Teton bound

[USExplorer]

2292: The inner canyon seems to perpetually have a dismal bluish cast to it when viewed from the rim, in contrast to the more cheery reds of the higher cliffs.
I took the bus down to Bright Angel Trail and began descending, hearing other hikers complain about the mule shit scattered on the trail. Both trails were extremely crowded with hikers and the scuffing of gravel was an endless sound echoing in the side canyons.

2293:  This photo shows what makes the Canyon a geologist's paradise. Some rock layers crumble, some form cliffs, but each represents a record of the earth's history. Also interesting to biology are the isolated habitats perched on the crumbly layers between cliffs. Note how dead flat the rim is as well.
2294: The first rock tunnel on Bright Angel Trail. 
2295: A sideways picture, a vista of Bright Angel Trail running past Bright Angel Creek down into the inner canyon.
2296: A healthy-looking pinyon pine growing out of a crevice on a solid rock outcropping. 

After spending the morning barely scratching the surface of the park, I decided it was time to move on.

 

[USExplorer]

I drove back into Cameron, stopping at an overlook along the way but not taking any more pictures. Earlier a shuttle assistant asked me in the course of casual conversation if I would be coming back to the park. I said "Probably not soon". She was surprised, but joked "You're supposed to say 'Of course I'll come back!'" I relented, said "OK, maybe I will." The South Rim seems, dare I say it, overrated but I don't regret visiting. The Canyon itself, well, I can't rate what I didn't explore.

North of Cameron I turn north-east onto Highway 160 through the heart of the Navajo Nation. Tuba City is a rather depressing conglomerate of economy housing and patchwork commercial development. Outside Tuba City I see an old Indian hitchhiking and pick him up. Route 160 climbs out of the red badlands into a juniper forest, and my passenger points out various landmarks and answers various questions about the terrain. He has been hitchhiking from Kingman, several rides so far. He carries only an empty canvas bag, no other luggage. I drop him off as requested at an unpopulated intersection where Highway 98 branches off 160, and continue on into Kayenta, gateway to Monument Valley.

2297: The red painted desert badlands.
2298: Drive-by photography, an elephant something-or-other rock formation standing in a pair next to Highway 160. 
2300: The multi-colored roofs of a new development in Kayenta contrast with the red of the rock formations behind.
2301: A permanent creek runs through a shallow canyon through the outskirts of Kayenta.
2302: A nasty sinkhole in the heavily eroded soil on the banks of the creek whose name I forgot.

I've been sitting in a closed-down restaurant here in Mexican Hat at the San Juan Motel, updating my log. The owner is very friendly, and lets me use the WiFi while he cleans up. The time is one hour ahead here from Grand Canyon, and it is past 10:30 here in Mexican Hat. I have been abridging my recounting, but I have 120 miles to go to Canyonlands NP, so the next update may be long in coming.

 

[Raven+Squid]

Valley of the Gods is right by there, it's nice, great boondocking, Moki dugway and mule point up on top, and then the ruins. Have fun!

 

[USExplorer]

Kayenta is a much more scenic town than Tuba City, with the distant buttes of Monument Valley creating a background to the small city. A cottonwood-lined creek runs past the town through a canyon, rare flowing water in this dry red land. The edges of the canyon are sandy, and there are giant gullies cutting the banks. One sinkhole formed by erosion is over ten feet deep. I stop at a dusty park on the outskirts of town to cook dinner. Numerous kids skateboard on a steel skate park that bongs and echoes with their antics.

Highway 163 runs north out of town through a high grassy plain dotted with giant sandstone buttes. There are many side trails, but signs are posted by the entrances prohibiting non-permit holders from driving into the backcountry. A few homesteads dot the valley. As I approach the Utah border, there is a strange sense of familiarity, and I soon figure out why. The background image of this website is a rock formation in Monument Valley. I park by the highway just across the state line and watch as the setting sun sets the rock formations afire.

