In the mid to late nineteenth century my great great grand father John Bennion (a Mormon polygamist) sent his two youngest wives to settle Rush Valley in western Utah. These two “sister wives” shared a small home dug into the side of a hill in what is now called Bennion Canyon. This was a hard life for two young women with several small children. One person who came to their aid was a local Goshute chieftain called Green Jacket. GJ invited the Bennions to move off of the hill side where they had dug in and into the juniper groves near the creek in the valley to the east. In 1929 my father’s grandfather Isreal Bennion built a house near where the young women had lived with the Indians and started a ranmch there that is still run by members of my family. The ranch has always been called Green Jacket. On more than a couple of occasions GJ had saved the lives of my family members. He was like a guardian angel to us. GJ was fond of attending the Mormon church services in nearby Vernon. On one occasion his gun which he almost always carried discharged in church killing the old man. He was buried on the hill overlooking the ranch.
Yesterday Lee and I drove out to Vernon for a family reunion and up to the ranch to visit GJ’s grave. It was a fine time. I brought with me a feather that had been used to fan my father as he was passing out of this life anf placed it in the tree where GJ is buried. It was was my way of bringing word or Owen’s death and burial to this place where my earliest memories with him had been.
When I was born in Salt Lake City my parents brought me home to Green Jacket into the little house there that my father had built just the year before. My earliest memories of this life were there at the place where my family has farmed or lived for five generations.

The stone marker that I and Alan Mitchell placed on Green Jacket’s grave a few years ago.

The wooden marker placed near the grave almost half a century ago by Salt Lake area boy scouts.

The view of the ranch and valley from the grave site.

Well I have not been much of a blogger for the past six weeks or so. Life gets gong and it is hard to sit down to the keyboard in the summer time. Upon returning from the river I got right into whipping our garden into shape, building fences and a slew of other honey-dos. It has been a busy time with out much time spent at the pottery. I had fired three times in succession right before we left for the river. The last firing was left in the kiln as there was no room in the shop for more work.

Here are the long cooled pots from that last early June firing.

Tall oval pots for flowers or something.

Three bowls…my favorite thing to make.

A long oval dish for baking or planting.

Every summer Zina runs a ranch camp for girls. Birch Creek Service Ranch was in full swing when we returned and Zina’s girls session started right up.

Lee and I did a number of things with the girls. I lead them up Canal Canyon where we removed dead fallen trees from some of Lee’s favorite riding trails. I made and fired pottery with the girls and Lee taught a pie making workshop. The girls also came over and helped Lee with her chicken coop.

We went over to Nephi and took our old neighbor Katie Tervort out for some Mexican food.

I have spent the last few days reclaiming scrap clay and am now ready to start making pots again. It will be good to get into it. The tourists have been very good to us lately and I am getting low on inventory. I’ll probably fire a couple of times in early September and then go n the river again for a couple of weeks returning in early October.

Lee and I returned three weeks ago from our annual grand Canyon charter trip with our girls and my brother Howard and his family. This is a trip that we put together every year in mid june through Tour West, a licensed Grand Canyon outfitter. Next year’s trip is already starting to fill up. If you are interested in finding out more about it contact me asap as time is running on.

Near the Tour West warehouse in Fredonia, Arizona is Judd Auto famous for it’s marquee.

The H Bennions at Clear Creek.

Howard my baby brother and his eternal sweetie Holly.

Hannah just out of high school and ready to take on college.

Van Haley Bennion, the best one. (Photo Howard Bennion)

Heidi Ho also a serious contender for the best one.

Heather Lenore, the schist Pixie.

Howard and Holly’s best friends Wally and Frankie.

Our friends from home Kim and Linda.

Signe and Nords from Riga, Latvia.

The Joe and Lee Bennion gang in Blacktail Canyon.

Latvians exiting Clear Creek.

Joe the Potter and Adah Bee sharing a laugh at Red Wall Cavern. (Photo Howard Bennion)

Louisa happy at her oars. (Photo Howard Bennion)

Zina hating every nano second of her Lava Falls run. (Photo Howard Bennion)

Adah smiles on.

Lee’s face in Lava says it all. (Photo Howard Bennion)

My brother Glynn’s daughter Emily. (Photo Howard Bennion)

Ten Bennion women is enough for any trip.

Nate earns his keep with the girls.

Jake with the girls.

Naps should be taken every day if shade can be found.

Impromptu multi-trip concert at Blacktail.

Below Lava festivities included an hour long pee break with jump rope competition.

Nords chills with his book at Zoroaster.

Wally reading at Zoroaster too.

Hiking North Canyon.

