San Rafael Swell

An old river guide, who had lived in the area for ages, suggested some places to camp. As I recall, this was what he told us as we drove past the San Rafael Swell on the way back to Moab: "See that grove of cottonwoods down there? That oasis? You can reach that from the cattle road and set up camp there. Then, if you just hike back toward the notch three or four miles, you see that notch? In that notch in the rocks, there's a bunch of swimming holes. The water gets nice and warm, sitting in the sun all day." We looked out the window, frantically taking mental notes.

A few days later, we took the dirt road with the cattle guard out to a wash encrusted with some kind of white mineral. Sure enough, there was a little oasis of greenery in the middle of the yellow shrubbery that dominates the landscape. After setting up the tent and packing as much water as we could hold, we headed out for the Swell. The San Rafael Swell is an upthrust of rock 75 miles long, created 60 million years ago. The years of subsequent erosion have created a whole mess of canyons and potholes and washes that would take ages to explore. Despite the baking heat, we picked the closest notch in the rocks and headed for it. And what would you know? We found the swimming holes! We were probably two weeks too late to go swimming because even the larger pools were infested with mosquito larvae. But we found some strange looking creatures populating one of the smaller pools. They looked like tiny horseshoe crabs, with a swimming tail instead of a spike. Same carapace though, with eyes on the top of their heads. Very strange. We also found a bighorn sheep skull, almost picked clean and bleached white.