Thompson Springs

The first thing that one notices when they drive through Thompson Springs is the abundance of single-wide trailers and junk. The vacated buildings certainly outnumber the inhabited ones. I was surprised to see one house, probably built in the thirties and hadn't seen a paint-job since, with new curtains in the window and a vase holding a fresh rose.

I drive a long Bogart Avenue, one of the main roads, yet it only lasts a block or two. On one side there are single-wide trailers, one with an old picket fence that is falling down. Other trailers are obviously vacant, the yard and garden and dog-house next to them out of use for years. The opposite side of the road looks like a storage lot for equipment and old vehicles.

The town has certainly seen better days. Honestly, when I came here, I wasn't expecting to find anyone. I was surprised to see a gas station and a handful of dwellings that were inhabited. I knew that a scene from the movie Thelma and Louise was filmed here: the bar scene. I think they may have revamped one of the old cafe's in town.

Thompson has been at the crossroads for some time now. A few miles up the canyon, Ute, Fremont, and Barrier Canyon Indians have left their markings on the rocks. In 1870, E.W. Thompson was the first white man to establish a residence at the springs. The Denver Rio Grand Rail Company built a rail station here in the 1890's, which became a key to Thompson's early success.

The railroad still runs through Thompson, but no longer stops. The rail station was moved twenty-one miles away in Green River. As I cross the tracks on the north side of Main Street, a kid on a custom-built bike with an extended front wheel passes me going the other way. It is a reminder that people actually live here, and the kids have got to find things to do.

Have I said how remote Thompson is? The nearest town is Green River, population 929. Moab is 35 miles to the south, Price is 90 miles to the west-north-west, and Grand Junction is 77 miles to the east. Any civilization to the north in inaccessible.

As I drive down Main Street, I realize that Thompson was a much more thriving place than it is now. I pass a motel, grocery store, cafe, and several houses, all in disrepair and vacated for quite some time. The townsfolk probably have to drive to Moab for groceries now. There is one hotel, or more likely a bed and breakfast, that looks like it has been restored to its former glory.

A small kiosk on the corner provides some useful information on the town. I was about to peruse the sign when the kid on the bike pulls next to me and asks, “Do you want to ride my chopper?”

The first thought that came to my mind: is this town so lonely that you stop strangers on the side of the road and ask them if they want to ride your bike? On the other hand, I was flattered that the thought would even cross his mind. I was far too sore to ride and odd-shaped bike, but it did lead to a good conversation with this fifteen year old kid, Brandon.

He was very excited to tell me all about his bike. “I got the parts from three different bikes. My friend put it together for me.”

“So they call that a chopper?” I asked, feeling a little bit stupid.

“Yeah,” he said, pulling a goat head out of his tire. “I hate these things. I've already had to pump my tire up once today. Check out these new add-ons.” He unscrewed the cap on the stem of his tire and handed it to me. A shiny new skull.

“Nice,” I said, examining it with my fingers. “So, how many people live in Thompson?”

“Twenty-seven.”

The answer was much lower than I expected. Just then, a girl in a white car passed the intersection. (This was the only vehicle to pass during our conversation.) “That's my sister,” he said. “She's a crazy driver. She got up to one hundred and eighty on the highway!”

“Are you related to the whole town?”

“No, but we know everyone.”

“So, where does everyone work,” I asked. “Do they work in the coal mines?”

“No. They work at the gas station.”

Before I left, Brandon asked me if I'd like to take his picture. I was glad to do it. It is a reminder to me of the living aspect of a town that is mostly dead. We shook hands and then he continued on, peddling on his one-speed chopper through ghostly streets.

On my way out of town, I passed the gas station, and as I was about to enter the freeway, I noticed the train coming from the west and about to enter town. I pulled over to look at it. The bright yellow engines moved distinctly across the desert, with the palisades of the Book Cliffs behind them. The horn of the engine blew several times, loud enough for me to hear. The clanking of wheels on the rails thumped swiftly. But I knew that this train would not be stopping at Thompson Springs. No, those day have long been over.   

