PANGUITCH, Utah — Panguitch, Utah is a pioneer town with a Paiute name.
It means "big fish."
The name might seem more aspirational than descriptive, but state wildlife records show nearby Panguitch Lake and the adjacent Sevier River have some impressive cutthroat trout. I can't confirm that. Fish laugh when I cast a line. Really. I can almost hear them.
So I'll accept testimony that there are big fish, and I can personally vouch for the proximity of otherworldly red rock spires in Bryce Canyon National Park. It's just down the road.
If you haven't been to Bryce Canyon, stop reading and go now. It's worth it.
But Bryce Canyon gets lots of love, and Max Tracks strives to find what's new to someone who's something of a been-there-done-that snob. I'm talking about myself.
In the tunnel vision of a road trip bound for sandstone wonders, in the past, it's been easy to barrel through town in the tunnel vision of a road trip bound for a bucket list national park.
That's where Chaco comes in. My Labrador retriever's bucket list:
1. Eat
2. Fetch
3. Eat more
The urgency of every item on this list forces me out of my truck and into parks and roadside attractions that would not attract me alone.
Max Tracks to international film festival in the shadow of Boulder Mountain, loses camera:
That's how I wound up in the Panguitch City Park at 8 a.m. on a Saturday. As Chaco fulfilled bucket list item 2, I looked up to see an unexpected early-morning gathering of adults in what looked like well-groomed dog runs.
Getting closer, I saw 24 pristine horseshoe pits. (Q: "Pristine pits," an Oxymoron or a great band name? A: Both) Early morning arrivals practiced for a tournament slated for 10 a.m.
Holding court amidst the competitors was Benj Rains.
"I hand-dug every one of these," he told me as we stood over a box of gently fluffed sand. "Everything around here was rock."
Rains built the courts with his late friend, Dave Harris, five years ago. Nothing stops the regulars now — not Lawrence Workman's recent heart surgery, not Benj's new knee, not distance.
Waldo and Joanie Burnham arrived on electric trikes.
"We stay in a campground close and then ride our bikes from the campgrounds to the tournament," Waldo explained.
Waldo and Joanie stand with Workman. All retired, they find each other as they converge on horseshoe tournaments around the region. They all have tournament wins under their belts, but Benj is the first among equals here.
"I've won the state championship three years in a row," Benj said.
This tournament drew 17 players.
Max Tracks through Blanding, meeting nice people and getting lost:
Rains watches them arrive with satisfaction. "It's awesome when you see all these people showing up."
So Chaco worked his magic as the embodiment of oblivious serendipity. Who knew such a dynamic traveling troupe of Horseshoe enthusiasts existed? Apparently, a lot of people, but I wasn't among them.
Chaco was no help at all in town. Turns out he's not big on quilting.
Too bad for him, because Panguitch is a quilting town! The earliest pioneers stitched it into the fabric of the place. The town's heroic founding story involves a harsh early winter spoiling crops, necessitating a hero's journey for seven guys with quilts.
Local lore tells of seven men who trudged through snow in 1864. Their animals and wagons couldn't handle the snow, but the quilts could! They made it to Parowan and back with supplies, walking on quilts they laid over the snow. The annual Panguitch Quilt Walk Festival honors that journey each June.
Those men didn't just save the town; they pioneered sewn-together swatches of colorful cast-off fabric as a winter survival technology.
Entering the intrepid community of quilting is Jon Gray, who found his calling in this place where quilting runs deep.
Gray hunches over a long-arm sewing machine at the downtown quilt shop called Patches. He manages the shop while pursuing his unexpected passion for the folk art known as quilting.
"Most people don't expect to see me when they walk through the door," the bearded, backward cap-wearing 27-year-old says. COVID killed his construction job five years back. He figured he'd stay at the store six months.
This next month marks five years.
