Castle Rock and Angel Peak

I believe in angels, the kind that heaven sends. I’m surrounded by angels, but I call them my friends.
– Anonymous
We could see the angel from a distance with her wings outspread, towering over the badlands at a height of 7,000 feet. I complained that she didn’t really look like an angel, but if I squinted just right, I could see the outline of an imposing being. Before we investigated her more closely, though, we wanted to explore the badlands in front of us. We were about 15 miles southeast of Bloomington, NM.
The area was crisscrossed with roads which accessed natural gas pumps, so it was no problem following one of them to the base of the barrens. After we parked near a pump, we headed across country, soon leaving the sounds of thrumming behind.
It had rained the day before, and water pooled in the crevices and small caves of the first wash. When the wash petered out, we climbed up a level. The badlands were banded with purple, gray, green, tan, rust, and white hues, the white sparkling like miniature diamonds when the sun shone on it.
The vast terrain was formed after the ancient inland sea receded, the mountains tilted upward, and sand, silt, and mud washed down, filling the San Juan Basin with 10,000 feet of sedimentary material. The harder sandstone topped the siltstone and mudstone, and erosion created the otherworldly topography of hoodoos, spires, rock mushrooms, and caves.
Despite the landscape seeming to come straight out of science fiction, familiar plants grew, including junipers, serviceberry bushes with their white buds starting to swell, yucca, cacti, and desert grasses. Much to our surprise, we spotted deer tracks and, even more of a surprise, elk tracks and scat. We followed the tracks until they stopped and turned at a cliff’s edge. What fascinated me most were the caves hollowed out of soft stone. The pillars, openings, and interiors with earthen laces rivals the most beautiful human art I’ve seen.
However, even as we peered into the caves and trekked across the barrens, I couldn’t help thinking about Ferd Johnson, who had died unexpectedly a few days earlier. I didn’t know Ferd well, but he approached us a year or so ago, asking, “Are you the couple trying to locate the Hermitage?”
Surprised, we said, “Yes.”
“I was in Bert Loper’s house,” Ferd said. “I used to work in White Canyon when I was younger.”
I studied his 87-year-old face with its scars and glass eye, which resulted from a mining accident, amazed that a connection to White Canyon history stood in front of us, alive, well, and with a formidable mind and memory.
As his saga unfolded, we learned, he’d helped to operate the ferry at Hite and later worked in the nearby uranium mill and told us story after story about the Hite area. Ted and I had previously made three or four forays out to Lake Powell when the water receded, trying to spot physical remnants of Hite’s rich history, but found nothing. Ferd told us that after the lake filled, everything was buried under 100 feet of silt.
Just a week before he died, I’d chatted with him briefly about the Blanding Trading Post.
With his knowledge of San Juan County and its history, he was a community treasure. I felt bereft that he’d left us so suddenly, but I tried to pull my mind back to the present as we continued to wander through the badlands.
We could see Castle Rock, a distinctive sandstone formation, which did, indeed, look like a castle, not too far away, so after we returned to the Jeep, we headed back to the trailhead for the Castle.
“Trail” is an inflated description for the narrow path leading across the sandstone and clay slopes, but we wanted to try it.
Ted and Kenidee, as always, took the lead, and I followed more cautiously—and much more slowly.
Finally, with the trail skirting beside steep drop-offs, my legs started shaking, and I stopped. Trying not to look down, I grabbed onto a large boulder, shuffled around it, and plopped onto the earth.
Soon, my breath evened, and I could see Ted and Kenidee, looking as small as stocking stuffer toys, starting up the ramparts. I didn’t envy them. I snapped some photos and turned around, hoping to make it back to the Jeep.
Along the most frightening section, I detoured, walking higher on the slope, and once on a wider trail, started appreciating the terrain again.
When Ted and Kenidee returned, my hubby said, “You don’t know what you missed.”
I grunted as he showed me photo after photo of the Castle’s grandeur, including three unique arches. I had missed a lot, but I still didn’t mind.
After viewing the photos, we drove toward Angel Peak, ending up at the campground. A trail led out to the peak, but since it was getting late, we simply enjoyed the angel from our vantage point.
I thought again about Ferd, realizing he was enjoying the company of real angels in a realm far more beautiful than the one before us.
He no doubt felt at home because, truthfully, he may have been an angel, disguised with his glass eye, scars, and southern Utah accent, while he walked on earth.