Thompson and Sego Canyons

From the mouth of Thompson Canyon you can hear the horn of the train and the power of the engine from three miles away. The railroad, which now completely bypasses the little town of Thompson Springs, once was at the heart of Sego Canyon. Until the 1950's, a spur of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad began at Thompson Springs and went up Thompson Canyon and into Sego Canyon where it loaded up on coal from the mines. At that time, Sego was a thriving little town of several hundred people. Now, no one lives in the town of Sego, except for the wild animals and ghosts of the past.

I spent the night in Thompson Canyon, listening to the sounds of the wind and trains. I drove up the canyon soon after first light and was immediately surprised when a small herd of deer crossed the road in front of me, a nice four-point buck with them. This reminded me that I was in big buck country. Absolutely no one was in the canyon that morning, so I didn't hesitate to stop in the road to take pictures.

The buck seemed oblivious that I was there. He was just chasing the doe wherever she went; in and out of the sage brush, up the hill, around the trees, and across the road. This was November, and the rut was well on its way. Several other does were there also, but he only had his eye on the one.

A little further up the canyon I arrived at my first destination. High on the canyon wall, in three separate but proximate locations, are petroglyphs from three different Indian groups: Barrier Canyon, Fremont, and Ute.

The glyphs are very impressive. The Fremont and Barrier Canyon drawings are high enough that a ladder would be needed to create them. Many of the figures are life-sized. Two Fremont figures depict what looks like warriors adorned in war or other ceremonial dress. Several Barrier Canyon figures look like a cross between a ghost and an alien. Wavy lines give the appearance of floating in the air. I wonder if they are depicting spirits of the deceased. It is also interesting that both the Fremont and Barrier Canyon use upside down triangles, or near triangles, to depict the body, even though the two groups never knew each other and lived hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years apart.

Ute.

Fremont. (Notice they are etched over the top of  Barrier Canyon petroglyphs.)

Barrier Canyon Style.

Another interesting observation is the comparison of the three styles of drawing. If this were an art gallery (which it is), and I were to rate the three based on the pleasing of the eye, I would have to rate the Barrier Canyon first, Fremont second, and Ute last. This is ironic because Barrier Canyon is the oldest, and Ute the newest (some of the Ute even depict horses). It is as if something had been lost over time.

Further up the road, the course splits and the right fork leads to Sego Canyon and the ghost town of Sego. The last major relic left standing, the general store, appears majestic, but out of place in this isolated canyon. The roof is gone, the insides are gone, but stone walls, two-stories high, remain standing.

Next to the store are the remains of the collapsed boarding house. The pictures I saw showed an impressive house, two-storied with many windows. I was expecting to find the house still intact. Instead, I found a house completely razed, either by human or natural forces. Much of the roof still retained its original shape. It was as if someone took a gigantic bat and whacked out the middle section, causing the roof to drop to the ground.

Both the store and the boarding house were built around 1910 by the American Fuel Company after they bought the property from Harry Ballard, the original owner. Thus, the name of the town changed from Ballard to Neslin, after Richard Neslin, the general manager of the new company. Five years later, when business wasn't going so well, Neslin was fired, and naturally, the name of the town changed again, this time to Sego, after the sego lily, which abounded in the canyon.

Remnants of a railroad spur have survived in the canyon, primarily at points where it would have crossed the wash. Wooden bridges still stand, fully erect, without the rails. They are reminders of livelier days when enough coal was mined in the canyon to be brought out on trains.

A dugout.

Further up the canyon are several dugouts. The majority of Sego's five hundred residents lived in these modest dwellings carved into the side of the hill.

Much further off the road I found another brick building built into the side of a hill, but this one was much larger than the dugouts. It may have been a storage building. Inside there is nothing but a dirt floor and a square room with ample space to walk around.

My guess is that this dugout was used to store machinery.

The road up Sego Canyon continues another seven miles or so until it hits the Ute Indian Reservation. It is a reminder, once again, that this land was used by another people.

I decided to turn around. On my way down the canyon, two more nice bucks crossed the road in front of me. The bigger one disappeared into the trees, while the other buck stuck around and chased a doe. I watched him as he moseyed down a hill and found a large growth of brush where he raked and scraped his antlers on the branches. At one point I thought he got them stuck in the tangle of branches, but he pulled them out a couple of minutes later.

