mountains in the United States to be described and named by English
speaking explorers. They were named by John Wesley Powell in honor of a
friend, Joseph Henry, professor and physicist, in 1869. It is curious
that the mountain range went unnamed for so long among the Whites, and
that, according to one of my Navajo friends, the Navajo name for the
Henrys is; “The Mountain With No Name,” or, “No Name Mountain.”
Regardless, the Henrys are still remote in every sense of the word. The
loneliness of the Henrys is unrivaled. .
The Henry mountains are lacolithic as are Navajo
Mountain, the Abajos, and the La Sals, also in southeastern Utah. The
Henrys appear to be more heavily mineralized than the La Sals or the
Abajos with which I am more intimately familiar.
Prior to this past week I had visited the Henrys
only three times. On one of those visits I climbed Mt. Ellen, at 11,615
feet, the highest elevation there. On two out of the three previous
visits I saw buffalo. I’m batting .500 because I saw no buffalo last
week.
I have been bothered by the fact that I am so
unfamiliar with such a stark, rugged mountain. It sits, towering over
the adjacent deserts and canyons, in beautiful solitude. Kay and Patsy
Shumway and Barbara and I made two dates to go to the Henrys last fall,
but were rained out both times. We decided to give it another try and
this time everything went well.
Last week was also the first time Barbara and I had
made use of our fifth-wheel trailer in the manner I had planned when I
bought it. We pulled it off the highway and out across the desert over
a sometimes-difficult road. When we crossed the rocky, dry washes, I
put the big Dodge in low-range, four-wheel-drive, and eased slowly
through. At last we parked beneath the shade of cottonwoods at the
confluence of North Wash and Crescent Creek.
Actually, I was towing a little train as I had my
four-wheeler on a trailer behind the fifth-wheel. I took the
four-wheeler because past experience had taught me that I didn’t want
to take a full sized vehicle on the road around the high peaks. The
road is excessively narrow.
The first afternoon, after we had set up camp and
put everything in order, I took off alone on a road that lead up North
Wash. About three miles from camp I got into an area whose geology
fascinated me. I picked up a few pieces of lovely, orange quartz and an
unremarkable piece of petrified wood. I wouldn’t have kept the
petrified wood except that it came from there.
The next day Barbara and I doubled up on the
four-wheeler and took the road up to Bull Pass and on around the
mountain. We saw several deer, all nice and fat, but no buffalo. I had
been over some, but not all, of that route when I climbed Mount Ellen.
We got back to camp in the middle of the afternoon.
Barbara went inside the trailer to shower and to have a nap. I puttered
around outside, sat in a chair and read, and discovered that I, too,
was sleepy. I didn’t want to go inside and disturb Barbara so I crawled
into the shade beneath the trailer and stretched out upon the cool
ground. I folded a small rug for a pillow and put my hat over the side
of my face to protect me from the blowing sand. I had a wonderful, if
somewhat gritty, nap.
When Barbara and Patsy are in charge of the menu, we
eat well. Evenings were spent around an aromatic, cottonwood fire,
telling stories. I agreed to play my harmonica. It gave counterpoint to
the crickets for a little while, there in the dark, by the light of the
orange flames.
I do not think my peculiar itch to explore the
Henry’s and the surrounding desert has been sufficiently scratched. It
may take another safari or two. The solitude is wonderful, and I still
don’t have a good photo of a buffalo.