Tag Archives: UT

Day 7: Bryce Canyon National Park – Day 1

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After reviewing my options, I decided that today would be the day to simply take the drive up the length of the park and stop at all the scenic overlooks in the park.  In 18 miles there are 14 stops – I think I hit them all…

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They’re all very similar but I think my favorite was Inspiration Point which is where the above photo was taken.  The day started out very nice, despite the clouds that almost made me reconsider.  However as the day drew on it started to cool off and there was a brief shower of freezing rain that finally made me put the top up for good.  I made it back down to the visitors center and was able to catch a presentation of their 20 minute “intro to Bryce Canyon” movie.

After that it was raining and the wind was blowing quite a bit, so I hung out at the visitor center for about a half hour or so until it finally stopped.  I made it out to the last viewpoint and called it a day.

Got back to my campground about 5 o’clock and fortunately my tent was still standing.  One of the campground staff said they had a 51mph gust of wind blow through and for a time visibility was virtually 0 with all the dust in the air.  While my tent was still standing, I found that it was also full of sand!  Unlike anything I’d experienced in the last couple of days.  I cleaned out the sand and made some modifications that I am hoping will keep out some of the sand tonight – not holding my breath though.  Since the wind was still blowing pretty good, I decided not to bother trying to cook in camp and went into town to try the pizza place.

Tomorrow I’m going on a 4-5 mile hike down into the canyon to get an up-close view of some of the hoodoos!

Day 6: Will Wonders Never Cease?

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Today I had planned for a leisurely drive from Moab over to Bryce Canyon National Park.  But as mentioned in my last post, the photos from Canyonlands were more or less garbage, so I decided to make a run through the park to at least capture some highlights.  Now I was driving right past the turn-off to the park anyway, but this is about 25 miles from the park plus the additional perhaps 10-15 miles out to the Grand View, so we’re talking about a 70-80 mile side trip plus time for photos – so all in all about 2 and half hours.

Then during this time, I also had the thought that I should run back up highway 128 and film it in real time as opposed to the time lapse I already had.  Besides, you always see different views from the alternate directions.  I had to get back up to I-70 to get to Bryce anyway so what the heck.  So after doing these things it was about 1 o’clock and I still had the original 5 hour drive to go.  Good plan.

Now, while I knew that my route was going to take me near Capitol Reef National Park and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, I did not realize that I would in fact be driving through them.  Bonus!

Of course, this is the down side of simply relying on the GPS and not digging into the routes as I have done on my previous trips.  In hind sight I would have planned to stay a night in Capitol Reef as it is about mid-way on this drive.  But, oh well.

There is a scenic drive of about 10 miles (one way) that I had to take – so that killed another hour.  After this I then entered the Dixie National Forest which offers overlooks of Grand Staircase.  Then I entered the actual monument – simply unbelievable.

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I stopped for a few photos and am hoping that my driving time-lapse will show a little bit, but this is something that I don’t think photos can really convey.  You have to drive this route to believe it.  It is hands down the most amazing drive I’ve ever taken.

After all of these “delays”, my leisurely day ended with my arrival at the campground at about 7:30pm.  I got the tent up despite the wind and then went into “town” because I didn’t want the hassle of cooking in the dark and wind.  There are two restaurants in Cannonville – a pizza place and Clarke’s.  I chose Clarke’s since they were open later – 9pm.  Had a very nice Rainbow Trout dinner.  To top it off they had The Piano Guys playing on their sound system – I love those guys!

I’m here through the weekend now, so no more serious driving ’til the middle of next week.  Now I’ll just enjoy Bryce Canyon!

Day 5 – Canyonlands National Park

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After a nearly sleepless night due to crazy blowing winds and sand in my tent I crawled out to a still very windy and decidedly cloudy morning.  After cleaning as much of the sand out of my tent, sleeping back and teeth as possible, the wind was still blowing.  I decided to just grab breakfast at McDonalds, post my blog and head up to the park.  Cooking in camp would have been an exercise in futility…

So I headed up into Canyonlands National Park – Island in the Sky district.  The park is a vast formation of canyons and other amazing formations formed by the confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers.  It’s split up into three districts that are each more inaccessible than the last.  The one I visited is generally the most accessible and was the closest to Moab.  The views are beyond any words that I could come up with – nothing short of awe-inspiring.

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Unfortunately, you’ll have to take my word on this for the time being as I had a bit of an operator error with my camera.  At some point getting into and out of the car with the camera it seems I had unknowingly switched it to fully manual mode – which is fine if I had been paying attention.  However, I got lost in the views and was simply snapping away and I never review them until later because in the sun (ok it was cloudy today) you generally can’t see anything on the camera display.  After getting back to camp tonight I discovered that virtually all of my shots from today are uncorrectably overexposed…

So, since I have to drive past the park entrance on my way to Bryce Canyon tomorrow I think I will run into the park and try to capture at least a few images.  It will add a couple hours to my drive but I can’t leave here without some true visual evidence.  Pics to come!

Days 3 & 4: To Moab and Arches National Park

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Yesterday was spent driving from just west of Denver (Central City) to Moab, Utah.  The drive over I-70 was very nice, especially the Glenwood Canyon section which has got to be one of the true marvels of the interstate highway system.  The last time I took this route was on a trip to the Grand Canyon, 20 years ago, and it was at night so we didn’t get to see the amazing views.  I’m working on time-lapse videos of my trip and I’m hoping that these come out as well as I have envisioned – we’ll see…

Taking the advice of the campground staff in Denver I diverted from the GPS directions and instead took UT-128 off of I-70 down to Moab.  This route is rated as one of America’s scenic byways and it did not disappoint.  It follows the Colorado River through a series of canyons and the views are amazing!  On reaching Moab I made camp and just relaxed for the evening – after three days on the road, I was beat!

