You can buy a cold drink in the gas station here.
That doesn`t sound like much. But after following the remnants of western Utah`s Pony Express trail, a cold can of sweet fluid seems like heaven.
We`d just covered a 120-mile route from the mountain-shadowed hamlet of Callao to a point north of sleepy little Vernon. The gravel trail today is groomed about as well as a Midwestern farm-to-market road. Except there are no farms and no markets. There are no homes in the desert, and darned few tourists, especially on weekdays.
At the monuments that mark each stop, you kick the rubble of 130-year-old stone shelters and wonder how anyone could live out here.
Camping is one thing. Pop a tent anywhere on the open range, preferably near a desert spring. Listen to the wind blow through sage and June grass. Watch finches and meadowlarks dart for their buggy food. Behold distant mountains turn from blue to purple to gray until the stars blaze like fireworks on the 4th of July. Hear the ghostly footsteps of legends.
At a place called Riverbed Station, men lived squarely within a two-mile- wide depression that thousands of years ago drained an inland sea. The land rose around them, confining and swallowing their spirits.
”The station keepers wouldn`t stay here,” said Gregg Morgan, who oversees this part of the trail for the federal Bureau of Land Management.
”They thought it was haunted by desert fairies.”
On this day, the wind swished amiably. But journals tell of howls from the shallow canyon, of the constant fear of tribal marauders topping the rim of a hill.
The Pony Express lasted only 18 months, replaced by the telegraph and the Overland Stage. Twice a day, lithe young riders, mainly boys of 16 to 18, thundered through with mail from California and the Missouri River. They paused long enough at outposts to grab a cup of water and a fresh steed, then hurried to the next stop some 17 miles away.
The station keeper would groom the horse and bed it down and feed it. And maybe kill a jackrabbit for supper. And wait until the next day.
”Station keepers were hung out to dry,” mused Pat Hearty, a past president of the Pony Express Trail Association, which maintains the legends and the lore. ”They were the ones who were attacked by the Indians for the horses.”
In the foothills of Canyon Station far to the west, the trail winds through a mountain pass. BLM area manager Howard Hedrick opened a metal gate that protects an old, crumbling fortification. At the first sign of trouble, a station keeper would haul his guns behind these rocks and fight for his life. ”Not a very good location, was it?” Hedrick said, nodding toward a dropoff just 30 yards away. ”If they came from there, he might get off one quick shot.”
At least he had a splendid view. The world opened to the east for more than a hundred miles. The clear desert air plays tricks with distances. Below lay the green splotch of Callao, I thought perhaps four or five miles away.
”Try 20,” Hedrick said with a grin.
And across the adjacent valley, maybe 10 or 12 golf shots . . . OK, no more than 2 to 2 1/2 miles.
”More like 10,” Hedrick said.
Although a road winds from stop to stop, there`s no guarantee that it actually was the trail. What kind of a path could be carved by two daily horses over 18 months? The riders were only kids who followed whims, avoiding dust, skirting patches of alkali mud, changing routes to avoid boredom. Sometimes they`d circle a rocky point; sometimes they`d climb a hill. Each kid found his most comfortable way.
The Black Rock Station marker is pretty much an approximation, based on an old photo and description. Not even infrared aerial photos of disturbed earth could find the exact site. Boyd Station is clearer. A fireplace remains within the old foundation. A fellow named Bid Boyd lived there for 40 years. Callao is up for grabs. Different historians place it at opposite ends of town, and people argue about it today. Wilson Hot Springs is just a guess, though the springs are still around and one or two are tolerable enough for soaking a camper`s tired bones. There`s no question about succulent Simpson Springs, where the BLM maintains a campground overlooking miles and miles of breathtaking mountains and desert.
”If the Overland Stage used a different route, then we`ve probably lost the Pony Express trail,” Morgan said. ”Horses could go where wagons and stages could not. But the stage was history, too, so no one should feel cheated.”
There is plenty of speculation about trails through the desert. Some people claim they still can see discolored, silted ruts from the ill-fated Donner-Reed party of California immigrants in 1846.
”But 200 other parties made it through that year, and then there were years of wagons, jeeps, ORVs,” Morgan said. ”The desert is marked with trails and there`s no telling which is which. Just like the Pony Express trail. Some years ago a rally of 300 motorcycles came through. I`d expect 300 motorcycles to leave more of a mark than an occasional horse and rider.”
The desert itself is marked in many other ways, from working mines to the itinerant scrapes of mineral prospectors to the BLM`s ”chaining” of junipers from acres of mountain benchland.
Hedrick said prospectors are a major headache, protected by an 1872 law that allows them to do what they want on five acres or less of public land.
”They just drop the blade of a bulldozer wherever they please,” he said, pointing to one of many scrapes on the open range that could remain for decades.
The practice of ”chaining” away stunted junipers has been opposed by groups that hate to see even useless trees destroyed. BLM workers clear large mountain patches with anchor chains, allowing grasses and sage to replace the non-nutritious trees and feed wildlife and cattle.
Although the method does improve range conditions, Hedrick conceded it is costly. He said the government can spend as much as $25,000 to renew an area that will net it $600 in cattle leases.
Those subsidized leases of public land pose another political headache. Many wildlife enthusiasts oppose the BLM`s monthly lease price of $1.83 per animal unit, saying it doesn`t come close to covering government range management expenses. They want ranchers either to pay the going rates of $7 to $15 on private land or leave the range for wildlife to prosper.
The BLM argues that higher lease rates would drive many ranchers out of business. And if private ranches are abandoned or sold for recreational development, wildlife such as deer, antelope and elk could be hurt by the loss of hayfields for winter forage.
But these things are far from the concern of most campers, more of whom are finding the western open range ideal for a getaway. The BLM controls 272 million isolated acres, virtually all available and underused by
recreationists.
Its general rule is to bring extra gas and water, enough food and good maps for wandering. Water is no problem on the Pony Express Trail; you`ll find some some every 40 miles or so. That`s not the case everywhere, however.
Don`t always expect signs. In some cases, locals try to thwart tourists by stealing BLM signs and markers, especially those that are artful.
Morgan confessed that the BLM now shoots some of its new signs to lessen their value as collectibles. Sometimes a shotup sign will last the government as long as two years.
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(For maps of BLM public lands, write BLM Headquarters, Department of the Interior, 18th and C Streets N.W., Washington, D.C., 20240. Specify particular states.)
