High Desert to Ogden

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So how much water is in the Colorado River anyway ? I made a special visit to Riverside Park in Grand Junction to find out. Unfamiliar with before and after or how to measure flow, it seemed pretty much up to normal levels (below the addition of the Gunnison, of course). I decided to look at the Green River too, to see if I could see anything with my un-practiced eye. That also meant I could visit the John Wesley Powell museum at Green River -- a plus -- but would have to face I-15 traffic going North through Provo and Salt Lake City. Big negative -- but this is what I ended up doing.

The Green River also had a 'normal' amount of water. The town is where the 1869 Expedition to run the Colorado Canyon started, so it is fitting that the Powell museum is there, right alongside the river. It was fun to see a replica of the Emma Dean, one of the four boats used in the expedition. How he could sit up on his chair and not be whirled off and into the river I cannot understand. The exhibit allows one to get a feel for the group. Powell the soldier, explorer, geologist, and teacher, led a bunch of hunters, adventurers and ex-soldiers -- surprising they held together as long as they did.

The trip north to Helper through open high desert valley was interesting -- but that was the last stop on good old US 50. From Provo on I was on I-15 it became grueling. From Provo to Salt Lake City to Ogden is densely urban and industrial, squeezed between the mountains to the East and the Lakes to the West. The I-15 artery pumps huge semi's and pickups in and out of the region's industrial base. The traffic never stops, and the minimum speed is 70 mph, which is my max. Faster than that and my old bike starts to eat up oil, which I don't like to do. So I sit in right hand lane and let the trucks go by -- often the only bike on the road -- managing the slipstream buffeting as best I can.

Days Travel - Grand Junction to Ogden UT - 324 mi

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Photos

The levee along the Colorado River
at Riverside Park, Grand Junction, CO

The Green River at Green River.
For Marshall.

John Wesley Powell
whose father was a Methodist preacher from Shrewsbury, England.

John Powell's boat the Emma Dean
named for his wife.

Museum Gas Station in Helper, UT
a railroad junction for the surrounding mining towns for 140 years. Named for the "helper" engines needed to take trains up the steep local grades.