Canyonlands National Park

October 4 - 7, 2014

A really big travel day for us, 214 miles at high speed on interstate 70 east.  The ride just kept getting prettier and prettier the further we traveled.  Twinkles actually said it was "unfreaking believable" or something like that.  The Hawk had quite a workout though with several long uphill climbs, it was near pedal to the metal at times.

Moving on down the highway

As I was driving prior to the Interstate, I saw a streak of light flash down in the sky ahead of me that appeared to be either a meteorite or someone's fireworks, it was not far away, but off to the side and I couldn't tell if it hit the ground.  I slowed down to look, no one was there, no sign of anything smoldering.  I have this fantasy about a meteorite landing right in front of me and being able to get it while it's still hot.  I was tempted to stop and walk around for hours trying to find it, like a needle in a haystack, but no easy place to pull over.  That was my extraterrestrial encounter of the day ?  

We have violated a cardinal RV rule today by going to a National Park Campground on a Saturday with no reservations. This was really pushing our luck, but there are many campgrounds in the area, we had a backup plan and figured we could find a site somewhere. So we pulled into our first choice, the Horesethief Campground and the camp host came right over and said, "There are only two sites left, hurry, don't let anyone get in front of you".  I should add that this campground host was the most conscientious one I have seen to date. We have been really lucky in finding campsites lately, wish we could get so lucky at he casinos !  We grabbed the first campsite we came to which was actually almost level and had good separation from other sites.  These are dry camping sites, no hookups and with the senior pass only $7.50 a night.  Horsethief campground is closer to Canyonlands National Park so we will explore it first.  We went to the visitors center for a map and then visited a few of the scenic overlooks along the Canyon rim drive. It was a beautiful day, sunny, blue skies, high 70's, couldn't be much nicer.

Shafer Canyon overlook

Mesa Arch

Ancient Juniper Tree

Another Shafer Canyon overlook

Canyonlands National Park takes in 527 square miles (largest National Park in Utah) and the area here is called the "Island in the sky" as it is a Mesa top with the vast canyons of the Colorado River on one side and the Green River on the other side dropping down several thousand feet from the Mesa rim.  There are two other park regions that are more primitive, mostly wilderness and not connected to the Island in the sky area, you can't get there from here !  There are many primitive dirt roads from the Uranium mining exploration and ranching days in the canyons.  The most notorious road, the "White Rim Road' is a narrow dirt road that winds along sheer cliff sides and down switchbacks from the canyon rim to the canyon floor.  Twinkles took one look and said "No freaking way" !  The 1950's Uranium Mining boom put this area on the map, it was virtually unknown before, however the mining did not pan out and the mining companies moved on to other areas.  Thus the area was saved from destruction and a champion of the environment, Stuart Udall, was instrumental in pushed to make it a National Park.

Looking down from the rim to the Shafer Trail Road

Day two was spent riding to the Grand View Point Overlook and taking the rim hike there and then driving to the Upheaval Dome and doing the trail there.  They were great trails, especially the Grand View which followed the edge of the rim with amazing views down into the Canyon.  There are various layers of canyons going as far as the eye can see.  We happened to be on the rim as a Ranger talk was starting and sat in on it, the Ranger gave a excellent geology talk.  It was actually way more than a geology talk and very interesting.

View from the Rim Trail

Rim Trail again

Twinkles leading the way along the Rim Trail

Another Rim Trail view

The Upheaval Dome, one theory is that it was
caused by a Meteorite impact

The trail beyond Upheaval Dome, note
the steps in the rock

One thing to be mindful here at Canyonlands is gas for the vehicle as it is a 30 mile drive to the nearest gas station.  As a result, we took a ride into Moab to fill up and take a look around.  Moab on a Sunday afternoon was heavy with traffic, cars, trucks, RV's, ATV's motorcycles and bicycles.  It is an Oasis, filled with restaurants, fast food, hotels, motels, bars, stores of all kinds and all sorts of outside adventure businesses. 