2300: Approaching the town of Kayenta, the gateway to a world of red rock.
2301: Kayenta creek canyon from the brand-new pedestrian bridge.
2303: The first monument of Monument Valley, dwarfing anything natural or manmade below.
2305: The rock formation featured on the forum background is on the left.
2306: The formation on the far right looks somewhat like a right hand holding up two fingers.

 

[USExplorer]

Only a few miles past Monument Valley, Highway 163 drops down a long hill next to a canyon and crosses the bright red and roiling San Juan River, the boundary of the Navajo Nation. As I cross the river I exit the largest piece of land in the US where a complete prohibition of alcohol is still in force. Just across the river in the tiny canyon-side community of Mexican Hat is the San Juan Motel, featuring a cafe and a bar. A track leads down to the river at the bottom of the canyon, and I drive down and park for the night next to the gurgling river.

The motel has WiFi, and I walk into the empty cafe and ask about Internet access. The friendly waitress gives me a wireless access pass and shows me where to sit. After I get connected, I order a two dollar lemonade. As I am making my last set of updates, the one-hour time limit runs out. No problem, she says, and hands me another passcode. A large group of guests are eating in the restaurant one room over. I notice the clock over the bar displays a time an hour ahead of Arizona time, and discover that I lost an hour when I entered the Navajo Nation. The guests and waitress leave, and I am left in the building with a Navajo named Joey. While I work online he works cleaning up the restaurant. 

After he finishes mopping the floor, he walks over to my table and starts talking about the place, showing me a giant autograph book containing signatures and money from around the world. He also points out several famous people who stayed the night here. He has done quite a bit of traveling, too, running away from foster parents several times and hitchhiking by himself as a kid. He soon got into trouble, stealing anything that wasn't nailed down and doing time in juvenile prison. 25 years ago he swore off alcohol and drugs when his kid was born and now he lives a sober life. He talks about life on the reservation and the problems with alcohol and drugs there. "I don't have many Indian friends, all they talk about is 'let's get drunk, let's go do drugs'. Most of my friends are Anglo, businessmen who stay here whenever they pass through the area." We talk about Mexico, and he tells me of a time he visited Nogales in the '80s with his nephew; he got his car torn apart by customs officials on both sides. "Mexico is too dangerous now, all the kidnappings and killings, drug cartels." I reply that I am thinking of backpacking down into Mexico next winter. "You want to go way down into Mexico, you must be crazy. I would never go back down there. It would be an adventure though." 

The clock behind the bar now reads 11:30, and I sign his autograph panel and say goodbye, walking down to my truck. The night is pleasantly cool, and I sleep well, waking up late. I take the highway east and pass the Mexican Hat rock formation, rising and falling among the hills of the San Juan valley. 163 merges with 191 close by the river, and I turn north toward Blanding. Gas prices here are quite a bit higher for 85 octane than for 87 down in Arizona. The snow-covered Abajo Mountains overlook the town of Blanding, but I do not stop. Past Monticello, I make the turnoff for Canyonlands National Park, Needles section.

2310: The hills are a bit over-exposed, but the red rocks turned very red as the sun reached the horizon.
2313: The San Juan River, and the 163 bridge near Mexican Hat.
2314: Mexican Hat.
2318: The Abajo Mountains over Recapture Reservoir near the green town of Blanding.
2319: The highway to Canyonlands traversed mainly high desert scrub, with some juniper. Cool weather up here. Looks like good skiing on the mountains.

 

[USExplorer]

Just before the turn-off, I stop at a pullout along with a Ford Escape with North Carolina plates. The retired couple driving the Escape hail from Elizabeth City, and they are out here to visit grandchildren and the national parks. They wish me well on my summer job, and I turn down Highway 211 toward Canyonlands. The highway traverses a wide desert plain before entering a red-rock canyon cut by a flowing stream. The canyon floor is broad and forested, and the road winds up a gradual ascent. Rock climbers are ascending some of the sheer walls. The highway rises out of the canyon onto another scrubby plain and enters the national park. There are a few dozen vehicles parked at the visitor's center, but the park does not feel crowded.

