Week ending Nov 10, 2016 Millard County (Fillmore)

Our travels around Millard County for this week were based on information in the guide Adventures in Millard County Utah which has some maps showing the locations of the sites, day guides which describe the various attractions.

Saturday we did a scenic loop north to Delta, where we found the Topaz Relocation (Internment) Camp.  This camp was created in 1942, as one of 10 camps to house Japanese in the USA.  At the time it was the 5th largest city in Utah with 8316 people.  We parked in the middle of the camp since that was the first entry we saw after signs in the corner of the area.  After doing a loop around the east side, we noticed a flag further west.  We headed there, where we found a few interpretive signs.  Interestingly, many of the men interned in the camp, served in the US military in later years.  While walking through the camp, we saw three hares racing out of sight.  They didn't pose for pictures.

Coal chute at Topaz Internment Camp

We returned to the Great Basin Museum in Delta, which wasn't open yet when we went past it earlier.  We were warmly welcomed by a volunteer.  The museum covers a 'billion' years of history in the area.  It used be part of Lake Bonneville, a huge lake south of the glaciers from the ice age.  They had amazing collections of trilobites and other animal fossils, and plant fossils as well. There were also a large number of minerals, as the area had several large volcanoes.  In addition, they had an extensive collection of pioneer artifacts, including a cabin built by pioneers.   And all of this was for a voluntary donation to the museum fund.

Ammonite fossils

From the museum, we drove south through Deseret to Fort Deseret.  This was a mud wall fort, about 6 feet high, built by the Mormons during the Black Hawk Indian war.

Part of Fort Deseret wall

Fort wall structure

Further south, we stopped at Sunstone Knoll Rockhounding site. It was a nice little walk up and around the knoll.  We saw another hare.  There were quite a few very small sunstones on the ground.

sunstone

As we were leaving a mother, two kids, and grandmother arrived to look for some minerals.  As we arrived back at the truck, we heard a train coming up the tracks we had crossed to get to the knoll.   

UP Train

From there, we drove by the Clear Lake Bird Refuge, where we saw a number of trucks of hunters with dogs.  We didn't see any water, or any birds.    On the way back through this area a few days later, we were able to see a small strip of water in the distance to the south end.

Dry area of Clear Lake

Beyond that, we took a one lane (ATV?) trail to Pahvant Butte (5761' ft), a volcanic peak that rose through the waters of Lake Bonneville.  At the north end of the Butte, we came to the Lace Curtain lava flow. 

Lace Curtain

We returned to the south end of the butte, and walked up a switch-backing ravine to a spot above the caldera of the volcano. 

Caldera at Pahvant Butte

On the way back down, we saw a snake slither into the bushes from almost under our feet.  Fortunately, we saw another one further down the trail which didn't hurry under a bush.  We looked them up, and they are Great Basin gopher snakes.

Great Basin gopher snake

Then we returned to Filmore, a round trip of about 200km. On the way back we saw a small herd of antelopes.  Great weather, with a high about 17C.      

Monday we headed out to Tabernacle Hill and the Lava Tubes. After picking up some chocolate muffins and cheese onion rolls at Duanes Food Town, which has a bakery, we followed the directions in the Millard County guide, and wound up at what looked like a rock plant.  A fellow came out to see what we wanted, and directed us to turn south at the junction just below the yard.

Small portion of lava beds

Once on the road, we saw the same Pahvent Valley Trail signs which we had seen on Saturday, so knew we were on the right route.  We saw directions to the lava tubes, and followed the roughish road the two miles to the lava.   Part way up, we stopped and walked up a short steep hill, where we saw a couple of sink holes in the lava flow. We walked back down the more gradual side of the hill, a loop of about 3/4 km.  Then we carried on to a point below a hill where the road looped back.  We saw a large hole on the east side of the road, so went to check it out.  It was about 200 ft long, with a small cave at each end.   Joan wandered over to the west side of the road, where she could see another series of holes.  John was able to go down into the hole nearest the road, and then walk through the tube all of the way to the big open channel to the south west, under three open vent holes you can see on the google satellite view below.  The walls of the big area were too steep to climb out, so he had to return back through the tube.

