Lake Tahoe Trip: Ponderosa Ranch (Part I)

5 July 1984

On February 14, 1844, Captain John C. Fremont, aided by famed scout Kit Carson, became the first white man to discover Lake Tahoe.  Tahoe is an Indian word meaning “big water.”  History records that for 1500 years before Fremont, many Indian tribes used the shores of Tahoe as a summer retreat to escape the heat of the valleys below.  Taking a page out of their book, we headed to Lake Tahoe for the 4th of July holiday.

After a long day’s drive and an overnight stay in a Motel 8 (with vibrating beds no less), we arrived in Carson City, Nevada on July 4.  After settling into our hotel, we drove around the lake, stopping at scenic overlooks to enjoy the views.  Our photos from the drive show just glimpses of Lake Tahoe visible through the trees; certainly nothing worth scanning for the blog.  We also visited Vikingsholm, a massive stone castle built in the 1920s on the California side of the lake.  No decent photos from that stop either, so I’ll just skip along to the second day of our trip.

608 miles (973 km) and a 9-hour drive brought us from Kaysville to Carson City.
(red lines in the inset show our side trips to the Ponderosa Ranch and Virginia city.)

Bring up the name Cartwright, and the first image that will pop into the minds of most people is probably of the actors who portrayed the men — Ben, Adam, Hoss, and Little Joe — on the long-running TV show, Bonanza.  The next image will probably be of the map that bursts into flame at the beginning of each of the TV episodes, accompanied by the well-known theme song (click here if you need to refresh your memory).

Left to Right: Pernell Roberts (Adam); Michael Landon (Little Joe);
Lorne Greene (Ben); and Dan Blocker (Hoss).

The idea for the burning map originated with an unsung artist in the
Hollywood studio where the pilot for Bonanza was filmed.

Well, we spent our day at Ponderosa Ranch, or more specifically, at the “western theme ranch” developed on the set where some of the scenes for the show were filmed.  Our day started out with a horseback ride that culminated with a chuckwagon breakfast at a spot overlooking Lake Tahoe.  Following our ride back to the stables, we wandered around the old west town that was supposed to be a replica of Virginia City, and toured the Cartwright ranch house.  Yes, it was all very touristy, but we had fun nonetheless.

Here’s part I — our horseback ride into the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  (Mui rode Button and I rode My Sweetie … both were perfectly suited for novice riders.)

 

Aylin Graduates from High School

Summer 1984

Timpanogos Cave National Monument

17 June 1984

Most caves we’ve visited have been easy to get to.  That wasn’t the case with Timpanogos Cave National Monument.  If you want to visit the series of three-caves that are connected by man-made tunnels, you first have to climb a steep, winding trail that goes up a wall of the American Fork Canyon.  Over a course of 1.5 miles (2.4 km), the trail rises 1,066 feet (325 meters).  In other words, if you want to visit the cave, you have to put some effort into it!  I’m not sure which took a worse toll on our legs, going up or coming down the trail.

IT’s 54 miles from our house to Timpanogos Cave NM.

The caves are named for the second highest mountain in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains.  The word Timpanogos comes from the Timpanogots Ute tribe who lived in the surrounding valleys from AD 1400. The name translates as rock (tumpi-), and water mouth or canyon (panogos).

The trail winds up a steep canyon wall. 
[collage from a brochure page and a map found on Utah.com]

We paid our tour fees at the visitor center on the canyon floor, bought a 25¢ brochure to help us understand what we would be seeing on our way up to the cave, and started hiking.

Here are a few pages scanned from the brochure:

If this page is to be believed, we passed old ocean beaches on our way up.

This cross-section shows the v-shape of the canyon, which indicates that in
geologic terms the canyon is young.  The caves are in a strata of deseret limestone,
dated to the Mississippian period; that’s about 360 to 325 million years ago.

This schematic shows the trail inside the cave system.  Once our tour is
over, we’ll follow the trail at the top to go back down to the canyon floor.

Though the elevation gain was initially easy, it became considerably steeper further up.  Luckily, we had plenty of time before our tour and could take our time and rest along the way.

A glimpse of the Salt Lake Valley from the trail to the cave.

Middle Cave was discovered in 1921.

Scenes from Middle Cave.

The “Great Heart of Timpanogos”
this is a 5½-foot (1.7 m) stalactite that weighs 4,000 pounds (1,800 kg).

Can you find the “Ballerina” amongst the plugged-up soda-straw stalactites?

Memorial Day Weekend Trip: Around Vernal

26-27 May 1984

While visiting Dinosaur Land, we made a few other stops at points of interest in the area.

Split Mountain Gorge was so named because the river that flows through
here makes it appear as though the mountain has been split down the middle.

Remember the Maine Tribute
Located just outside Measer, the tribute was painted to honor the USS Maine. 
The sinking of the ship began the spanish-American war.  The US flag and the words
are about 100 feet (30 M) up the side of a canyon wall.

Red Fleet Reservoir is north of Vernal.