There is an immense variety of rock formations here, from pinkish canyons to mushroom shaped sandstone caps to arches to pothole-ridden slickrock flats to red-rock pinnacles and fins. The surface is dominated by a hard whitish sandstone underlain by a softer reddish sandstone layer. This inversion of hardness results in a very unique landscape.

2320: The Beehive, along Highway 191.
2321: Highway 211 through the canyon. The rock is white here but red elsewhere.
2322: Wooden Shoe Arch. 
2323: These pinnacles give the Needles section of the park its name.
2328: The harder white sandstone forms rounded caps on the roughly eroded red pedestals. Here another layer is revealed in the base. Formations like these covered uncountable acres of badlands dotted with scraggly junipers and desert shrubs.

 

[USExplorer]

2329: Four different landforms in one picture.
2331: In places an unbroken slickrock platform covered the ground as far as the eye can see.
2333: In others sandstone slabs hung precariously far over their heavily eroded base. This cave is over six feet deep. I didn't climb inside.
2334: A spring to the lower right of this picture releases a tiny trickle of water into this massive canyon, creating a tiny line of green. 
2335: The only water-filled pothole I saw in my entire time in the park. No life was apparent, so this must not be the right time of year for aquatic life.

 

[USExplorer]

While hiking back along the slickrock trail I had a devil of a time following the cairns, which were inconsistently placed and frequently dead-ended. Eventually I gave up and just cut cross-country, using landmarks as my compass. There is so much to see here, but it is time to move on. I feel like I am traveling with an ADHD alter-ego.

Coming back I noticed fields of purple flowers in grassy meadows, and pastures irrigated by great sprinkler wheels. 

2337: Standing impassively in the road near one of the meadows was a small herd of horses, some of the most unexcitable beasts I have seen. I honked, they did not twitch. I crept right past the lead horse, its nose scant inches from my passenger side. It did not so much as move its head. Only after I drove on did the herd turn its collective head and follow me with their eyes. 

2339: Driving north toward Moab, more rock formations manifested themselves, including this massive roadside arch. A sign advertised tours of a 5000 square foot house inside a cliff, but I did not stop.

2441: The La Sal Mountains, heavily snow-covered. Down here in the valley the temperature is in the mid 50s.

I descended into the town named for the ancient kingdom of Moab, today the home base for the best off-road adventures in the world. The town was a bustling place, full of visitors and commerce. I cruised on through and crossed the Colorado River, looking rather placid at this high elevation. Five miles out of town is the entrance to Arches National Park. The entrance station was unmanned, and I stopped at the visitor's center to get a park guide. The entrance road switchbacked up a red cliff onto a scrubby plateau dominated by massive fins, pieces of red sandstone shaped much like a fish's dorsal fin. 

2342: On top of the sheer-walled fins, boulders often balanced precariously and randomly. 

2343: The Park Avenue formations were so named by an explorer who compared them to a row of Park Avenue buildings. The formations run along both sides of this flat valley.

 

[USExplorer]

The Courthouse Towers are sandstone monoliths so sheer and massive that I could not fit them properly in a picture. Two of them stand along with a host of lesser squared-off and bulbed rock formations. The park is populated but surprisingly uncrowded. 

2344: These sand dunes have been permanently frozen in place, turned to stone by sedimentation. 
2345: The Balanced Rock. The boulder on top weighs a few thousand tons, there will be a big boom when it falls. 
2347: The sun shines through a tiny porthole beside Turret Arch.
2349: The very thick and coarse Window Arch. 
2350: Hummingbirds buzz all over the park feeding on these trumpet-shaped flowers, their brilliant organic red contrasting with the tired mineral red of the sandstone they grow in.