My final stop was at the cemetery. No ghost town would be complete without one of these. A barbed-wire fence surrounds this picturesque burial ground at the junction of Sego and Thompson Canyons. The majority of the plots are marked, but unidentified. Crude wooden crosses and piles of rock make up most of the grave markers.

This was difficult for me to comprehend. Buried here are men and women and children who lived lives as real as the one you and I are living. They laughed, cried, and hurt. They bore children who continued to bear children and right now live somewhere in this great world. But their descendents may no longer remember them. And if they were to come here, they would never be able to find their ancestor's grave, because nothing is marked. It is as if the inhabitants of Sego never existed.

Some of the dwellers here immigrated from Italy. One of the few marked headstones identifies a Giovanni Ascani, from Frontone, Italy. He died in 1918. A slab of rock identifies he Stortini baby who died in 1926.

Where are the Ascani and Stortini's now? Do they know that their grandparents mined coal in Sego Canyon? Which of the dugouts belonged to them? Or did they have a larger home, that no longer exits? Did they buy goods in the general store? Were they curious about the ghost-like writings painted on the walls in Thompson Canyon? Did they have dealings with the Ute's? Baby Stortini, did he or she die from harsh conditions made worse by isolation?

So many questions on my mind as I drive on down the road toward Thompson Springs.

Graveyard near the confluence of Thompson and Sego Canyons

Moab Trail Marathon

6 November 2014

The last time I trained for a marathon, my wife complained that it consumed too much of my time. When your long runs are eighteen miles long, lasting several hours, then I completely agree with her. This time, I decided to cure the problem by not training at all. She liked that.

It's not by choice, however, that I haven't ran at all for the last month. About two and a half months ago, I strained the ligament that runs directly behind my left knee. I stayed off of it for a couple weeks and I was able to run a half-marathon with no problems. Since then, every time I build up to seven or eight miles, it flares up and gives me problems. When it flares up, if I keep running on it, not only does the ligament hurt, but it causes pain in my entire knee. About a month ago, I decided to stay off of it completely - at least no running.

In two days I will run my very first marathon. (The first marathon I trained for didn't happen because of an injury.) I am scared to death. I have no idea if my strained ligament will flare up again, and my longest run is only thirteen miles.

During the last month, I have done my best to keep my cardio up, but that is difficult when you can't use your legs. Cross-training hasn't worked because it works the same muscles that I need to rest. My typical regimen consists of a mini-cross-fit workout that focuses on arms and stomach, followed by a twenty minute yoga session. I have altered my diet to include a daily breakfast of oatmeal with flax seed, nuts, chia seeds, and bananas. My vitamin pack includes vitamin C, zinc, magnesium, and fish oil.

What I am trying to explain is that I am trying the best to maintain fitness without exercising very much. But this marathon is still daunting. Not only is it a twenty-six mile race, but it is a trail marathon. That means that if I get injured during the race, they can't just haul me out. The sections with access to a road are several miles apart. It also means that it is not all downhill. The race starts and ends at the same point.

If I weren't injured, I would be very excited. The scenery will be beautiful! We'll see how it goes. If the injury flares up in the first few miles, then I'm toast. If it flares up halfway, then I have a fighting chance, but it will be a long day. If I can make it past the up-hill climb at mile 14, then I will be in decent shape.

I leave tomorrow morning for Moab. The race begins in two days. It's hard to say how my injury is feeling, because paranoia can do crazy things to a person, and just today I have felt the injury move from my left knee, to my kidney, to my hip, to my right knee, then to my left calf. Makes sense, huh? But, the great thing about any race is that adrenalin kicks in. Adrenalin can take away pain and make you do things that you never thought possible.

7 November 2014

I am in Moab now, camping in my vehicle at the Drinks Campground on the Colorado River. I am here for the marathon tomorrow and drove over by myself. I picked up my packet at Milts, a local hamburger joint and popular hangout. I arrived at the campground at dusk and spent my first half hour taking pictures. Then I used the gas-stove to cook pasta from a box.

