| Meeting Family
My son Troy, his wife Sandy and their boys Luke (age 9) and Logan (age 7), were spending their summer vacation between Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks. They had rented a house near Long Junction, Utah so we looked for a campground to be near them. Long Junction is not a town - just an intersection of two highways and we were fortunate to find Camp Lutherwood listed under Passport America near that intersection. The campground directions were to turn on a gravel road behind a state highway department building and the campground should be there. But on arrival we learned the campground was two miles back a one lane dirt and gravel road and across two narrow cattle crossings. We stayed there a week and on our daily commutes in and out of the campground we always had to stop for cattle, deer and jack rabbits in the road. In addition to going to the national parks with my son's family we did some trout fishing and made smores over a campfire. Linda and Luke worked on a chocolate factory project and she taught Logan Native American stick weaving. One day our cell phone rang and the call was from the
North Pole. Well, actually from North Pole, Alaska. Our fulltiming friends
Rich and Diane Emond are spending the summer in Alaska and Diane had called
from their campsite in North Pole. We exchange emails daily, but it was
good to hear Diane's voice.
Bryce Canyon National Park In 1923 Bryce Canyon became a national monument and in 1928 a national park. Most people who visit the 36 thousand acre park go there to see the Hoodoos - pillars of rock left by erosion. Geologists say that 10 million years ago forces within the Earth created and then moved the massive blocks we know as the Table Cliffs and plateaus. Rock cliffs now tower 2,000 feet above their corresponding layers. Park shuttle buses run through the park but even with
1.7 million visitors a year the park does not seem crowded. It is best
to drive your own vehicle through the park and you can set your own schedule.
An 18 mile plateau rim road follows the canyons and hoodoos with many scenic
overlooks and we drove to the south end and worked our way back north stopping
often. On a clear day mountains 100 miles in the distance can be seen.
There are beautiful overlooks at Rainbow Point, Black Birch Canyon, Ponderosa
Canyon, Agua Canyon, Natural Bridge, Fairview Point and Piracy Point. But
the most awesome views are at Bryce Point, Inspiration Point, Sunset Point
and Sunrise Point, each overlooking Bryce Amphitheater with a rim walking
trail between the points. I asked Logan if he could count the Hoodoos
and he said there were a million and I think he may be correct. The hoodoos
are orange, pink and red, depending on the time of day and angle of the
sun. After a day of sightseeing and studying Hoodoos we ate a delicious
dinner
in the park lodge.
Red Canyon Outside of Bryce Canyon is Red Canyon located in Dixie
National Forest and it has beautiful bright red rock formations. There
is a paved hiking and biking trail for those who want to see more of the
park.
Zion National Park Zion was established as a national park in 1919 and it presently contains 147 thousand acres. Unlike Bryce Canyon where you stand on the rim and look at the scenic views below, in Zion you stand in the valley and look up at sheer mountain cliffs 2 and 3 thousand feet high. The only way to see Zion (except highway 9 that cuts through the park) is by shuttle bus. We arrived to find the visitor center parking lot full so we drove into the adjoining town of Springdale and parked. From there we took a shuttle bus to the park and boarded another shuttle bus to tour the park. Zion has a very efficient shuttle system that stops at each point of interest about every ten minutes. We got off at each stop, enjoyed the scenery and walks, then boarded the next shuttle bus. Not having to look for parking and temperatures in the low 70s made the day relaxing. We stopped at Court of the Patriarchs, hiked to the Emerald
Pools, hiked to Weeping Rock where we got showered with dripping water,
and at Temple of Sinawava we hiked along the Virgin River to near The Narrows.
Luke and Logan enjoyed the scenic hikes but we did not attempt any of the
many long and strenuous hikes. After a full day we ate dinner at the lodge
to celebrate Sandy's birthday.
Cedar Breaks National Monument Cedar Breaks was established in 1933 and it looks like small versions of Bryce Canyon and Badlands (South Dakota) National Parks. Its amphitheater is more than 2,000 feet deep and more than three miles in diameter. It is at an elevation of over 10,000 feet and even in mid summer the days are cool and the nights are cold. Our week with Troy, Sandy, Luke and Logan was enjoyable,
but too short. Since we have been traveling fulltime we have met them at
Walt Disney World and Yellowstone National Park in addition to Bryce Canyon
and Zion National Parks this year. Who knows where we'll meet next.
Scenic Highway 12 / Grand Staircase - Escalante National Monument Our next stop was Capitol Reef National Park and we looked at the map to see how to get there. Did we want to drive a longer distance on wide roads or did we want to take a challenging scenic route? We love to travel the unknown so we hitched up the Honda CR-V, drove through the cattle field leaving Camp Lutherwood and up to highway 12. Scenic Byway 12 has been designated a National Scenic Byway and an All-American Road by the Federal Highway Administration. All-American Roads have one-of-a-kind features so exceptional that they quality as a destination "unto themselves." Only a few National Scenic Byways achieve the status of All-American Roads making Byway 12 one of the most unique roads in the United States. The 124 mile route winds through Dixie Forest's Red Canyon, Bryce Canyon National Park, Grand Staircase - Escalante National Monument, over Boulder Mountain and finally to Capitol Reef National Park. It travels through some of the most diverse and ruggedly beautiful landscapes in the country. It winds past slickrock canyons, red rock cliffs, pine and aspen forests, alpine mountains and through quaint rural towns. Along the border of highway 12 is Grand Staircase - Escalante National Monument, 1.9 million acres of some of the most rugged and scenic land we have ever seen. The monument was established in 1996 and was the first National Monument to be managed by the Bureau of Land Management instead of the National Park Service. Driving that highway in a wide-body, 41 foot motorhome, pulling a Honda CR-V, and a total of 34,000 pounds, was let me say - "interesting." But there was little traffic so we drove slowly, enjoyed the beauty and took all day to cover the 124 miles. The road had sharp curves and many hills and mountains.
Elevations ranged from 4,000 feet to 11,000 feet with many 8%, 10%, 12%
and even 14% grades. On "The Hogback" the highway narrowed along a ridge
with steep dropoffs to thousands of feet below on each side. Linda could
not bear to open her eyes.
Capitol Reef National Park We camped at Thousand Lake RV Resort in Torrey, Utah and they had WiFi so I got to connect to the internet for the first time in days; however, there was no cell phone service within miles. Down the road we found a restaurant that served breakfast and the waitress announced the only eggs available were scrambled. The cook had cracked eggs for omelets and had been over zealous and broke all their eggs and there were no eggs in town to be bought. So we ordered scrambled eggs. Later we found the only grocery store in the area and it was about the size of our motorhome. Capitol Reef National Monument was established in 1937 and it became a National Park in 1971. The park encompasses 242,000 acres. It is a slickrock wilderness of massive domes, red cliffs and a maze of twisting canyons. The park is so remote the nearest traffic light is 78 miles away. At the north entrance once stood the Mormon town of Fruita, named for the irrigated fruit orchards they planted and harvested. The orchards still stand in a fertile valley of Fremont River and in season visitors can pick and eat all the fruit they want - cherries, peaches and apples. We drove the northern 25 mile drive and took two back
road drives through Grand Wash and Capitol Gorge, two deep, twisting, water-carved,
sheer-walled canyons. Wow, what a life - driving dirt roads through a narrow
canyon in a 4-wheel drive vehicle in the middle of a rugged wilderness.
It just doesn't get any better than that.
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