 

[USExplorer]

2353: Delicate Arch, the most famous arch in the world. I mistakenly pull up at the overlook instead of the trailhead and end up watching the backside of the arch as the sun sets. I set out to climb the trail but confidently walk way off trail on the sloping slickrock. I attempt to correct myself but end up looking frustrated across a sandstone chasm at the arch in the last light of the evening. I pick my way back down under the light of a headlamp, looking back to find several arch visitors following me. Fortunately, I find the trail again, and walk it in the light of the full moon. 

2354: Cache Valley. A dirt road (unmarked on the park map, but signed as a road) leads from the Delicate Arch overlook to a gate at the park boundary. Beyond the gate is cows and (I assume) legal camping. I camp for the night just off the road in this valley, building a small fire of brush and old tourist brochures. 

2356: The old log cabin of the Wolfe Ranch at the Delicate Arch trailhead.

This morning, I drove back into the park just as the sun was rising. I decide to skip Delicate Arch and see the rest of the park. 

2357: The Fiery Furnace is a massive labyrinth of very narrow sandstone canyons. Hiking into it without a permit (and the appropriate fee) is a misdemeanor. I hiked right up to it to catch a view of the fins.

2359: On the backside of the Fiery Furnace is this relatively wide dead-end canyon. The ground here is soft reddish sand, eroded from the towers above.

 

[USExplorer]

2360: The relatively small Sand Dune Arch, tucked away down a fin canyon.
2362: The Broken Arch, clearly cracked but held together by the same force that it is pulling it down.
2363: The very round Tunnel Arch, in Devils Garden.
2366: This arch defies the imagination. In 1990 a huge chunk of rock fell off it, making it thinner than ever. The trail under the arch has been closed but the arch is clearly visible from the provided viewpoint. The Landscape Arch is one of the longest in the world, and obviously very close to the end of its life. For scale, the juniper shrubs under the arch are 10 to 20 feet high. 
2367: Looking from a scientific perspective, the compression strain on the narrow portion must be tremendous. 

As I leave Landscape Arch I fight my way past a stream of tourists visiting. The park is rapidly filling up for the day, and soon there will be no quiet at any of these popular viewpoints. Three days of free park admission left, three and a half parks left to explore. Time to do this.

 

[highdesertranger]

bravo sir, very nice. wish I was there. highdesertranger

 

[USExplorer]

@highdesertranger: Thanks.

@Raven+Squid: Unfortunately I bypassed many attractions to hit the national parks. Hopefully I'll pass through the region again sometime in the future and take more time.

There is a reason why this part of Utah is home to the greatest concentration of national parks in the country. The natural scenery is infinitely varying in its beauty and grandeur. 

After leaving Moab I entered the Island in the Sky section of Canyonlands National Park. This section is named after the centerpiece, a high mesa with sheer cliffs almost completely surrounding it. Below those cliffs is some of the most rugged terrain in the country, a badland of red canyons and white sandstone mesas extending to distant snow-topped mountains. This region was completely unexplored until the late 1860s, and even today bears few traces of human presence. The Green and Colorado Rivers converge thousands of feet below the mesa in deep, dark canyons only accessible by boat. The Grand Canyon may be deeper by a thousand feet, but it lacks the panoramic nature of this badland region. 

2368: Shafer Canyon, crossed by Shafer Canyon Road. The road perilously clings to the side of the cliff as it makes its tortuous way down into the canyon directly below this viewpoint.
2371: Mesa Arch. This arch was formed when a section of cliff collapsed into the abyss below. 
2372: However, a piece at the top held, and the arch now hangs over the sheer-walled canyon.
2373: The tougher white sandstone forms a ledge thousands of feet below the Island mesa. Water will have its way though, and a deep and impenetrable crevasse eventually formed. 

At one spot, the Island mesa narrows down to a ledge just a few hundred yards wide, with drop-offs on both sides. This spot is called "The Neck". This narrow strip of mesa provides the only access to the main portion of the Island mesa.

