Pink Rock Quarry

May 11, 2016

This week we take a hike out to the pink rock quarry, where Beaver’s settler’s sourced blocks to build their homes.  I was afraid it would be hard to make an exciting story from a tame little 1.2 mile walk, but boy do I have a lot to say!  The best training I’ve had for trails crew yet this year was loading sledgehammers and costumes in my pack and carrying block mason’s tools out to the quarry for an “old-time” photo shoot.   As I headed out the door dressed like that,  my wife asked, “Are you going on Trek or something?”  She’s hilarious, and I’m a weirdo!  I didn’t sew my own pants or anything, but it was fun to pretend to head to the stone yard because it put me in a thoughtful state of mind to imagine life for our ancestors.  It also heightened my awareness of nature around me and my evening was superb because I was “in tune”.  Just five minutes from my car I noticed the first patches of volcanic tuff in the roadbed and it’s cool cause there is noticeable wagon wheel ruts in it.  Tuff is the geologic term for what’s at the quarry, made from compressed volcanic ash, and it was a desirable block material because it’s easily shaped, lighter weight, and therefore has some insulating qualities. The tracks in the mud from last week tell a story too, of who’s been here recently.  Deer tracks on top of UTV tracks, on top of mountain bike tracks, atop Jeep tracks, and lo-and-behold, another hiker’s footprints!  I absolutely love that folks are getting out and about.  A bit further down the road, heading west, I heard an owl hooting in the juniper’s to my right.  As the trail parallels Beaver River, 200 feet below, the rushing water of spring runoff was almost as loud as the canyon breeze in the pinion pines.  Then, fittingly, the call of pinion jays came from several directions.  A hummingbird zoomed past and a canyon wren did his little laser-beam sound.  I knew I was close to the mining site when the road get’s smooth and very level and humps of pink stone pop out from the roadside. The cliffs that stonemasons labored beneath are 250 feet long and about 70 feet high, with discarded rubble tapering down to the road.       So now I’m here at the jobsite, but unlike our hearty great great grandparent’s, I don’t have to do jack squat!  I can literally just watch the birds.  And amazing birds they were!  A pair of Peregrine falcons let me know I was making them anxious and I should take my photo’s and leave.  It took me 30 pictures fully zoomed in and then zooming in on the results to confirm that they really were Peregrines.  The pair circled back and forth, high and low, and finally one landed near the clifftop.  That’s when I went camera crazy and wished I had a tripod, a nicer camera, and my Vortex 10x42’s.  I’m totally stoked to have gone for a walk back in time to the Pink Rock Quarry.  Please get outside, exercise, reflect, entertain yourself, time-travel if you must, and see what you’ve been missing on the edge of the Tushars!     Drive up Beaver Canyon (UT 153) to mm 4.7.  Hang a Left up Baker Canyon, forest road 122,open to all vehicles, and drive just past the chlorination station.  Park near the “Cottonwood Spring” sign and this hike begins behind your left shoulder,  forest road 985.  P.S.: Take your Bino’s.