Kolob Finger Canyons by Cassidy LarsonOn Monday, the 4th of July, about eight miles away from where I was (as the crow flies -- well over 30 miles away by motorized vehicle), just outside of Zion National Park, my friend and co-worker (not cow-orker) Cassidy Larson was hiking and taking pictures. (Check out Cassidy's Photo 'Blog where he posted a few of his photos.)

Unbeknownst, eight miles away from Cassidy and Matt, on Kolob in Zion National Park south of Pocket Mesa near where my maternal grandmother was born, I too was among the Ponderosa pine trees and moutain meadows and taking pictures, as well as picnicking with family (some of my aunts and an uncle on my mother's side).

Sego lilies were blooming in the mountain meadows atop Kolob in Zion National ParkWe picnicked just off the red-cinder-paved road at one of the several parking pull-outs along the road, beneath the shade of a small stand of Ponderosa pines, not far from the trailhead of Wildcat Canyon Trail. It was pleasant and fun, chatting and visiting with aunts and one of my uncles, and with cousins.

We talked about years ago when this part of Kolob was not part of Zion National Park, when the first part of Wildcat Canyon Trail was a dirt road. I remembered coming up and camping somewhere below Pocket Mesa as a child, and hiking with my grandmother when she showed us where her family's old summer homestead was, where she was born.

For over a year I've been wanting to find where that was. My memory isn't very good, so I wanted to pick the brains of my aunts and uncles. Last year my brother Kendall and I hiked about a mile down Wildcat Canyon Trail, me trying to recall the childhood memory vividly enough to find the places. But it was cold, the sun was setting, so we turned around and headed back for the vehicle.

On a weekend in June, I convinced my folks to drive up and have a quick picnic on Kolob near the trailhead. We did so, but had to rush back down off the mountain because of previously scheduled activities. We talked then about how fun it would be to come hiking with my mother and her brothers and sisters who could make it and see some of the sites from my grandmother's past.

Apparently my mother decided that this was a good idea and organized the Independence Day picnic and hike. I'm glad it worked out. It was fun.

The hike was stunningly beautiful. South of Pocket Mesa (the mesa where the "ice cave" is located -- really just a dark crack deep into the standstone where water would freeze during the winter and often blocks or chunks of ice would remain frozen into the late spring or early summer, perhaps even longer) where a little stream of water bubbled along beneath another stand of Ponderosa pine trees, the ground was carpeted with ferns, in sharp contrast to the drier grass-and-sagebrush meadows in nearby clearings. The ferns I recalled vividly from my childhood.

We explored the areas, talking about what we recalled. Unfortunately, we were separated earlier on the trail from my aunt Marilyn (she was one of the first hikers to head out along the trail while many of the rest of us waited for the slower children and for my parents, my dad hiking with a walking stick since his back surgery last year), so we missed her input and memories.

We spread out, and searched, staying within sight of one another and within earshot. My brother Kendall and I had our G.P.S. receivers with us to mark any points of interest we found.

I came across a spot with some wire fencing, and what looked like old, decaying stacks of fence posts, as well as a few old, mostly-decayed wide, thick sawed boards. The few rusted nails in the boards, however, looked very modern to my inexperienced eyes to have dated from circa 1910 when my grandmother was born, but I could be wrong.

Nearby, I found a pile of old trash, glass bottles and almost completely rusted tin cans. There were 4/5 quart bottles (were they alcohol bottles, perhaps from a hunting camp, perhaps?), and pieces of brown glass Clorox bleach bottles. The only rusted tin can that had anything legible on it at all said something about engine oil or some such.

I also found at the base of a Ponderosa a completely rusted rectangular item that I couldn't identify at first. It looked like a mass of short cylinders with smaller cylinders at the top in the middle. Then I realized that they were totally rusted out gun shells of some sort, perhaps shotgun shells. Only the primer caps (the smaller cylinders at the top) were even slightly intact. The whole mess was mushy, muddy and wet.

I recorded GPS coordinates of everything interesting we found, and we took lots of pictures. We think we must have been close, at least within a half-mile of where the old homestead was. Perhaps the stuff we found was located where the old homestead was, hunters reusing the site, the old boards, perhaps. Who knows.

My aunt Shirley mentioned that she remembers camping somewhere just off the road (now the Wildcat Canyon Trail) not far from where the trail reached the edge of the valley and headed northeastward toward Wildcat Canyon, just south of Pocket Mesa, then hiking with her mother northward to the old site.

I had a blast. I think we all did. It is a very beautiful place, and my grandmother always loved Kolob, her birthplace, where she spent many childhood summers with her family. If she were alive today, she would be nearly 97 this month.

I would like to go exploring up there again, and hike to the ice cave. I'll definitely be going back.

P.S. Oh, I put up a few new wallpapers in my Desktop Wallpaper section from hiking at Kolob, a larger image of the sego lilies, and also one of some of the wild rose bushes we encountered.