Canyonlands

22  March 2024

Five minutes after setting off, I develop a severe case of sensory overload on Highway 128 as it follows the course of the Colorado River east, towards Castle Valley. Towering red cliffs reflect off the near-still river waters and I keep stopping to take photographs, failing miserably each time to capture the impact.

Following the Loop Road as advised, it flows towards the town of the same name then signs direct me up a steep road my Satnav doesn’t even know exists.

The surface is poor and broken in places, getting worse as I go up beyond the tree line where snow is piled up by the side of the road. But the views from the top…well, they leave you rendered speechless and these photographs again just don’t do the spectacle justice.

I’m not surprised, as I only know of one photographer who has managed to capture the emotional wallop of the Great American Landscape. That’s Ansel Adams, nearly 100 years ago and working exclusively in black and white. Take a look at his images of Yosemite and you’ll see what I mean.

It’s a long detour and the forty miles or so takes two hours, including frequent stops, so I need sustenance. There is a curiosity on the road between Moab and Monticello I’d spotted yesterday that is the first place I come to.

The ‘Hole n’the Rock’ is a 5,000-square-foot home that serves as a memorial to its builders, Albert and Gladys Christensen. Onsite also is an outdoor museum of various artefacts celebrating the early days of motoring, a convenience store, a petting zoo and a piece of modern sculpture that would be quite at home next to the Cathedral of Junk in Austin. All of this makes for an unusual commercial concept, to put it mildly..

It began taking shape almost a century ago. What began as a small alcove for the young Christensen boys to sleep in at night grew into a proper home including a fireplace with a 65-foot chimney. Comprising 14 rooms arranged around huge pillars and a deep bathtub built into the rock, the original furnishings along with Albert’s paintings and Gladys’s doll collection are on display.

Over a 12-year period, Albert excavated 50,000 cubic feet of sandstone from the rock, finding time also to complete his painting of ‘Sermon on the Mount’ (not my cup of tea…) and his sculpture of Franklin D. Roosevelt on the face of the rock above his home.

When Albert died in 1957, the home was not complete but Gladys, in keeping with his wishes and lifelong dreams, continued to develop the property, opening a gift shop and giving tours of her home until she died in 1974. Gladys is buried next to Albert in a small cove within the rock near the home.

Highway 191 South is almost deserted and the 60 or so miles for the turn west and the Needles viewpoint is achieved in well under an hour. The Needles is a 46-mile round trip from the main highway. Getting to these wonders is not for the faint-hearted. But my god, it’s worth it.

Words and pictures simply cannot communicate the scale but I’ll have a go: in the photograph below, taken with a short telephoto lens (135mm equivalent, for those that know of such matters), just to the right of the centre of the three ‘needles’, there is a speck, 2000-feet below. That’s a car and I only know this as I spotted it through binoculars.

The majesty of it all is humbling and to think I haven’t seen the Grand Canyon yet, which is 6000-feet at it’s deepest point.

So I ride gently towards Blanding for the night, trying to take in all that I’ve seen today.

The Prospector Motor Lodge looks a bit ramshackle but, like The Virginian Inn in Moab the day before, these mid-20th century motels are a nice throwback to simpler times. The other guests (at least in Moab, in Blanding I’m the sole visitor) were a mix of outdoorsy-looking nuclear families on spring breaks, and wildmen-of-the-woods types doing things with quad bikes or giant off-road SUVs.

Blanding only has a couple of restaurants but the Homestead Steakhouse sounds just fine. So I settle in and ask for the wine list. There isn’t one. The town is on an Indian Reservation so is dry. I have an 0% Apple Cider instead and a really good cheeseburger and salad. And then I’m back, contemplating the period, wood-paneling of my room, by 20:00.

Out of curiosity, I research Tuba City, my next night stop, and learn that this too is dry. And violent. It also has only one restaurant and it’s reportedly awful. While my sympathy for the plight of the native American Indians is genuine and I respect their culture and beliefs,  there are limits.

So I do what any hypocritical pseudo-liberal would do: cancel the Navaroland Motel thus starving the Navaro of some much-needed income and get myself a pricey room at the 4-star Grand Canyon Plaza in Tusayen instead.