Poison Spider Bike Shop mural i Moab

Moab Diner has a great breakfast

On Monday we made the Jeep earn it's keep by taking it on the Shafer Trail Road which descends really far down through a series of wicked switchbacks to the White Rim Road.  Twinkles went along as the Ranger talk had convinced her that it was a "must see".  A few of the switchback turns were scary and it is very narrow in places with sheer drop-offs on the edge of the road.  If you don't look down not so bad !  The road turns into the White Rim Road which can be taken for 100 miles through the park which takes a couple of days.  We stopped at the Gooseneck Overlook which has an incredible view of the gooseneck bend in the Colorado River.  It was then on to the Musselman Arch which Twinkles, much to my surprise walked across and even stopped in the middle to pose !   It looked like 500 feet of air under that Arch, she said it was easy, as long as you don't look down, not for me !  We then turned around and took the Potash Road to Moab.  This road and the White Rim can be travelled with a standard 4 wheel drive but there are areas that require some ground clearance, an all wheel drive car could easily get hung up.  The Potash Road was 30 miles long and was plenty rough, rocky and crossing mud and water in places.  The road passed through this huge Potash mining complex that was really nasty looking.  After all this excitement and bouncing around all day we needed a  rest stop in Moab at the Moab Brewery for nachos and a beer before heading back to the campground.
  

Going down into the Canyon

On the edge looking down at the road below

A road view, one of smoother sections

View from the White Rim Road

View from the Colorado River Gooseneck Overlook

Another Gooseneck overlook view of a
balanced rock in the foreground

Twinkles walking across the Musselman Arch, hundreds
of feet above the ground below

View from the Potash Road

Potash Road view crossing a wash

View going into the Potash Mining area

Tuesday it's off to the very scenic Dead Horse Point State Park a few miles from the campground.  Dead Horse Point State Park gets it's name from a Cowboy legend.  It seems that when this area was ranch land, the cowboys would round up wild horses and drive them through the narrow neck of the Mesa top, then fence to opening closed.  This trapped the  horses on this small Mesa top area, a natural corral.  The Cowboys would then pick out the ones they wanted and remove them, then leave the rest in there to die of thirst.  So they now call this area "Dead Horse Point".  

There is a visitors Center, mountain bike trails, hiking trails and a road going to the Dead Horse Point with several viewpoints along the way.  We hiked from the Dead Horse Point on the West Rim Trail to the visitors center and then on the East Rim Trail back to Dead Horse Point.  There are great views of the valley and the Colorado River.  You can really get an understanding of the geology that took place looking into this valley as all the layers of rock are exposed.  We could see the road we had traveled on yesterday from a totally different and amazing perspective.  The Potash miming area from the park almost looks attractive with it's blue colored water evaporation ponds, but it sure was ugly up close and personal.  We learned that the Potash is used to make fertilizer for agriculture.  Our Jeep was also getting some looks in the parking lot as they is a lot of red mud caked on it, it needs a wash badly!

West Rim Trail view

West Rim Trail view

View of the Gooseneck in the Colorado River
from the West Rim Trail

West Rim Trail view

A crack in the rock on the West Rim Trail

Water collected in a basin on the Rim

East Rim Trail view near the visitors center

East Rim Trail view near Dead Horse Point

Twinkles on the edge

Perfect end to the day ! 

Blazing Sunset view

Mountains in distance at Sunset

We plan to move tomorrow, although again no reservations and Moab is teeming with tourists.  We have scoped out another BLM Campground on the Colorado River just outside of Moab that we hope will have openings in the early morning.  It is far more convenient to Moab, the Arches National Park and other attraction.
  

