Short Cut

About 5 years ago we visited Bryce Canyon National Park. While Bryce is a stunning place, after a few days there we planned on driving to Page,  AZ to revisit Antelope Slot Canyon. Checking out the Rand McNally Atlas I spotted a shortcut through the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. I could not tell from the map if the shortcut was paved so a scouting trip to the town of Tropic, UT. seemed like a good idea.  We needed some supplies and a side trip to Kodachrome Basin State Park might be fun. Tropic turned out to be one of those picturesque Mormon small towns that are located all over the West. 

Stopping at a ACE hardware store before going on to the State park turned out to be a story all to itself as the older gentleman behind the counter not only knew hardware but turned out to be a wealth of local information and lore.  When I asked him about the short cut, he snickered “google maps?”. Looking into the parking lot at my F250 super duty, 7.3 L diesel, 4X4 he added “that road aint for tourists”. He then went on to tell me about some dumbshit who tried to run the road a few weeks before in a much more off road truck than mine and had to be towed out for a $2000 tow fee.  Ok, guess I am going to drive the long way aroitund.  

When I asked him about Kodachrome Basin State Park, he regaled me with the story about how the Park got its name. In 1948, his father had escorted Gilbert Grosvenor, the president of the National Geographic Society, on a tour of the area. Grosvenor took one look at the basin and named it after a Kodac product.  And this was long before the days of corporate sponsorship, or was it? Then they took Grosvenor to the arch, as the locals called . The arch is a spectacular double sandstone structure towing over 150 feet in air. Grosvenor promptly named it after himself. Sixty years later and the locals are still pissed. And the old man should know as was the great grandson of one Ebenezer Bryce.  Yep, the Bryce who the National Park is named after. Wow, the people you can meet in a hardware store.

Driving out to the State Park we were excited to see the multicolored landscape and a fantastic double arch. Road to the park was not the greatest and it cost us a $7.00 day use fee to get in. It was OK, but a disappointment compared to Bryce Canyon.  The major geological attractions in the park were a series of chimney rock sandstone spires, which are thought to be filled in remains of Jurassic hot springs and geysers. After the surrounding rock eroded it exposed 67 giant penis rocks. These structures are found no place else on earth.  One has to wonder what the park might have been named if Larry Flint had gotten the local tour instead of Grosvenor. Although I am not really into giant dicks, I might have gone on a hike and checked some of these out, except for the beware of rattlesnakes signs. Lucky for me there was one of these we could drive to.  Turns out this was the one prominently displayed in the Sept. 1949 National Geographic Magazine. Even had a plaque in front of the spire showing a picture of it from that issue. I am happy to report that in the 60 years since that publication, the spire has not aged a bit. We had planned to drive to the arch, but I didn’t think my genitals could take another12 miles on the “good part” of the road to get there.  

Now I am a bit of a skeptic.  I liked the story I was told but was it true or just the muddled ramblings of a lonely old man in a hardware store.  Next day while visiting the Bryce park museum we saw a picture of Ebenezer Bryce. Hardware store guy could have been his twin. 

I have been retelling this story for several years but as I am putting this into print, I thought I should check it out in a little more depth.  For $12 I purchased an electronic addition of National Geographic Magazine. Supposedly you can get every issue all the way back to the 1880s. After two hours of trying to navigate the website I finally got to the archive, then spent another 2 hours searching for pictures of bare breasted African women that I fondly remembered from my jr high days.  Okay, so I am juvenile. But those photos were much more educational than the Sears catalog lingerie ads. Finally I found the article I was looking for in the Sept. 1949 issue: “First Motor Sortie into Escalante Land”. I had to page though ads for dictaphones and 16 in. black and white TV which was combined with a radio and a record player in an attractive and modern console for the amazingly low price of only $600. Looked just like the one my father bought.  Then I had to page through accompanying articles on Minnesota, “Minnesota Makes Ideas Pay” and “Power Comes Back to Peiping”. Interesting. Did you know that Spam originated in Austin, MN. That is an idea that we are still paying for to this day. Some people I used to associate with claimed that they love Spam. Not that I distanced myself from them for that reason alone, but when combined with a love of Nutella and Ovaltine… 

The first thing I noticed in the Escalante article was what vehicles they used in their motor sortie: three surplus army jeeps, two 2 wheel drive pickup trucks and a late forties, wood trimmed Pontiac station wagon!  They drove into this hell on earth with a station wagon and I was told 70 years later that my 2001 super duty 4X4 wouldn’t make it? However, the hardware guy may have been trying to make a different point. My truck may have made it, but the driver would not.  It took real heros to drive those vintage machines. No seat belts, metal dashboard, no power anything and cigarette lighters for that final touch of a “I don’t give a shit if I live or die” attitude of our greatest generation. After Omaha beach and Saipan, driving a wood trimmed Pontiac station wagon into a southern Utah wilderness must have seemed like a walk on the boardwalk. Beside most of the members of that sortie were probably Mormons.  Their ancestors had pushed wheelbarrows across the Rocky Mountains to settle in a God forsaken desert which they made into a garden oasis with their sweat and tears.

This brings me to my next revelation.  There were 14 members of the motor sortie.  None were named Bryce and Gilbert Grosvenor’s name was not on the list. So Grosvenor did not name Kodachrome Basin, the expedition members did because of its “astonishing variety of contrasting colors”.  Kodak had no dog in this hunt as the corporation didn’t know about the name until years later when they were asked if it was okay to name the basin after one of its products. Sure was a better name than what it was originally called.  I for one would not have paid $7 to drive though Thorny Pasture State Park no matter how much I love giant penises. As Grosvenor was not there and Skype was not as yet invented, he probably did not name the arch after himself either. Once again the sortie crew named it because they all agreed that Grosvenor “had done more than any other person to arouse public interest in geography”.  They probably also said something about his arousing 14 year old boys interest in female anatomy, but that observation never made it into print.

I am quite sure that the Ace Hardware guy thought he was telling the truth.  His father may have been on the sorte but he was not a Bryce. Although I would have sworn the old man told me his last name was Bryce but,  I might have misremembered. I considered calling up the ACE and trying to talk with him but then why embarrass the old coot. Besides when I went to look up the number it turned out to be a True Value.  Either I had misremembered that detail or he got wind of my story here and quickly changed the name of the store to discredit me. Sneaky Morman bastard. 

Over the years I have had numerous conversations with strangers that Judy and I have become fast friends with for a day or two around campfires.   After a few drinks the stories get a little better as one person tries to up the ante on everyone else. I have met a 300+ plus pound X-Navy seal, a Korean War veteran who claimed he has held captive by the commies in a rat infested pit, and heard about an uncle of a dear friend who took down a Jap recon  plane by hitting the tail fin with his propeller as his guns had jammed. I have met a highly successful businessman who designs and builds most of the floats in the Pasadena Parade of Roses. He was living in his beat up RV at the time, but then who am I to judge. Hillary Clinton once claimed that she was shot at by snipers in Bosnia and Brian Williams falsely claimed his helicopter was hit and forced down by enemy fire in Iraq. We all have a tendency to want to be more than we are, our president being the most obvious and obnoxious example.  It is best just to nod your head and enjoy the tale. Nobody likes a buzzkill. But as a rule of thumb, most people who have done extraordinary things don’t talk about them unless you specifically ask them and then they usually down play their roles. Having said this, the story about the fighter pilot taking down a Jap plane with his propeller is true. He didn’t tell me about it, his niece did.