The three younger Bennion women at Clear Creek.

Joe the Potter pontificating on the finer points of canyon ethnobotany….yawn. (Photo Howard Bennion)

OK, here is what we all came for…the Lava runs. We hit Lava at a kind of harsh level. You could go left but the right was still there if you didn’t mind big and wet. We watched Can-X go left and then went right anyway.

Lou and Lee getting thrown around.(Photo Howard Bennion)

Mike and Zina in the Vee Wave. (Photo Howard Bennion)

Joe going into the Vee. (Photo Howard Bennion)

The boatman then took it in the shorts. (Photo Howard Bennion)

Not my finest moment going into the tail waves sideways. More proof that God loves a fool. (Photo Howard Bennion)

Another relative of mine is running for Congress. Bennion Spencer is running on the Democratic ticket for US House off Representatives. He is running for the seat currently held by my cousin Chris Cannon who was defeated earlier this summer by Jason Chaffetz. I spent a half hour or so yesterday discussing issues with Ben in Fountain Green at the Lamb Days celebration there. I found him to be well spoken and warm. He offers a very palatable and moderate alternative to Jason’s extreme standing on energy, immigration and defense. A firm but compassionate approach to immigration makes more sense to me than the attitude that “they” are the problem. Developing alternatives to oil that work and are renewable will help a lot more in the long run than more drilling which amounts to more give-aways to big oil and less for the consumer. As with Christian Burrage last time around I find in Ben a candidate I can totally get behind.

The big stone stacking party was a success. We had some very faithful friends show up and with the help of a hired skidder got a big chunk of te work done. We ran out of pallets about 6 pm on Saturday so we bagged it until I can get back to it in early July after the next river trip. We stacked 78 pallets. The guestimate is that we got about 148 tons of stone loaded onto pallets. I would further guess that it will take about 20-30 more pallets to finish. That is a crazy lot of stone. I’ll begin calculating how much we will need for the bard/studio and home we plan to build.
I left my camera home so there are no pix of the actiion but I will post some of the aftermath when I get back down there on Friday. I do have some cool images of my smashed fingers though. Great colors!

I always return from the river a bit exhausted and in need of some time to decompress. What? you say, I thought river running was relaxing and renewing. It is…for the passengers. Guides are on 24/7. Rowing on the water is the time when I unwind. The rigging, de-rigging, cooking, hike leading, interpretive talks and generally being “on” for people is what sucks all the energy out of a person. Usually I just collect myself for the first several days after returning from a river trip. This time I had to fall right into my pottery work. I fired my kiln twice in succession after returning. I unloaded the second firing Friday night and held an open studio sale the next day. Yesterday (Sunday) was the first slack time I have had in a over month. It is a bit like the eye of a storm as I have to get right into finishing our move to the new place and packing for the next river trip. Thank Heaven I only play for a living.

Fresh pots cooling in the opened kiln.

Zina came down from Provo with a friend to help me with the sale.

Little bottles.

A 40 lb bowl with a 30 lb bowl.

I have not tried these before. I had two of them in this firing. They are made with an eight lb cylinder shaped wih a bottom added and a lid formed for it. A lot of time spent on these. They may not be practical but are fun.

Sweet little mugs.

More of the same.

30 lb platters.

Tea bowls.

More tea bowls. These are the most fun to make.

Slab built platters.

Small jugs.

4 lb vases.

8 lb vases.

Just in time for summer come the lemonade tumblers.

6 lb jug.

A begging bowl.

Saturday was good. Thanks to all of you who came out and supported us. It makes things a lot better when the bills are paid. Come by anytime. There is lots of inventory right now.

Lee and I are the owners of 70 tons of oolite limestone that we plan to fashion into a home sometime in the next few years here at our new place in Spring City. The stone is in a large pile in Gunnison, Utah.
We need to get it moved up to Spring City. To that end we are having a stone stacking/moving party on Saturday, May 31. We need people willing to help us sort and place the stone on to pallets so it can be loaded onto trucks and hauled up to Spring City. If you can help us that day rsvp so we can talk about time and place. Friends with flatbed trailers are especially welcome.
Most of the stone will go to State Stone’s quarry in Manti to be split. The rest will go to Spring City.
There will hot fun in the summer sun, food and cool cool water.

On or about April 22 a dory was parked in the right side of Deubendorf Rapid in Grand Canyon. We arrived there to camp just as the park rangers were preparing to extract the craft. Apparently the boaters and other rangers had tried unsuccessfully to get the boat out at the time that it was pinned. When we got there it had been on the rock for about ten days.

Evening of May second with 15K cfs running through the dory.

