BigLoad
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Post by BigLoad on May 14, 2024 9:52:04 GMT -8
We have at least 500 bag nights in southern Utah and just love the place. The only time we go is May or October but early June might work but it’s a gamble.
I push the colder (and maybe wetter) boundaries harder. Definitely April and even back into March, and definitely November and even into December, depending on specific locations.
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swiftdream
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the Great Southwest Unbound
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Post by swiftdream on May 14, 2024 10:58:18 GMT -8
We have at least 500 bag nights in southern Utah and just love the place. The only time we go is May or October but early June might work but it’s a gamble.
I push the colder (and maybe wetter) boundaries harder. Definitely April and even back into March, and definitely November and even into December, depending on specific locations.
You are one of the more prolific adventurers so I don’t doubt you have a very wide spread of when you are going to do it. We have done some April and thee first week of November a few times but the most enchanted times seem to be in May and October is one of my favorites months for just about anything but I have day hiked the Colorado Plateau in every month and loved it in the cold, snow or even high winds. When flying mapping photography never once did I stay in the hotel room and took off on long day hikes usually to a sunset destination and walked back in darkness and reveled in it. Once on a very windy evening I was trying to go fast to a formation of three things I named the ships. The wind was ferocious and actually knocked me down a couple times. This was back when some reality television folks had some stone beads on necklaces. I wanted something for my pack and sort of chanted in the wind. There on a bench above the Colorado River was a freaking little stone with a natural hole, never seen one before or since but it has ridden on every pack I’ve owned since. It’s maybe an inch at the longest and is completely natural not an ancient bead which I’ve seen and photographed three ancient Native American beads previously. No I don’t take the manmade (or womanmade) beads. This one most likely lay up on that high bench, deposited five million years ago. It is tan in color, the named color of the Universe.k don’t know what kind of rock but it’s hard. I know the story sounds far fetched but that’s what happened on one crazy Plateau adventure.
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BigLoad
Trail Wise!
Pancakes!
Posts: 13,037
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Post by BigLoad on May 14, 2024 11:32:01 GMT -8
I push the colder (and maybe wetter) boundaries harder. Definitely April and even back into March, and definitely November and even into December, depending on specific locations.
You are one of the more prolific adventurers so I don’t doubt you have a very wide spread of when you are going to do it. We have done some April and thee first week of November a few times but the most enchanted times seem to be in May and October is one of my favorites months for just about anything but I have day hiked the Colorado Plateau in every month and loved it in the cold, snow or even high winds. When flying mapping photography never once did I stay in the hotel room and took off on long day hikes usually to a sunset destination and walked back in darkness and reveled in it. Once on a very windy evening I was trying to go fast to a formation of three things I named the ships. The wind was ferocious and actually knocked me down a couple times. This was back when some reality television folks had some stone beads on necklaces. I wanted something for my pack and sort of chanted in the wind. There on a bench above the Colorado River was a freaking little stone with a natural hole, never seen one before or since but it has ridden on every pack I’ve owned since. It’s maybe an inch at the longest and is completely natural not an ancient bead which I’ve seen and photographed three ancient Native American beads previously. No I don’t take the manmade (or womanmade) beads. This one most likely lay up on that high bench, deposited five million years ago. It is tan in color, the named color of the Universe.k don’t know what kind of rock but it’s hard. I know the story sounds far fetched but that’s what happened on one crazy Plateau adventure.
Cool! I've never found a bead. The closest I've come are some fragments of bone tools that probably failed during their last use.
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swiftdream
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the Great Southwest Unbound
Posts: 573
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Post by swiftdream on May 14, 2024 13:07:05 GMT -8
Two of the ancient people made beads were obviously from shells, humped in from the coast a thousand years ago and one was of some kind of black stone. The little rock I found on that strange day has no tool marks or flat spots like it was worked. There are billions of little rocks on those benches and a couple had crinoid stem fossils. But take a look at this and tell me what you think. That’s .5mm Bluewater line. The stone is about an inch at the longest and it has a thinner side but nothing is symmetrical. This is one of the features I was trying to make before sunset so the photography would be at its best.
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BigLoad
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Post by BigLoad on May 14, 2024 15:28:15 GMT -8
Two of the ancient people made beads were obviously from shells, humped in from the coast a thousand years ago and one was of some kind of black stone. The little rock I found on that strange day has no tool marks or flat spots like it was worked. There are billions of little rocks on those benches and a couple had crinoid stem fossils. But take a look at this and tell me what you think. That’s .5mm Bluewater line. The stone is about an inch at the longest and it has a thinner side but nothing is symmetrical. This is one of the features I was trying to make before sunset so the photography would be at its best.
Great hoodoo shot!
I can't claim to competently opine on that bead. It's hard for me to picture how it could have formed naturally. Of course I've seen natural holes of that size, but not in something that so close to their own size in both diameter and thickness. What material is it? The color and visual texture sort of look like bone, but one touch might say that's way off.
Crinoid stems would be excellent starting points for beads.
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swiftdream
Trail Wise!
the Great Southwest Unbound
Posts: 573
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Post by swiftdream on May 15, 2024 8:15:29 GMT -8
Great hoodoo shot!
I can't claim to competently opine on that bead. It's hard for me to picture how it could have formed naturally. Of course I've seen natural holes of that size, but not in something that so close to their own size in both diameter and thickness. What material is it? The color and visual texture sort of look like bone, but one touch might say that's way off.
Crinoid stems would be excellent starting points for beads.
The “bead” is some sort of stone which I believe to be metamorphic rock. It is very hard. I’ve never seen anything close to it a small stone with a natural hole, not even close. Millions of small stones of various sizes were deposited on those high benches eons ago and the sun exposure has given them some interesting varnishing as the river cut down to far below over the long stretches of time. They were carried down in some floods millions of years ago, stones of very different materials but one thing they have in common is they are all hard and all were tumbled a long way from some other land and all are laying on sandstone collected and bunched here and there. It makes no sense that I found it. It’s just one of those things some kind of anomaly, happed at least twenty years ago and ever since it’s my talisman riding on my pack. It weighs 6g. There were no archeological sites there and I never saw any lithic scatters or potsherds of any kind. All the real human made ancient beads I found were in different locations but all had beaucoup scatters of painted potsherds and colorful lithic flakes galore with a few stone tools including metates and projectile points. There were other things I couldn’t explain.
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BigLoad
Trail Wise!
Pancakes!
Posts: 13,037
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Post by BigLoad on May 15, 2024 8:20:24 GMT -8
Hmm, metamorphic rock that color could be quartzite. If so, it would incredibly hard and quite resistant to chemical processes. It's a freak of nature.
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