When Rob and I visited UT in 2008, we made it a point to meet with a representative from the Forest Service, Kurtis R, District Ranger of the Fremont River Ranger Division with the sole purpose of expressing our gratitude for the kind, professional, and diligent manner in which the investigation was conducted after Dave’s death. We expressed our wish to remember Dave somewhere in the vicinity and asked for any suggestions he might have.
We drove to the Homestead Overlook where Kurtis explained that a restoration project was underway with the Hwy 12 Committee and interpretive panels would be erected explaining the spectacular view ahead. We pondered whether this could be used to somehow remember Dave being acutely aware that the tone must be appropriate to the setting.
After numerous e-mails with John H, Chairman of the Hwy 12 Committee, everyone agreed that Dave’s Wind Chimes poem was perfect for the sign. This couldn’t have made me happier! Now anyone who views this amazing panorama, will read Dave’s words. (Double click on the photo to enlarge.)
I needed a bit more description of the sweeping vista than the signs could provide with their limited space. So I reached out to Laurel H.; someone who knows the area like the back of her hand and has an amazing knack with words. My simple request of, “I would love to hear if you have any personal impressions about the area.” was met with this amazing portrait of words:
“Homestead Overlook is located in the middle of a grassy meadow on the shoulder of the Aquarius Plateau, aka Boulder Mountain, 9000 ft above sea level. In June the meadow beyond the placard bearing Dave’s poem is a sea of bright yellow dandelion blossoms. I’ve brewed batches of dandelion wine from flowers collected there. In certain seasons, deer and elk can often be seen in these meadows. Above and below, the Overlook is surrounded by stands of quaking aspen, or Populus tremuloides —easy to remember because of how aspen leaves “tremble” in the slightest breeze. And beyond the aspen to the limits of the horizon, there is the desert. As Wallace Stegner describes this landscape: ‘It is lovely and terrible wilderness, such as wilderness as Christ and the prophets went out into; harshly and beautifully colored, broken and worn until its bones are exposed, its great sky without a smudge of taint from Technocracy, and in hidden corners and pockets under its cliffs the sudden poetry of springs.’
From Homestead you can see the flat top of Long Neck mesa, covered with pinon and juniper. Deer Creek flows to the west of Long Neck. Dave’s group camped near Deer Creek and traversed Long Neck west to east. East of Long Neck is Slickrock Canyon, which is separated by a steep ridge from Cottonwood Canyon and Dave’s Cave. This ridge is capped with a white checkerboard of Navajo Sandstone–the stuff on all the postcards from Zion National Park–littered with basalt boulders. Near the cave grows Indian paintbrush, Box Elder and Cottonwood trees, and spicy wild onion.
In the distance to the east of the Henry Mountains loom; they were the last mapped mountain range in the lower 48. On the horizon to the west is the striated face of 50-Mile Mountain, or the Kaiparowits Plateau. It runs from Escalante southwards all the way to the Colorado River and Navajo Mountain, which is in Arizona and clearly visible from Homestead Overlook. On sunrise on clear days, sometimes you can see as far as Monument Valley and the La Sal Mountains near Moab.
‘But those who haven’t the strength or youth to go into it and live can simply sit and look. They can look two hundred miles…they can also look as deeply into themselves as anywhere I know. And if they can’t even get to the places on the Aquarius Plateau where the present roads will carry them, they can simply contemplate the idea, take pleasure in the fact that such a timeless and uncontrolled part of earth is still there.’ – Wallace Stegner:”
Thank you, Laurel, for painting such a beautiful picture in our minds!
Dave’s poetic words echo over the land that he described in his one-and-only journal entry as, “f-n awesome!”
Dave would be a huge fan of Dandelion Tea…the ultimate liver cleanse. I’m sure he would want the whole family to partake! What a beautiful description of such a very special place!