert Bassett and Mary Elizabeth Chamberlin Miller, resided in the area known as Brown’s Park (Now Brown’s Park National Wildlife Refuge). Herbert was twenty years older than Elizabeth.

Their parents ran a profitable cattle ranch despite and because of the local outlaws and rustlers in the area. Their cattle grazed widely across the Colorado border into both Wyoming and Utah. The outlaw culture preceded the Bassetts in Brown’s Park by several decades. Fresh beef and horse meat were hot commodities in the mining communities in eastern Colorado.

Similar to Josie, Ann Bassett was educated in a boarding school, was intelligent, articulate and desirable to the many men that called northwest Colorado their home. At heart Josie and Ann both preferred the rustic cowboy life to fineries of the big cities of Denver and Salt Lake City.

If you remember any of the B-grade western movies of your youth the common theme in many were the very real conflicts between sheep herders, homesteaders, rustlers and cattle barons. Several cattle barons unsuccessfully tried to buy out the Bassett ranch and when they failed they started a feud by rustling their cattle. Eventually the cattlemen brought in a killer named Tom Horn, (a hired gunman, army scout, Pinkerton, range detective, cowboy, soldier, and assassin of 17 men.) Horn killed several area rustlers but never bothered the Bassetts.

In about 1896 the relationships of both the Bassett daughters got a wee complicated. Josie Bassett was seeing an Elzy Lay, Butch Cassidy’s best friend and liked Butch since a young age. Ann was seeing Ben Kilpatrick. When Butch Cassidy was released from an eighteen-month prison sentence Ann Bassett turned her affections to Butch and Elzy stopped seeing Josie in favor of a Maude Davis, his future wife. Josie then started in with a Will “News” Carver. No matter the intricacies of the changing affections the sisters and the gang all got along and the sisters acquired a degree of protection from Butch and all his gang in dealing with conflicts with the cattle barons.

In early 1897 both Ann and Josie became two of the five women occupants of the infamous Robbers Roost hideout. Some Pinkerton reports and subsequent photographic analysis done at Las Alamos indicates that Ann was actually operating under the alias of Etta Place but Etta was also known to have been the Sundance Kid’s girlfriend!

By April of that year both sisters were sent home from Robbers Roost so that Butch could finalize plans for their next big heist. Butch and Sundance both fled to South America in 1901 to avoid the law that allegedly caught up with them in 1908.

Time moved on and by 1903, Ann Bassett married Henry Bernard. That marriage lasted six years, but her husband stayed to help both the Bassett women maintain their respective ranches. By 1904, nearly all the outlaws that associated with the Bassetts through the years were either in jail or dead. Ann was repeatedly accused by the cattlemen’s associations of rustling, but neither she nor Josie was ever convicted.

Twenty-four years later Ann married for the second time to a cattleman named Frank Willis. Ann stayed at their Wyoming ranch until her death at the age of 77 in 1963. She died having acquired the reputation of Queen Ann of the Rustlers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Tom_Horn

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_Cassidy%27s_Wild_Bunch

http://mentalfloss.com/article/51368/mystery-ann-bassett-and-etta-place

Ann Bassett's Cabin in Brown's Hole

Butch Cassidy Front right) and Sundance Kid (Front Left)

Ann Bassett

A Band of Thieves and the Bassett Sisters

Toad Haul Manor Journal – June 17, 2015

After John Wesley Powell and George Leroy Parker, possibly the third and fourth most famous persons from northwest Colorado were Anna (“Queen of the Rustlers”) Bassett and her sister, Josephine Bassett Morris, or Josie to her friends. Josie is best known for living a long life as an independent pioneer woman. She came from Arkansas to Brown’s Park north of what is now Dinosaur National Monument. She didn’t have the typical upbringing of her fellow settlers in the valley. Her parents had the largest library in the region. Originally home-schooled, she was later sent to Salt Lake City, not to a Mormon school, but to St. Mary’s of the Wasatch to be taught by Catholic nuns. There she learned the social graces. Sadly she had to return to Brown’s Park when her mother died.