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This morning I headed into Arches National Park, which is less than 10 miles north of Moab.  I planned to see lots of arches – but didn’t see as many as I’d have liked.  The hike out to Delicate Arch – the picture above – was about a 2 hour round trip or 3 miles.  At least it was only uphill one direction;-)

After that the next stop on the route was Sand Dune and Broken Arches.  I saw Sand Dune, but after reaching what I thought would be Broken Arch – the sign said “Trail Continues thru Arch”.  So I continued on for about another half hour – and nothing, no signs, no people, just rocks and sand and cute little lizards.  Now it could have been right around the next bend, but I was hot and thirsty and tired, so I bailed and headed back to the car.

By this time it was about 3:30 and I’d had enough of the sun – according to my old fashioned thermometer I have with me it was at least 100 degrees.  So I headed back to camp, took a shower, and decided I wasn’t going to sit around camp and cook in the heat again (even if it is only 90 in Moab).  I had seen signs for the Moab Brewery and decided a cold hand-crafted brew sounded perfect.  I tried two, their IPA and Deraileur – both were great, along with a delicious Smoked salmon salad.  Then it was back to camp to do a little last minute research for tomorrow – Canyonlands National Park.

Day 9 – Great Basin NP

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I spent the day at Great Basin NP.  This area, known as the Basin and Range, is really quite interesting and the Park is fantastic.

If you’re wondering what the name Great Basin refers to, its a geographic region which encompases nearly all of Nevada and parts of all the surrounding states.  Basically it’s a region comprised of elevated mountains or mountain ranges with desert valleys separating them.  What makes the basin area interesting is that all of the preciptiation that falls here, stays here, because of the mountain ranges.  It doesn’t run ultimately to the ocean like everywhere else.

The elevation differences in Great Basin NP make for some prety dramatic views of the surrounding areas.  There is something like an 8,000 ft difference from the summit of Wheeler Peak to the surrounding deserts.  Pictures don’t do it justice, you really have to see it first hand.

As I was only spending the one day here, I wasn’t able to do the summit hike of Wheeler Peak as that’s an all day thing and you really have to be off the summit before noon in order to avoid the routine afternoon thunderstorm.  Instead, I took the scenic drive up to the campground at 10,000 ft and took the Alpine Lakes hike.  It was about a 3 mile hike which offered lots of great views of Wheeler peak and it’s neighbor, Jeff Davis Peak. Wheeler peak at 13,063 ft is the second highest in Nevada (sorry, but I don’t know the first).  The lakes on this hike were really more like ponds, but it was still worth the effort.

After that, I went back down to the visitor center and took the tour of Lehman Cave.  Lots of really cool cave stuff including the most “shields” of any cave in the world.  Shields are a rare cave formation where water under pressure exits through a crack or weak point in the cave.  Because the water is under pressure, the shields can form at all sorts of angles.

I’ll have to come back here someday and take the Wheeler summit hike, the view has got to be amazing.  I’d stay in the park the next time – I drove through the campground at the trailhead to the summit hike and it’s really nice!

Day 8 – From Utah to Nevada

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Today was slated as a driving day, and that’s what I did.  I drove from Vernal, UT to Ely, NV which is a distance of 410 miles.

Driving west out of Vernal, the landscape slowly changes from the desolation of the scrub-land to the desolation of the the mountains.  Actually the mountain views leading up to Salt Lake City are really nice, unfortunately there are no places to safely pull aside as it’s just a two lane highway, so I wasn’t able to take many pictures here.  The only opportunity I had was to get a couple of shots of Wasatch Mountain near Daniels, UT.

After rolling through Park City, UT – where a lot of the 2002 Winter Olympic events were held the next stop was the Great Salt Lake. There’s actually not much to see from the road, but that’s OK.

My route took me close to the Bonneville Salt Flats and there is a rest stop conveniently located right along the southern edge.  I stopped there and snapped a few more photos.

From there it was a short hop over the border into Nevada and then it really got desolate. Today’s picture of the day shows pretty much what the drive down US93 from Wendover to Ely is like.  The views are actually pretty nice.

Lots of pictures to be posted soon.

Day 7

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I spent Saturday at Dinosaur National Monument, which straddles the Colorado/Utah border.  The landscape here is absolutely incredible.  I took tons of pictures and hope to get some posted later tonight.

Unfortunately, the main attraction at Dinosaur, an active fossil quarry, was closed indefinitely on July 12, due to safety issues.  Apparently the building that houses the quarry was built on an unstable area of ground and has had problems ever since it opened back in the 50’s.  They were conducting some sort of inspection and determined that it was simply not safe to operate at this time.  So, I was a bit bummed not being able to see that, but the scenic drives and hikes were worth coming here by themselves.  Simply amazing.

That took up pretty much the entire day – I got back to my campsite about 4:30 and after having been out in the 95 to 100 degree heat all day I couldn’t just sit at my campsite.  If I had some shade I maybe could have managed it, but without any shade it was simply unbearable.  So, I went to another movie “You, Me and Dupree”.  It was a so-so movie, but the AC was wonderful and by the time the movie let out, it was nice and cool again.