This location is nice. I am just above the water. From here I can hear a patch of white rapids. The rest of the water is placid. Steep walls rise up on both sides of the river. The paradox of this peaceful location is the constant commotion of traffic. For being out in the boonies, the road is very busy. My plan tonight is to read until I'm tired. I brought For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway.

I am excited for tomorrow, and so far, my body feels great.

8 November 2014, 7 a.m.

One hour until start time. I am in the parking lot waiting, next to the Kane Springs Road. I am parked much closer to the starting line than I anticipated. I woke up at 6:00 and left the campground at 6:45. There was fog in the lower valley of Moab.

Here, the sun hasn't yet crept over the horizon, but it is shining on the cliff walls. We are next to the river. People are beginning to arrive. There is music and the MC is announcing time and other information. It is cold. Most people are bundled up in their cars. The full moon is still up. Some people are moving around and stretching.

6:50 p.m.

I am done! Both knees hurt like heck and I am icing them now – twenty minutes on, twenty minutes off. This is by far the most beautiful race I have ever done.

Before starting, I probably felt better than any race I have ever participated in. I think this in large part due to the good sleep I've had all week. I took some sort of sleeping pill every day.

I began roughly at 8:44 in the third wave. The first several miles felt great. We ran up Pritchett Canyon along a jeep trail. Most of it was sand, but there were rocks also. Looking down at the placement of the feet was a necessity most of the time, but I had to look up to see the scenery. During this point, I was passing far more people than passed me. Gaining this extra ground saved my bacon later in the race.

We passed three jeeps along the trail. I don't think they were anticipating a marathon when they planned their trip.

A small arch stood high on the rock wall on the right-hand side of the canyon.

After completing the first major hill at approximately four miles, I could begin to feel two areas of my body tightening up: my right piriformis muscle and my left calf. I am certainly no doctor, so my diagnosis of the piriformis muscle may be a little shaky. Whatever it was, it was in the area of tissue where the top of the leg meets the buttocks.

At 5.6 miles, I welcomed the first aid station and took the chance to stretch the two areas of my leg that were tightening up. The stretches felt good, but once I continued running, I found that I wasn't passing as many people.

We passed a solitary spire and another arch. A deep canyon opened up on our left. One of the runners who passed me commented, “You're running with wings!” The comment caught me off-guard and I thought he meant that I was running fast, which I knew wasn't the case. Then it made sense to me. He read the back of my shirt which had an image of an angel and words to commemorate my daughter, Brittany, who had passed away. He was the first person to say anything about the shirt and I was grateful that someone noticed.

The tightness in my left calf went away, but that in my piriformis muscle continued. My right knee hurt a little bit, and I wondered if blisters were forming on my feet.

At about mile 8, we came to a short, but steep decent toward the road at Kane Creek. One of these descents included a ten foot drop down a crack in the rock. At the bottom, we crossed a little creek and soon came to the aid station.

I refueled with Heed and grabbed some grub from the table. Each station was well furnished with goo, cookies, pretzels, gummy fruit snacks and granola bars. I also refilled my own water bottle.

This aid station was at 9.7 miles. It was here that I first felt the true pain in my left knee. By mile 10, I knew that my injury was back. From this point on, it was never the same.

Here we met the Kane Creek road, and the half-marathoners ran right, and we, left.

Running on a flat-surfaced graveled road was nice. I thought I would have to walk, but slowing my pace was enough to keep me going. People started passing me.

When we turned up Hunter Canyon, it was a different story. This was an out-and-back section where you punch your bib about a mile up the canyon. The trail was constant sand and all up and down. Both were excruciating.

It was on this section that a shirtless guy commented he liked my shirt. When he passed, I saw that his back had “In memory of _________,” tattooed or marked on it.

I managed to make it to the punch and back to the road. After the next aid station at mile 14, we left the road and ran through a tamarisk-filled forest. The pain in my knee had temporarily lessened a bit, but just in time for the big hill.

