DEAD Horse Point became a tourist attraction in the Moab area, starting in the late 1930s. However, getting a suitable, paved road to the destination required more than three decades.
"When an old cowpoke a generation ago named it Dead Horse Point, little did he think that someday the horseless carriage would drive to its rim and discharge breathless occupants to be astounded by its majestic scenery," a May 12, 1938 story in the Times Independent newspaper stated.
"All scenery is beneath the feet ..." the story stated. "Dead Horse Point is Moab Utah's newest attraction ..."
The first good auto road (unpaved) and some 20 miles long to Dead Horse Point was completed in the spring of 1938.
"From its rim miles become inches thick strata of sandstone (and) appear as just one thin layer in the panorama. Snow capped ranges ride the skyline in the purple distance. It is more colorful than the Grand Canyon," the Times story concluded.
That was one of the first media reports of Dead Horse Point.
Dead Horse Point is a steep mesa, some 400 yards wide, with a 2,000-foot drop down its vertical cliff walls.
-Some 15 years later, in 1953, another Times Independent story (originally from the New York Times) was not excited about access to Dead Horse Point. "The so-called road to Death Horse Point" was the headline of a July 18, 1953 report.
"Thanks to the needs of uranium mining companies and oil exploration outfits, a hair-rising eighteen mile stretch of so-called highway has been bulldozed in Dead Horse Point," the story stated.
It said locals claim the view there is equal to any other on the Colorado.
"Summer tourists who don't mind leaving pavement behind -- and having theirs hearts pound at overtime speed from the altitude -- will find the new road from Moab to the Dead Horse lookout a relatively easy route into wilderness of spectacular grandeur," the story continued.
Likely this "new road" was the Shafer trail, a jeep path that winds its way up to Canyonlands from the river level. (See the Shafer Trail report at the bottom of this report...)
Dead Horse Point became a Utah State Park in 1959 (Times Independent article of Dec. 17, 1959) and an actual shelter was constructed atop the lookout mesa in the summer of 1962 (Times Indep. report of March 22, 1962).
"Road to Dead Horse Point much improved" was a Feb. 25, 1965 headline in the Iron County Record newspaper. By that year, 15 miles of the 22 miles to the lookout were paved in a $60,000 project.
Previously, the road was considered very dusty. It was then attracting some 52,000 visitors a year.
From 1965 to the early 1970s, an extra mile or so of the highwway was paved each year. By 1971, only one unpaved mile remained.
Today, a wide paved highway leads to Dead Horse and features no thrills for those afraid of heights -- until the overlook point is reached.
-HOW did the place receive its grisly title?
There are 2 versions, according to "Utah Place Names," a book by John W. Van Cott.
1. Rustlers abandoned their stock there in the late 19th Century to avoid a posse and the animals died there, from lack of water.
2. The more plausible tale is that in 1894, Arthur Taylor, a Moab stockman was herding cattle in the area. He came across a number of dead horses, who had apparently perished from lack of water. They could see the Colorado River below, but could not reach the water. Their demise gave rise to the name.
-SHAFER TRAIL ORIGINATION: This is an exciting unpaved path below Dead Horse Point. The Times Independent of Sept. 18, 1952 had a report on its construction. Three tons of dynamite had been used to create the trail so far and it was only 2/3ds complete.
The Shafer name originated from the Shafer Trail Road Group, composed of oil and uranium men, who invested in labor and machinery to better access the area.
"This is one of the finest examples that could be found of a need causing men to tackle the 'impossible,'" the story concluded.
The Times Indep. of Dec. 4, 1952 reported on the first jeep that traveled the entire new Shafer Trail, going from Dead Horse Point to the Valley below.
Just below Dead Horse Point, the jeep required a blast of dynamite and a bulldozer to clear some 1,000 tons of boulders that were blocking a narrow point -- directly below the mesa's lookout point.
Nick Murphy, Jack Turner, Rud Merz, Dick and Bob Mohler and Lawrence Migllaccia were among the brave jeep occupants.
Nate Knight and Norm Hettman were working on the trail further down and used their equipment and skill to clear the path.
Later, the men scoured the cliffs with geiger counters in search of uranium, which is why the trail even exists today.