That important schooling put her on the most desirable list in a region of few women and a surplus of men. Having her choice of suitors she showed some favor to a young George Leroy Parker, better known to us as Butch Cassidy. However, he was one disinclined to settle into the life of a farmer/rancher. Even so she spoke highly of Butch throughout her life and generally thought that the region’s outlaws and rustlers weren't much different than her contemporaries, they just chose to do their “business” in a more public fashion. Being an outlaw was OK with Josie as long as one didn’t steal a horse or kill anybody. With that attitude she was repeatedly accused of being a rustler herself, but in every court case she was exonerated.

By 1914 when she was only 40 years old Josie had churned her way through five (5) husbands, bore two children, and decided to move out of Brown’s Park to an area called Cub Creek within the current boundary of Dinosaur National Monument.

The site was adjacent to a natural box canyon (see photo). It’s a pretty and secluded spot maintained by the National Park Service with its own natural spring that once fed several gardens. She raised cattle and kept hogs in the canyon. Trees have since taken over the canyon, but a small hiking trail leads up to the end of the canyon. In the nearby meadow she grew field corn, alfalfa, potatoes, onions, radishes, and grapes.

Her solitude was idyllic and she was able to socialize as needed by ride her horse to the town of Jensen, Utah. She’d also drive her buckboard to town about every 10 days to acquire what she couldn’t grow for herself in extensive gardens fed by a local spring. Pictures provided below show the present state of the rustic cabin some 98 years after its construction. She lived there 47 years and was active until age 90 when a horse knocked her to the ground and broke her hip. It took several days for someone to come to her rescue and take her to a hospital. While recovering, she fell and again broke the hip again causing her to be sent all the way to Salt Lake City for treatment. She wanted to convalesce at home but before that became possible she died and was subsequently buried in the Bassett family plot in brown’s Park.

Josie’s rugged life and pioneer spirit along with her association with known rustlers and bandits led to her life being chronicled in Life Magazine in 1948.

The story of Josie’s notorious sister, Queen Ann, is best left for another day.

Lizard Sighting

June 6, 2015

The other day I was fortunate to capture a picture of this odd looking lizard outside a building? I’ve never seen this one before. Can anyone help me identify it? It looked very fast and about 2’ long from nose to tail.

What is this?

Vermillion Falls: Sand Slurry and Stingers

Toad Haul Manor Journal – June 4, 2015

Rain in northwestern Colorado is low and infrequent. Most rain arrives in May concurrent with the snowpack melt from the Uinta Mountain range. Between the LoDore Campground and Flaming Gorge Reservoir to the north the Green River is fed by numerous small drainages plus several seasonal creeks including the Vermillion.

Summer comes quickly after the rains cease. Until then whenever it rains the Green River turns brown carrying with it enormous quantities of sand from the adjoining hills. Now that the river level has dropped, the once clean concrete boat ramp at the campground is now covered in 18”of sand deposits.

There’s a nearby river gauge at Vermillion Falls where the abrasive contents cascade over a twenty foot high escarpment before entering the Green River just above the campground.

Most of the eroded sand washed are flat and become dry or desert marshes during the dry season and, as such, very quickly become breeding beds for voracious mosquitoes that are presently inundating the campground. It has been in the 80’s for four straight days. This is making mowing and raft launches difficult. Yesterday while mowing a service road adjacent to the marshy draw it became quite uncomfortable. I had a swirling cloud of mosquitoes around my head constantly dive-bombing my eyes and ears. Time to order a mosquito head net!

At today’s morning raft launch my green pants legs were literally covered with mosquitoes that couldn’t penetrate the fabric. My special long-sleeve also prevented pointed proboscis problems. Thankfully, once the rafters enter the Gates of LoDore Canyon the mosquitoes greatly dissipate due to lack of suitable habitat and steady river canyon breezes.

Saturday, June 6th is the 146th anniversary of explorer John Wesley Powell’s first Green River expedition camping at our location before entering the Gates Of LoDore to chart the Colorado River basin. We’re having a simple ceremony the next day including an interpretive Ranger’s talk about the importance to western expansion of this brave and deadly journey.