This is the big climb of the race on a seldom used, old jeep trail. It is called “Scorched Earth Wall.” I knew that it would not be smart to run this hill, and to my surprise, no on else ran it either, with a few exceptions. That meant I wasn't losing time. I don't know how long we walked up this hill, but the road went on forever.

Scorched Earth Wall

By the time we reached the top, we had great views of the Colorado River, the La Sal Mountains and best of all, we were at mile 16.

The next six miles all blend together and they were the most scenic of the entire run. The snow-capped La Sal Mountains peaked out around several corners. Red boulders and hills, juniper trees, with cactus scattered about, just to keep you on your toes. Several ledges provided great views below.

We began to pass bikers as we were sharing their trail. I noticed landmarks such as Captain Ahab's Rock and Hymasa Trail.

The trail was difficult to follow in spots. Red ribbons tied on branches and bushes marked the entire route, and here was no exception. Several times I found myself stopped at a red ribbon, unable to spot the next one. The route seemed to be tortuously crooked.

Near mile 20, a sweeping view of the river comes to sight, and the downhill begins. This section hurt like the dickens. I grunted or groaned with nearly every step. As had been the case since mile 10, people continued to pass me. I walked many small sections of the downhill, and where I didn't walk, it wasn't a very fast run.

At one point, you could probably do a 200 foot dive into the river. A paved road hugged the opposite side of the river. In the far distance we could see the finish line, and hear the announcer on the loud speaker.

At last, we arrived at the finish line, or at least we passed just below it on a sandy path along-side the tamarisk. There is an aid station here and it is mile 23.

For the last three miles, we made a long loop. We crossed a creek, climbed a ladder, and ran beneath the road through a giant culvert. A small tunnel blasted into the rock is brief, but shady. Much of the route is sand, and not very fun to run in.

Although difficult to see, this is the ropes section.

A rope section leads the runners up a precarious ledge. Holding onto the rope was a mandatory. The man assisting at this section asked if I had enough water because, I was "looking kind of staggery.”

The route continued through sand and over rock, and always up and down. Any significant uphill, I always walked. I found, at this stage of the race, that I could walk uphill as fast as most others could run.

We circled back toward the finish line, with only 1 ½ miles to go. I had been in constant pain for the last three hours, but I was proud of myself for still running. Much slower, but still running. Yes, I had walked when the pain was too much to bear, but the walks were always short-lived.

Our big loop connected back with the trail and we came upon the path near the huge culvert and ladder. One small run along the tamarisk jungle, then I climbed up a very steep and sandy hill to the finish line.

The time for my first marathon was 5 hours and 55 minutes. They handed me a finishers mug, and for the next hour, I walked around to cool down and stretched a couple of times. Quickly, my right knee began to hurt and for the rest of the evening, I looked like a crippled old man with two bum knees.

One of the runners, Jeff from Provo, came up and commented on my shirt and asked me questions about my daughter. That gave me the opportunity to talk about Brittany and to meet a new person. His wife and daughter were there and he had ran the half-marathon last year.

Food was in plentiful supply: soup, quesadillas, chips, cookies, and all the usual food from the aid stations.

Despite all the grub, I wanted to drive into Moab and use my five dollar coupon at Milt's. I ordered a double bacon cheeseburger and fries. The line was long because everyone else in the race had a coupon also. My knees did not like the wait. By the time I ordered and received my food, my limp was bigger and the pain more intense.

Then I stopped at the Maverik in Moab and bought two Gatorade's and filled my cooler full if ice. I asked the cashier if he had a couple spare plastic bags that I could use. We found them in the trash can.

I left the food in the bag and drove thirty miles to Thompson Canyon before I ate it. By this time, the sun was down again, and I was alone. I ate the hamburger and fries and they really hit the spot. Then I stepped out of the vehicle and walked around to get blood circulating in my legs. Both legs were stiffening up from the drive and I was know feeling greater soreness in my quads and calves. Cold wind blew and I could feel it seep through my nylon mesh shorts.

I returned to the vehicle, to the back seat now, where the seats were laid down and a long foam mattress laid flat. That is where I sit now. Icing my knees.  Twenty minutes on, twenty minutes off.

I just had to throw this in.