View down the lava tube (dark area with small vents in the middle)

Google view of the lava tubes with several vent holes on the left side, 
larger collapsed tube on the right side.
The scales are 100 feet.

We walked to the Tabernacle Crater area behind the hill, and decided that the road that went through there wasn't good enough to proceed on.  

Tabernacle Hill?

We did see a squirrel leaning on a rock, that never moved while we were in sight.

Squirrel

After eating lunch back near the tubes, we set the Garmin to take us to the town of Meadow, on the interstate south of Fillmore.  It showed that we could either return the 2 miles back on Lava Tubes Road, or a short distance through the crater area to a road on the south side, but didn't have any roads to get to either side including the Lave Tubes Road we had come in on.   John decided that since we were so much closer to the route on the south side, that we should carry on through the crater.  That didn't work out too well, as we couldn't see a better road once we got to the south side of the crater, even after doing a loop around a small hill on the south west corner.  Any tracks heading off looked even smaller, and rougher than the one we were on, so we wound up returning the way we had come in.   When we got back to the trailer, we checked out the area on Google satellite view.  It clearly shows that the road at the top, where we came in, is the best road.

By  the time we got back to the interstate, we decided that was enough excitement for one day, leaving other site-seeing for another day.

On Wednesday, we decided to head to the obsidian beds near Black Spring.  Google told us to go south to Kanosh, then 28 mi west on gravel roads across toward Black Rock. There were a variety of side roads which John thought could be confusing.   We checked whether the GPS would take us across that way, but it routed us north to Delta, then south on 257, even when we started it from Kanosh, so it wouldn't be any help in making sure we didn't wander off on some side road. We did know we could cut of some of the distance by taking the Clear Lake Road across to 257, because we had come back from Delta that way on Saturday.   So off we headed.  On the way south on 257, we drove past the Graymont Lime Plant, which is similar to the one in Exshaw. 

Graymont lime plant

A little further on, we saw a cow warning sign  with flashing lights.  Apparently it doesn't work, because just past it we saw two dead cows in the ditch.  

Our GPS guided us across on Twin Peaks Road to Black Spring (based on co-ordinates.  As we drove into the area, a herd of 11 antelope ran away from the spring. 

Antelopes at Black Spring

Pool at Black Spring

We walked up to the spring where we saw some small pieces of obsidian on the ground.   But we didn't see what was labelled as the obsidian rock-hounding area.  However, the guide map showed a spot labelled obsidian beds up a little road nearby.   We found the little side road, with sign to Clark Ranch.  We parked the truck at this corner, and walked up that road.  We came to a smaller side road that looked like it had more obsidian on it, so we walked about 1.5 km up this road until we came to an obsidian pit.  Along the way we found chunks of the mahogany, snowflake and black obsidian that the Millard guide described.  

Snowflake, mahogany and black obsidian

After having lunch back at the truck, we followed Twin Peaks road east toward Kanosh.  Eventually the GPS agreed it would guide us east to Kanosh rather than trying to return us to Highway 257.   Back in Fillmore, we decide to drive up Canyon Road to some hill country campgrounds.  Along the way, we saw a sign to a hierglyph site.   We drove down what we later decided was an ATV trail since two truck wouldn't be able to pass.  We parked at a little unofficial campsite on the creek, and walked the 3/4 mi up a 'most difficult' ATV trail to the hieroglyph site. There have been many theories about the origin of the hieroglyphs, from Aztec refugees, to Spanish explorers, American miners,  Mayan traders, Nephites (descendants of Morman prophet Nephi) fleeing from a battle, or a hoax.

Hieroglyphs (click on picture to enlarge)

Thursday, we headed south, planning to stop at a campground in Beaver Dam Arizona, just south of St. George.  We called them from a rest area, only to find they had no space.  So we made a reservation at Sun Resorts RV in Mesquite.  We stayed here a few years ago in the spring on our way back from Texas.