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Next stop is Arches National Park:

Twinkles and Slick

Fillmore, Utah

October 2 - 4, 2014

Back on the loneliest road, route 50, again and it does live up to it's reputation.  A fuel stop was made at the Border Inn, the sign said the next road service was 90 some miles.  As usual there was very little traffic, no wind for a change and great sunny driving conditions.  Around 145 miles latter we are pulling into the Wagons West RV Park in Fillmore, Utah.  We have a full hookup site, working WiFi and cable TV at the 1/2 price Passport America rate.  The sites here are 100 feet long, room for two large RV's !

The fuel stop on the Utah-Nevada border

The lonely road ahead

Sevier Lake along the route reminded me of the Salt Flats

Fillmore was and still is a Mormon stronghold in a lush green irrigated farming and ranching valley.  The Mormon settlers named this town for US president Millard Fillmore most likely for political gain. The Mormon goal was to establish a separate state, called "Deseret", covering a huge part of the west.  Instead they ended up with a territory, roughly present day Utah, with Brigham Young as it's governor.  Young decided that centrally located Fillmore was to be the capital and started construction of a capital building with $20,000 from the US government.  There was considerable controversy over how the money was being spent and further money was cut off.  As a result, the building was downsized from it's original grandiose plans.  Eventually Salt Lake City became a more preferred location and the Capital was moved there in 1858.  The building was then used for various purposes, fell into disrepair and then was saved by the "Daughters of Utah Pioneers".  It is now the Territorial Statehouse State Park Museum and is loaded with mormon artifacts and exhibits. 

The original Utah State Capital

The stone masons were proud of their work and signed their names 

Plaque on the building

Artist rendering of the planned Capital building

Drawing of Indian camp

Museum hallway was covered with old Mormon photos 

There were no timeouts !

Teachers had it tough too !

After the capital moved, Fillmore sort of fell into obscurity and is now mostly a small farming/ranching community and a rest stop on route 15.  It is the Millard County seat and is a nice clean town with many services. Mormon history is deeply imbedded in this place. 

Fillmore Motel sign

Old Avalon Theater

It appears there was one bar in town, it's now closed

Welcome banner

Tree mural on building

Downtown Fillmore view

A classic Windmill outside of town

Along with the old corral

We are recharging our systems here before going back into the boonies for more dry camping somewhere around Moab, Utah.

Next stop is Canyonlands and Arches, Utah  

Twinkles and Slick

Great Basin National Park

September 29 - October 1, 2014

It's another beautiful desolate ride on the Great Basin Highway, route 50 and route 487 for about 70 miles to Great Basin National Park.  We went downhill into an immense valley with rows of wind turbines silhouetted by snow dusted mountain peaks, quite a view.  I get a bit jaded from time to time, getting used to seeing incredible scenery, but these wide open, far as the eye can see vistas always get to me. 

Route 50 view

We then arrived at the entrance to Great Basin at the town of Baker, population 86, and I stop at the visitors center to meet Twinkles, who is not there.  We communicate by phone, barely working, and find she is at the lower campground waiting.  The road to the Lower Lehman campground goes up and up to about 7,300 feet elevation.  It is a cool day, high 50's with only partial sun, ominous dark clouds in the mountains.  This is a first come, first served campground, (no reservations), always a gamble, but the peak season is over, we are early in the day and sites are open.  We end up in a beautiful roomy pull through campsite next to the bubbling, fast flowing Lehman Creek which originates at Wheeler Peak about 4,000 feet above us.  The only negative is that it is not so level, how nice automatic levelers would be, but after getting two boards under my usual two stage leveling ramp at each front tire it is livable.  I really hate these plastic ramps, they tend to slide as you try to pull onto them on many surfaces, would help to spike them into the ground sometimes, (a brilliant idea).  I get our supplemental propane heater out for use as it will be cold and I can't run the furnace so much on battery power alone.  I could on the generator, but I hate to hear it run, it annoys me terribly when I am in a pristine quiet natural place like this.