BELOW is a June 25, 1998 story from the Deseret News by Lynn Arave and Ray Boren, about the Shafer trail:
-At the end of her latest jaunt to southeastern Utah, Meladye Shively was ready to head back to Denver in her well-traveled (245,000 miles and counting) white Nissan pickup. Having explored Canyonlands' Island in the Sky for the first time, she'd decided to drop off the peninsular mesa toward the Colorado River gorge via the Shafer Trail.
"I'd never even heard of it before," she admitted during a break at a river viewpoint, "but I didn't want to go home the boring way."The precipitous, unpaved Shafer Trail is anything but boring.
As seen from Dead Horse Point State Park nearby, the Colorado and its tributaries have carved an awesome landscape reminiscent of territory a little farther south along the same great drainage - the Grand Canyon.
A major difference, however, is that here a few roads link the plateau above with the river below. The handiest among these is the Shafer - a gully-crossing, side-winding route that is, at times, a cliffhanger.
Literally.
In the 1880s, Frank and J.H. Shafer began improving the trail - once used by Indians and 19th century outlaws - to move cattle to and from summer rangelands. At the head of a canyon they would work the cows up a steep but traversable slope.
"There were spots on it that were maybe 3 feet wide," said John Simmons, an interpretive ranger at Canyonlands National Park. "Ranchers tell stories that if cattle got scared and backed up on the switchback," they could lose a few of the animals when they tumbled over the edge.
Uranium prospectors and oil companies widened the route in the 1950s, during the Moab area's mining boom years. Much of it was included within Canyonlands' northeastern boundaries when the park was established in 1964. "We do grade it periodically" today, Simmons said.
The Potash Road and the Shafer Trail - unpaved for 18 miles between the Moab Salt Co.'s evaporative ponds and Canyonlands National Park's Island in the Sky district - attract four-wheel-drive enthusiasts, mountain bikers and adventurous tourists. The trek makes a good half-day trip.
"When it's dry, we say it's a high-clearance two-wheel-drive road," Simmons said. In other words, four-wheel-drive is a good idea, though two-wheel-drive trucks and sport utility vehicles can manage it. Family cars and vans have been seen on parts of the trail, but that might not be a wise option. Motor homes and those towing trailers should not use the Shafer Trail.
People should also take into account, as Simmons put it, "their level of comfort with heights." The drop-off exposures along the rim and on the switchbacks can be, well, nerve-racking. In some places, he said, it's better to be a driver - with some sense of control - than a passenger.
The Shafer can be approached from either side: at the end of U-279, 16 miles from that riverside highway's junction with U.S. 191 near Moab, or from Island in the Sky, via the turnoff to the White Rim Trail, just beyond the new fee station.
The elevation of Island in the Sky's east rim is about 5,900 feet above sea level. From Red Sea Flat, the Shafer Trail drops a thousand feet in about the first half mile, thanks to a half-dozen dizzying switchbacks. The road levels off near Canyonlands' White Rim (which hosts a renowned 100-mile jeep-and-bike trail of its own) and in the Shafer Basin.
At this point, back-road explorers find themselves 1,600 feet below Dead Horse Point, a blocky rusty-red butte towering overhead much of the way, and just above the Goose Neck, a notable Colorado River meander visible from the state park's viewpoints.
Although the road is passable in most weather, it's always best to keep an eye on the sky. Even a light rain will turn washes into raging streams of colored water. If a flash flood threatens, get to safety as soon as possible.
Cliffs along the trail can also be a hazard. A Moab man was killed in a 500-foot fall in 1967 when he stopped to take photographs along the trail and slipped.
The landscape and geology can take your breath away. The fractured buttes - variously buff or brown or lavender or maroon - look as if they were hand-made by giants for purposes only giants would understand.
The visible formations include the relatively young Navajo and Kayenta sandstones ("only" 175 million to 180 million years old) and, nearer the carving Colorado, the Moenkopi, Cutler and Rico layers (laid down 230 million to 275 million years ago). These rocks were once windblown sands, ancient streambeds and lakebeds and primordial coastal seas and tidal basins.
Shively, who travels the country for business - she's a computer software writer - and for pleasure, was entranced by the view a few hundred feet directly above the Colorado River. A tour van out of Moab stopped nearby and disgorged a flock of sightseers, most speaking French.
She envied the guide's chosen field, visiting such splendor every day. If only she had such a job . . . .
"Then," Shively said, "when we'd stop at places like this, I'd say, `Look, we're in my office.' "
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