Sego, UT...camping out in a Ghost Town!

Sego, UT - a Ghost Town!

THEN... 1920 - Sego, UT

NOW... October 16, 2010 - Sego, UT

A picture from the internet of this abandoned house in Sego while standing!

Yet, this is what the house looks like now! We explored the basement, which you can't see cause its buried underneath the wood. Crazy and creepy huh!

We set up our tents in this old abandoned house! Creepy, just a little bit!

So here's the story! My friend Justin sent out a text last weekend inviting anyone who wanted to go down to Moab to hike, explore Arches National Park, and then campout in an old ghost town surrounded by abandoned houses and stuff. Sounded great, right! I replied saying "I was in"! Arches was beautiful and fun as always! About 6pm, we took off from Arches and drove about 20 minutes outside of Moab to the ghost town of Sego! As we drove off the freeway we already spotted some deserted houses. Sego is located about 5 miles off the freeway, so we still had a ways to go! As we neared the town, old railway bridges were noticable as well as old mine shafts that have long since been buried or shut down. The old Sego cemetery is also still there! We first explored the old house that is now collapsed and then we began setting up our tents in the abandoned brick house before it got dark. Beef stew and french bread was our amazing dinner, as well as a variety of nuts one of the guys brought from Winco! Thank you Zach! We played the "I have never" game and then told crazy, stupid stories to Jared, who then retold them to everyone and we had to guess who had done them. We had a great time! As the fire burned down, we all got ready for bed and split up between the two tents. There was 10 in our group, so given the creepy surroundings, we split up 4 in one and 6 in another. Justin was next to me in our tent of 6 and at about 5am he asked if I was awake. "Yes," I replied! Honestly I don't know if I ever fell asleep! "Can you hear that?" he asked. Now I really thought he was trying to scare me since we were in a ghost town! But oh no, I had to admit, I heard it! "What is it?" I asked him. "Not sure, maybe footsteps!"

Uh, what!?! For the next hour we were perky eared, eyes peeled, and trembling with adrenaline running through our systems! A zipper being pulled down in the next tent alerted us. We waited for someone to come out and go to the bathroom and we were going to warn them to not go out since something or someone may be out there, yet no one every came out. Then the zipper was zipped back up! Ahhh! A few more twigs broke, scuffled sounds of shoes on the ground were made, and finally the sounds of rain fell on the tents. I think it was the rain that woke up the next tent. Curtis, who has his concealed weapons permit, had his gun under his pillow and as we came to find out had been the only one awake in his tent of 4 with his gun pointed at the tent door. After a few minutes of sprinkled rain, it let up and Curtis turned his flashlight on. Justin immediately asked who was there and the two of them, followed closely by Zach, searched the perimeter of the house for any signs of intruders. Now it was about 6:15am and our alarm was set for 6:45am. We all had church at 1pm so we had planned to pack up early and get on the road. The guys came back and said they heard a few male voices behind a bush up the road. Justin yelled out "we don't want any trouble", yet they never saw the guys, we are sure it had to be the source of the sounds we heard through the night. We packed up quick and hightailed it out of there! Makes a great story to retell, but honestly I've never been more scared while camping in my life. I felt a lot safer knowing Curtis had his gun and that I was in the same tent with some guys.

Petroglyphs located just outside of Sego! Some of these date back to 2000 BC and as recently as 1600 AD by the historic Ute era! It was really cool to see!

It's no petroglyph, but still cool to see how long ago people have been around!

Now these petroglyphs are just creepy! They remind me of what aliens might look like! The sign at Barrier Canyon stated, "the identifying characteristic of these figures is hallowed or missing eyes, the frequent absence of arms or legs, and the presence of vertical body markings. The "ghost-like" images, may represent shamanistic art associated with ritual activities of the Archaic people."

A view of Sego as we said "Farewell"!