The Post . . .
The Post: Grandpa and Pat check the 'Quad' sheet as Jon scans the San Rafael Swell and the Water Pocket Fold with his binocs.
We reach 'The Post', the site of an old trading post. Nothing is left now except remnants of corrals amid the beautiful scenery of 'The Swell'. Ahead a few miles is the famous 'Muley Twist', a series of switchbacks up a steep portion of 'The Swell' -- the only way across it, except by foot, for many, many miles. In fact, the city of Boulder, Utah, still received its mail into the 1930's not by truck or car, but by mule. It was (is) that remote.
John 'hoofs' it
over to the nearest 'crack' in 'The Swell', visible just over the
top of the Grandpa's Jeep above, to snap the picture (at left) a
hundred yards or so into the cleft. It narrows to almost nothing
-- a mere 'line' of a passage walled in by cliffs a hundred feet
high.
At this point, Dad reminds us that we are missing the next Quad Sheet -- we'll be 'blind' for the rest of the trail. There's a GPS there on the hood telling us our exact latitude and longitude. That's great, but with no Quad map, its next to useless. We'll I guess we could call in for air support with them. ;-) When he tried to get a copy at the USGS office they said 'Why do you want that sheet for? No one ever goes there!'.
In other words, in the ancient map makers code: Here be dragons!
Next: The Rock Rovers . . .