Aquarius Plateau
Personal Notes
This page contains notes on our personal experiences on and around the Aquarius Plateau.
Tuesday, September 7, 2004
2004 Canyon Country Tour
2:37 p.m.
We left Anasazi State Park and headed north out of Boulder, up onto Boulder Mountain.
2:49 p.m.
We spotted a mule deer.
2:54 p.m.
We stopped at the first overview on Boulder Mountain, coming in from the south. There was a slight haze in the distance that made good photography difficult. But I was able to point out a few features, as well as the Henry Mountains, now to the east of us.
2:56 p.m.
We stopped at the Homestead Overlook where there is a memorial noting the dedication of Highway 12 as the Clem H. Church Memorial Highway. Apparently Clem was head of the Utah Highway Department at one time.
3:05 p.m.
We stopped at the Steep Creek Overview. The elevation is 9,320 feet. The highest point we passed over was about 9,400 feet.
3:12 p.m.
We had to stop for road construction. It appears that they are doing chip sealing and oiling of the roads. They stopped us just after we passed the high point and started down.
3:23 p.m.
They led us through. The air is cool, breezy, and mostly clear.
3:37 p.m.
We stopped briefly at the Larb Hollow Overlook to get a good glimpse of Capitol Reef National Park and the Waterpocket Fold, as well as all of the surrounding spectacular landscape. Then we drove on down to the junction with Highway 24 and turned west.
April 22, 2000
Barker Reservoir
I first visited the Aquarius Plateau and Boulder Mountain in the summer of 1971. I was working as a field assistant with a geology professor from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. We were studying rock glaciers, the prominent reddish-brown to gray rock flows emanating from the volcanic cap on top of the plateau. During the weeks that we were there we camped at Barker Reservoir, a makeshift camp down in Main Canyon, and near a ranger shack on the shoulder of Boulder Mountain.
Barker Reservoir, at that time, was mostly undeveloped. There was just a wide, flat spot in the road near the reservoir. We set up a popup trailer for the professor and a variety of tents for those of us working and visiting the area. We devised a covered kitchen area between two aspen. There was a large, weathered picnic table and a fairly new outhouse. The spring weather was wonderful, and we were there to see the aspen buds open. Of course, that made for some stickiness from the sap, but the site was wonderful.
One of my favorite memories was the cold stream that flowed near our camp from the overflow of the reservoir. We used metal milk crates anchored in the stream to keep our wine and beer and other drinks icy cold.
There were trout in the lake and a variety of wild critters which visited our site at night. Among those we "escorted" a skunk from our kitchen area, and saw many rodent tracks around our tents and camp. There were probably deer, but I don't recollect seeing any. We did see a silver fox and several coyotes, and believe we saw a brown bear dash across the road up on Barney Top. On the rock glaciers we heard many, and spotted several, Rock Conies, or Pica. And, of course, there were always the golden eagles, ravens, and swallows visible in the clear blue skies overhead.
In 1998 Anne and I went back to visit the Barker Reservoir camp. As you might guess, the vegetation had grown considerably. The stand of aspen around our meadow had filled in and matured. The two aspen that we used for our camp kitchen had almost grown together. The old picnic table was gone. And the reservoir was surrounded by small aspen saplings, almost hiding it from view. Also, the jeep trail that had gone farther up toward Barney Top is now closed off by a wooden rail fence. A hiking trail has replaced the road. But the little cold running stream is still there, as well as a new, modern out house.
August 2, 1997
Barney Top and Table Cliff Plateau
We had our trailer at Bryce Canyon Pines near Bryce Canyon and went out from there to explore the region. On this day we drove up State Route 22 to Pine Lake. From there we took dirt roads up to Table Cliff Plateau and Barney Top. We intended to hike to Powell Point, but were unsure of which road would take us there. We ended up viewing some spectacular sights from Barney Top, explored several rock glaciers, and fund the meadow where I camped with Jack and Collin back in 1971. Anne and I hiked across the meadow and found a wide bowl of rock glaciers and a trail down to Widtsoe Junction. We ate lunch on the glacier, under our space blanket, because a light rain began to fall. During the hike Anne re-injured her ankle, which she hard injured on an earlier hike. While we were there Anne spotted a Rock Coney (pica).
In the meadow, we found several obsidian flakes left when primitive hunters had made spear points in the area. After reaching the Trooper we drove on to the north, down an unnerving set of switchbacks. We then took the Main Canyon Road down toward Escalante. The road had had very heavy rain and some flooding. Where the flood waters had washed across the road it was still quite wet. We drove back to our trailer on Highway 12.