Memorial Day Weekend Trip: Dinosaur National Monument

26 May 1984

Dinosaur National Monument is the legacy of rivers past and present. Here, preserved in the sands of an ancient river, is a time capsule from the world of dinosaurs. The monument spans 200,000 acres (800 km sq) in Utah and Colorado. Our visit took us to to the Douglass Quarry, named for the paleontologist who discovered the fossil beds in 1909.

Dinosaur NM Map with the Douglass Quarry area circled.
[scanned from the national park Service Brochure]

Here’s a bit of information I noted in my photo album (sorry; I neglected to indicate the source):

The Age of Dinosaurs is but a very brief chapter in a long story, and only a paragraph about the dinosaurs themselves is written in the rocks here. Approximately 145 million years ago, about midpoint in dinosaur history, a suitable habitat for dinosaurs developed here. It became the home of dinosaurs such as Diplodocus, Stegosaurus, other vegetarians, and carnivores as well. As these animals lived and died, most of their skeletons decayed without a trace, but in at least one spot, river floodwaters washed a great number of carcasses and bones onto a sandbar. This layer itself was not very thick, but sediments piled on top of it as the sea fluctuated.

The dinosaur wall within the quarry building is a steeply tilted (67° from horizontal)
rock layer, which contains hundreds of dinosaur fossils.
[scanned from the cover of Dinosaur … The story behind the scenery]

When the Rocky Mountains began to rise to the east, this area was squeezed from the sides, sometimes cracking and shifting along fault lines. Rain, frost, wind, and gravity slowly wore away the uppermost strata, exposing the older rocks beneath.

Though many explorers preceded him, it was Earl Douglass, a paleontologist from Carnegie Museum in Pennsylvania, who first took a close look at what was weathering on the surface of the rocks. On August 17, 1909, he wrote in his diary: “At last in the top ledge … I saw eight of the tail bones of a Brontosaurus in exact position. It was a beautiful sight.” The quarry was designated a national monument in 1915.

[scanned from Dinosaur … The story behind the scenery]

Welcome to Dinosaur National Monument.

No dinosaurs were harmed on our hunting trip!

I’d like to think that these are the “eight of the tail bones of a Brontosaurus”
that Douglass discovered.

diamonds in the rough
skull and approx. two dozen bones of a Camarasaurus Lentus.

Left: Compared to the thigh bone of an Apotasaurus,
the Diplodocus had a slightly more slender thigh bone.

Right: We’re knee-high to these giants — thigh bone of a Diplodocus.

A rare specimen – reproduction of a juvenile Stegosaurus.
One of two in the world, this is the more complete of the two specimens.

The Douglass Quarry Exhibit Hall, which was closed in 2006 due to concerns over the instability of the building, is scheduled to open in October 2011. That’s good news since this is a place we most definitely want to return to someday.

Memorial Day Weekend Trip: Dinosaur Gardens

26 May 1984

Over Memorial Day weekend, we accepted an invitation from Dinah, the Dinosaur, to visit Dinosaur Land and “enjoy friendly western hospitality in a land of breathtaking beauty.”

Dinah is the ambassador for Dinosaur Land.

we drove nearly 450 miles (720 km) roundtrip to visit with dinosaurs.

We based ourselves in Vernal, Utah and visited nearby attractions, starting with the Dinosaur Gardens in town — sort of a primer for the real thing, which was on our agenda for later in the day.  The full-size dinosaurs, sculpted by Elbert Porter over a period of 14 years, are part of the Utah Field House of Natural History State Park Museum.

At close to 80 feet (24 m) Diplodocus was the longest dinosaur.  It weighed 12-13 tons.

Diplodocus lived at the end of the Jurassic Period.  with its classic dinosaur shape,
long neck and tail, and four sturdy legs, it is one of the easily identifiable dinosaurs.

This 76-foot (23 m) Diplodocus replica was cast from fossil bones
found near Conco Bluffs, Wyoming.

Pteranodon (winged-toothless) had a wing span of 23-30 feet (7-9 m).  It was the
largest flying reptile.  Covered in fur, it may have been warm-blooded.

Triceratops was the largest of the horned dinosaurs.  about
30 feet (9 m) long, It was one of the last to go extinct.

Ornithomimus was a hollow-boned dinosaur referred to as the “ostrich dinosaur.” 
14 feet (4 m) in length, it stood 7-8 feet (2-2½ m) tall.

The woolly mammoth was found on all the continents except South America. 
It stood 14 feet (4 m) tall at the shoulder.

Tyrannosaurus Rex was a Jurassic dinosaur that was 18-20 feet (5½-6 m) tall,
50 feet (15 m) long, and weighed 8-15 tons.

T-Rex, the most powerful carnivore to walk the earth,  was the largest
and among the most highly evolved of all the carnivorous dinosaurs.
it’s dagger-like teeth were over 6 inches (15 cm) in length.

We survived our encounter with T-Rex and his friends and lived to tell the story of our day.