I was jerking around on Google Earth on Wednesday afternoon, looking at parts of Utah I have yet to visit. One such region is the Cedar Mountains, the last north/south mountain range in the West Desert before the Salt Flats stretch out to the Nevada border.
I spotted something odd. I zoomed in, and was astonished:
I figured that in my browsing I must've wandered into the Utah Test Range, but no...I was still looking at BLM land north of the bombing range. This was a 2013 image, and the plane didn't show up on older satellite photos, yet although I found record of numerous other plane crashes in the area I couldn't find any mention of this one. I was intrigued, especially as the plane looked relatively intact. I hurriedly packed up the truck, threw Mrs. Admin in the passenger seat and Jake in the bed (remarkably not the other way around), and headed west for 57 miles to Delle. We'd spend the night nearby before heading back home for work in the a.m.
At Delle we exited the freeway and prepared to venture onto dirt. A one-time railroad watering stop, Delle is now a single Sinclair gas station, and abandoned no-tell motel, and absolutely nothing else. A year ago you could've bought the whole town, but I'm unclear regarding its current status. It's at least 30 miles from any sense of civilization to the east (and that's in the most liberal sense of the word), 75 miles from Wendover to the west, and well over 100 miles from anything on the map to the north or the south. A lone clerk rang up our purchase of chips for the Mrs. with a baseball bat behind the counter and likely something stronger beneath it. And we thereafter headed completely off the grid.
Downtown Delle, back when the motel still operated (photo: Center for Land Use Interpretation)
About 8 or 9 miles later we reached the dirt road's nearest point to the plane crash. Motorized travel off the road is prohibited, for this is a wilderness area designated as such in 2006 to keep the Goshute Indians from building a railway to a nuclear waste incinerator that they planned to build on tribal land in the Skull Valley. Hey, some native tribes build casinos, but these guys had another way to make money and after all it is the Skull Valley.
I parked along the side of the road, although I'm really not sure what traffic I was trying to stay out of the way of, and headed toward the precise coordinates of the plane wreck with winds buffeting my face at over 50 mph. I trudged to the site and...no plane. No sign of any soil disturbance, either, other than prolific cow pies.
And then it dawned on us. The plane was obviously flying past when the photo was shot. #-o
Time to make lemonade from our airborne lemons. We headed a bit further south and then turned northwest on one of the only two roads (and the more major of the two) that cross the Cedars. This one climbs to 5,800-foot Hastings Pass, and was part of the original California Trail followed by the ill-fated Donner Party. In fact, a spring along this road was the last source of water they had before crossing the arduous Salt Flats. The hills are named for the pinon trees mistaken for cedars by early travelers, although many of the hills have been denuded by wildfires in recent years. Aside from several springs the entire range is completely devoid of perennial water. At this time of year the Cedar Mountains were remarkably green, although that's likely to only last for a few more weeks.
At the height of the pass we headed south on a small spur road that dead-ended at a perfect ridge-top campsite.
Those who were in the area know that the wind was howling yesterday. It wasn't as bad as it had been in the wide-open Skull Valley, but a ridgetop campsite was hardly ideal. It was nonetheless the most picturesque spot we found, and the canyons weren't exactly breeze-free either, so we stuck with it.
Unfortunately the wind never abated until the wee hours of the morning, so no campfire, and we spent the majority of the evening huddled in the back of the truck to stay warm.
We fell asleep at 10 p.m. under a nearly full moon. We awoke at 7 a.m. under clear skies with temps near 40 dF.
After downing a pot of brewed coffee we hit the road again. We made a loop of it, continuing west to exit the Cedar Mountains near the Aragonite hazardous waste incinerator where we rejoined I-80 heading east, sharing the road with the only people we saw since leaving the freeway 14 hours earlier. This isn't a place where you'd want to wake up when the truck won't start.
I spotted something odd. I zoomed in, and was astonished:
I figured that in my browsing I must've wandered into the Utah Test Range, but no...I was still looking at BLM land north of the bombing range. This was a 2013 image, and the plane didn't show up on older satellite photos, yet although I found record of numerous other plane crashes in the area I couldn't find any mention of this one. I was intrigued, especially as the plane looked relatively intact. I hurriedly packed up the truck, threw Mrs. Admin in the passenger seat and Jake in the bed (remarkably not the other way around), and headed west for 57 miles to Delle. We'd spend the night nearby before heading back home for work in the a.m.
At Delle we exited the freeway and prepared to venture onto dirt. A one-time railroad watering stop, Delle is now a single Sinclair gas station, and abandoned no-tell motel, and absolutely nothing else. A year ago you could've bought the whole town, but I'm unclear regarding its current status. It's at least 30 miles from any sense of civilization to the east (and that's in the most liberal sense of the word), 75 miles from Wendover to the west, and well over 100 miles from anything on the map to the north or the south. A lone clerk rang up our purchase of chips for the Mrs. with a baseball bat behind the counter and likely something stronger beneath it. And we thereafter headed completely off the grid.
Downtown Delle, back when the motel still operated (photo: Center for Land Use Interpretation)
About 8 or 9 miles later we reached the dirt road's nearest point to the plane crash. Motorized travel off the road is prohibited, for this is a wilderness area designated as such in 2006 to keep the Goshute Indians from building a railway to a nuclear waste incinerator that they planned to build on tribal land in the Skull Valley. Hey, some native tribes build casinos, but these guys had another way to make money and after all it is the Skull Valley.
I parked along the side of the road, although I'm really not sure what traffic I was trying to stay out of the way of, and headed toward the precise coordinates of the plane wreck with winds buffeting my face at over 50 mph. I trudged to the site and...no plane. No sign of any soil disturbance, either, other than prolific cow pies.
And then it dawned on us. The plane was obviously flying past when the photo was shot. #-o
Time to make lemonade from our airborne lemons. We headed a bit further south and then turned northwest on one of the only two roads (and the more major of the two) that cross the Cedars. This one climbs to 5,800-foot Hastings Pass, and was part of the original California Trail followed by the ill-fated Donner Party. In fact, a spring along this road was the last source of water they had before crossing the arduous Salt Flats. The hills are named for the pinon trees mistaken for cedars by early travelers, although many of the hills have been denuded by wildfires in recent years. Aside from several springs the entire range is completely devoid of perennial water. At this time of year the Cedar Mountains were remarkably green, although that's likely to only last for a few more weeks.
At the height of the pass we headed south on a small spur road that dead-ended at a perfect ridge-top campsite.
Those who were in the area know that the wind was howling yesterday. It wasn't as bad as it had been in the wide-open Skull Valley, but a ridgetop campsite was hardly ideal. It was nonetheless the most picturesque spot we found, and the canyons weren't exactly breeze-free either, so we stuck with it.
Unfortunately the wind never abated until the wee hours of the morning, so no campfire, and we spent the majority of the evening huddled in the back of the truck to stay warm.
We fell asleep at 10 p.m. under a nearly full moon. We awoke at 7 a.m. under clear skies with temps near 40 dF.
After downing a pot of brewed coffee we hit the road again. We made a loop of it, continuing west to exit the Cedar Mountains near the Aragonite hazardous waste incinerator where we rejoined I-80 heading east, sharing the road with the only people we saw since leaving the freeway 14 hours earlier. This isn't a place where you'd want to wake up when the truck won't start.