2374: The view on the other side of the Island is less colorful, but somewhere down there the Colorado River flows in its canyon.

 

[USExplorer]

2376: The Needles portion of Canyonlands that I visited yesterday. It is only 10 miles away by air but might as well be on another planet. 
2378: A view of the edge of the Island mesa. Rocks drop noiselessly as there is no wall to reflect the sound of their impact.
2379: Here the canyon walls widen enough to give a view of the Green River meandering peacefully through its wild setting.
2381: Upheaval Crater, a real puzzle for geologists. On the relatively flat top of Island mesa is a giant rimmed crater, hundreds of feet deep and two miles wide. The heavily eroded rocks inside are tilted greatly out of their normal plane. The back side has been eroded away by flash floods, but the rest of the rim is still intact, a steep climb from the mesa flat.

It is early evening when I break away from Canyonlands and put on some miles. 191 up to I-70, where I see an 80 mph speed limit for the first time since Texas. The interstate highway traverses a flat high desert landscape with low mesas, very dull after what I have witnessed in the national parks. I fly past Green River without exiting, then turn south on Highway 24. The sun sets behind a low mountain range as I cook my dinner at a roadside pullout. The highway is very lightly traveled and unpopulated. 

2384: Some small cumulus clouds stream veils of rain that evaporate long before they hit the ground. The sun turned the veils from gray to orange before disappearing for good.

After many miles of 55 mph cruise-control I cross the Dirty Devil River, then turn around and find my way down BLM tracks to the riverbank next to the highway bridge. I just had to camp next to a river with such a name. I build a small campfire in the sand, then turn in after it burns out. The bridge clunk-clunks periodically as the occasional night driver speeds across it. The temperature is very mild here; winter is finally over at 5000 feet.

 

[rvpopeye]

You are certainly making good use of free pass week there in Utah.
Any one of those parks could take at least a week to just scratch the surface but then you would only have been to one !

Ever read Thousand Mile Summer by Colin Fletcher ?
It was what got me interested in backpacking , I went out and bought identical gear.......hey , I was 17!

 

[highdesertranger]

yes Colin Fletcher. one of my teen idols. Thousand Mile Summer is a great read. highdesertranger

 

[USExplorer]

@rvpopeye: One of my coworkers in New Hampshire gave me "The Man Who Walked Through Time" after she heard I was heading for Arizona. I found it interesting but not inspirational. I haven't read Thousand Mile Summer though.

2385: The Dirty Devil River was probably named by a frustrated pioneer who was forced to slog across the foul mud of the river.

Highway 24 turns west at the tiny hamlet of Hanksville and follows the nearly unpopulated Fremont River valley up into a rugged land of steep colorful cliffs. The river forms one of the few passageways through the rugged Waterpocket Fold, a nearly 100 mile long sheer escarpment that runs north to south through this region. The entire fold (originally called a reef) is part of Capitol Reef National Park. The highway enters the park boundary and continues following the river (now just a brook) through its gorge. 

2387: Towering over the river is the white rounded Navajo Dome. If the settlers of this region were rowdy miners rather than pious Mormon families, I'm sure this formation would have a more anatomical name.

I park at a riverside trailhead and walk past a sign that says "Falling Rock Danger next 500 feet: Do Not Stop". The red sandstone cliff overhangs the narrow built-up trail. The rocks are soon left behind and the trail begins switchbacking up to the top of the juniper-studded mesa. 

2389: In one of the canyons is this natural bridge, carved by the wash below it. A trail leading to the top of the arch on the extreme left involves scrambling over and under massive boulders piled on top of each other in a fin canyon. I did not make it to the top. 

2390: Farther on down the highway, the gorge widens as Sulphur Creek joins the Fremont River. Here, Mormon pioneers planted acres of peach, pear, and apple orchards in the tiny self-sufficient community of Fruita. The orchards are maintained today by the Park Service as part of the Fruita Historic Site. During harvest season, visitors can sample fruit for free. 