Lehman Creek behind our campsite

Aspen tree cluster next to our campsite

View of Wheeler Peak from the campground

The hawk in the campsite

We do the usual visitors center trip, there are two here, with one being more for the Lehman caves which is a big attraction here.  It seems that everyone loves to go into the caves, stange as it seems I don't. 

1926 Dodge sitting amongst the sage

A decorated gate, note the head is an old car heater

The Great Basin is a huge park, not a well known National Park, but a very unique one.  It takes in 77,000 acres and includes much of the South Snake Range which has 13 peaks over 11,000 feet.  Wheeler Peak is the highest mountain in the park at 13,063 feet, second highest in Nevada  This area is considered a desert due to it's low annual rainfall, but it is called a "cold desert", due to it's high altitude and freezing winter temperatures, the only one in the US.  There are many streams flowing out of the mountains but none of them reach the sea, they all sink into the "Great Basin".  

It gets near freezing overnight with the interior of the RV at mid 40's. I usually fire up the furnace and then quickly get fully dressed.  Somehow, it isn't that bad, you just need to get mentally prepared to suffer through it.  

Our goal for the day was to ride up Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive which goes from 7,000 feet to 10,000 feet.  It is a great drive, all paved with several overlooks along the route.  The road takes you up through several vegetation zones.  The Aspen Trees are changing color at present and are beautiful in contrast to the green of the pine trees.  We lucked out, it was a nice day with lots of blue sky and large puffy white cumulous clouds. The views are incredible as there is an 8,000 foot difference between Wheeler Peak and the valley floor.

View for the road

Wheeler  Peak

Wheeler Peak glacier

Aspen's along the road

A close up

We drove to the Wheeler Peak campground where we took the Brislecone Trail for 1.4 miles to the Bristlecone pine grove interpretive loop at 10,600 feet.  There were pockets of snow on the ground all along the trail, it was a little slick in places. The Bristlecone Pine trees live at the Alpine level on the mountain between 9,500 and 11,000 feet.  They are extremely slow growing and the ones on the trail are from 2,000-3,000 years old, but they have been known to live for 5,000 years. On the return trail, we side tracked to Teresa Lake, a small alpine pond with crystal clear water. It wasn't a long hike but when you are in the 10,000 foot elevation range and going uphill the breathing is much harder.  They have altitude sickness warnings on all the main trail signs.

Twinkles on the snowy  trail

Trail view from our lunch stop

Ancient Bristlecone Tree

Bristlecone loop view

Close up of the beautifull wood grain

Teresa Lake

We then drove all the way back down to the valley floor and to the Baker Archeological Site where an ancient Fremont indian settlement was found. The Fremont people lived from about 700 to 1300 AD and are closely related to the Anasazi.  They had a 5 story adobe main structure built here with several smaller buildings.  The site was excavated and many artifacts were found, however when finished they backfilled it in again to protect it, so there is not much to be seen. 

Baker Fremont Indian site

Sun rays across the valley

I did more hiking on Wednesday, doing portions of the Lehman Creek trail from our campground to the upper Lehman campground and from upper Lehman campground to Wheeler Campground.  Also the Baker Creek Trail to the cutoff for the South Fork Trail.  Lehman Creek is a series of fast flowing streams cascading down over rocks and logs, really pretty.  It runs 20 feet from our campsite soothing us with it's noise as it tumbles over the rocks.  Baker Creek is a similar Creek, but in a more remote area a few miles down a gravel access road.  The Baker Creek Trail to the cutoff was supposed to be 1 mile, but it seemed more like 2, I think they measure as the crow flies ?  We thought the same yesterday on the Bristlecone Trail. 

Creek view

Aspen leaves in the creek

Aspen trees with carved initials and designs are everywhere.
Some of the old ones might be from Basque sheep herders

The Aspen leaves on the trail caught my eye

Baker Creek looks like this it's entire length 

The Aspens and the pine trees are a beautiful sight

We are pulling out of Nevada in the morning and heading for Utah.  Next stop is Fillmore, Utah.

Twinkles and Slick