I think I heard a math whiz say that the boat had something like 40 tons of pressure on it from the river. If that is the case the Aluminum dory gets the prize for durability.

In the morning the parkies got busy pretty early taking advantage of the lower night time flows.

Cool hi-tech dry suits and radio equipped helmets.

The whole operation was conducted with the utmost attention to safety. The guy down stream has a river board, throw rope and is patched into the radio system.

A tight line is used to move people and gear between shore and the wreck.

The boat’s owner, who has had to extract this thing before, suggested to the park service that they use a pry bar with their winch to jiggle the boat off the rock.

The rangers hooked the stern to a big battery operated winch pulling directly toward the shore.. The bow also had a manual winching system pulling up stream.

When the hatches could be opened gear was hauled ashore on the tight line.

The ranger on board holds up the prize. It is not known if the rescue operation would have been attempted if this beverage was not known to be on board.

As soon as they could get the up stream gunwale out of the water the boat was bailed out as much as possible using buckets and a hand operated bilge pump.

After unloading and bailing the dory was winched the rest of the way in to shore.

It was a truly strange sight to see this great old boat flying out of the canyon.

Just back from another Grand Canyon Field Institute trip through the GC on the Colorado River. The past week has been a blur of glazing pots, loading the kiln, firing and planting more garden. Then there are the honey-do’s. I am taking a much needed day of rest (Sunday) and will be starting the firing cycle again on Monday in preparation for the Heritage Day sale on May 24. After that we will be moving Lee’s studio over here from our old place, more gardening, a big stone moving party on May 31 and starting to prepare and pack for the next GC trip which will be our charter.

Rigging at Lee’s Ferry April 22.
THe GCFI trip was great as usual. I worked with people who I love and respect and the guests were above average. The Canyon is always terrific. The people are what makes the trip. The flowers were outrageous after the winter rains. The wind was hard and usually up-canyon, but what do you expect in April? It was a fairly cool trip temperature wise. I think I slept inside my bag every night and wore a cap to bed a lot of the time. The Canyon is always wonderful.

Christa Jane Sadler, our trip leader, in one of her typical lecture poses. She is passionate about the river, the canyon and the geology.

The thorough and thoughtful botanist and boatman, Gary Bolton.

Greg Woodall Has been on the river for several decades and teaches a type of archeology that is heavy on ethnobotany.

Chris Denker came down from Alaska for his first time through GC rowing baggage.

The junior member of the crew and first timer Ben “Benovich” Anderson rowed bags also.

THe trip, as mentioned, was a GCFI class so there were lots of lectures every day. Here Greg is going on about old time Indians at Hilltop Ruin.

Gary talking plant identification at Whitmore Wash.

Christa’s famous beach playdooh diorama lecture on the formation of Grand Canyon is a high light of every GCFI trip.

The Brittle Bush flowers give the Tonto Platform a yellow tinge in this view from the Inner Gorge.

Lots of wild critters running around. This little Collared Lizard was up Stone Creek.

Chuckwalla

Pulling into camp at Clear Creek.

Smoke on the water and fire in the sky…April 29 some campers let their fire get away and 2K acres burned on the South Rim. As we rowed against killer upstream winds into Hance Rapids the sun was obscured giving the whole scene an otherworldly feel.

Linda Parr and CJ being cute on a hike.

In early March the BuRec released 40K second feet of water in an attempt to build beaches. This one at Little Nankoweep was a success. At other places camps were diminished or rendered too steep to use.

Somewhere in Grand Canyon this little pot sits undisturbed since it was set down a thousand years ago.

Marble Canyon reflections.

Bruce and Edna stunned to silence by another of CJ’s blathers.

Pat could make a good boatman…..with a lot of practice.

Mike Anderson (here with CJ) is a regular feature on GCFI river trips. He just retired from a career as Park Historian for GCNP.

Blacktail.

Big water is not the primary reason I return to the Canyon but it sure adds to the experience. Benovich breaks through the Vee Wave at Lava Falls here.

Denker gets lost in the foam right of the Ledge Hole.

CJ still afloat after getting slapped hard.

Gary coming out of the chute.

Greg getting whammed in the Vee.

Yolanda’s grin about says it all.

Lee and I escaped to Moab after her opening to float the Colorado River through Cataract Canyon. Rick Gate and Bob Armstrong went along for the ride…and hiking.

Old friends.

Better with age.

Richard Charles Edward Gate.

Bob Armstrong the hiking fool of the Colorado Plateau.

Our old gray boat Homer under the bathtub ring of Powell Reservoir. I don’t think the lake will ever get that high again given water demands of down stream users.