2391: Capitol Reef has an 11 mile scenic drive leading south along western side of the fold. I turn onto the drive, then down the gravel road that runs through Grand Wash, another canyon cut through the fold by water. The road dead-ends in a parking lot, and a hiking trail continues down the wash to the Fremont River.

 

[USExplorer]

2394: In the narrow part of Grand Wash, eddies of swirling grit carve out these spherical cavities in the sandstone. The cavities vary widely in size and spacing, extending over 20 feet above the canyon floor. This cluster of cavities has formed a tiny vertical arch, about 2 inches in diameter, in the soft rock.

2396: A sleepy lizard allowed me to get a close-up of its profile. Down here in the windless canyon, the air temperature is over 20 degrees warmer than up on the mesas due to the fierce desert sun.

I continue on down the scenic drive to the dead-end at Capitol Gorge. About a mile down the narrow canyon, a steep and confusing set of trails climbs a shallow portion of the canyon wall to an point overlooking a side canyon.

2397: Massive eddies of flash flood water have carved massive circular potholes in the bedrock of the side canyon. This pothole is about 15 feet wide and 6 feet deep. A foot of stagnant water rests in the near side. 

2398: The king of waterpockets. This massive hole, completely blocking the canyon, has a steeply sloped inlet that makes a 15 foot greater-than-vertical drop to a pool of unknown depth. On the outlet side, a natural dam stands several feet high over a smaller pothole, a notch cut into it to control water depth. 

2399: Not to be outdone, the smaller inaccessible pool below it has a natural bridge over its outlet dam.

 

[USExplorer]

2400: Coming back along the scenic drive, I noticed for the first time the tremendous variations in color and brittleness along the fold. The Navajo call this the "Land of the Sleeping Rainbow" for reason.

2401: The fold continues all the way north to the distant mountains, the rock layers tilted slightly upward like a giant demolished ramp to heaven.

2402: From Panorama Point, looking south along the fold, more rugged and broken-up here. 

2403: Another geologist's puzzle, the placid waters of Sulphur Creek meandering their way along numerous sharp curves through a low-lying marsh 800 feet deep canyon. It is hard to see here, but the bottom layer of this canyon is the same white limestone that tops the Grand Canyon's South Rim. 

After leaving the park, I stopped at the visitor's center in Torrey to make my last set of updates. I then turned south onto Route 12, crossing the Fremont River for the last time in this green pastoral valley and driving up, up, up into a ponderosa pine forest. 

2404: At 8,800 feet, the road temporarily leveled out at an overlook. Down below, red cliffs contrasted with gray distant mountains, green juniper forests, and a sky-blue reservoir.

 

[USExplorer]

2405: From these green, cool forests crossed with trickles of snowmelt, the distant brown desert plain looks like a God-forsaken wasteland.

2406: I expect the road to drop down, but it instead continues on its gradual rise, leaving even the ponderosa pines behind. Above 9000 feet, snow lies on every north slope in this fir-aspen forest.

2409: The firs disappear, replaced by bare aspen thickets and open grassy meadows. The last time I saw a hillside looking like this was in North Carolina in early spring. 

The highway passes through the small town of Boulder and enters the Grand Staircase - Escalante National Monument. This region was the last portion of the lower 48 to be surveyed and mapped. 

2410: Even today, it is a vast rugged unpopulated wilderness of innumerable canyons. The only highway skirts the outside of this region. 

2412: Down along precipitous declines across the Escalante River canyon, a narrow ribbon of lush green in this scrubby badland ecosystem. A trail system traverses the canyon.

Several miles up the river is the small, quiet town of Escalante, over 100 miles from the nearest Walmart. Unlike California, remote Utah gas stations do not have sky-high prices; gas prices seem to be capped at $2.39/gallon for regular away from cities.