Chapter 74 - Golden to St. George, Utah
10/2/04 to 10/14/04
Click for a simple printable version.
This two-week trip is primarily for Dave to play a volleyball tournament with his team at the Huntsman Senior Games in St. George Utah, October 8-12. We'll take a few days before and after this event to do some sightseeing along the way.
10/2/04: The final details of departure for our first significant RV trip in over three years took much longer than we anticipated. This is the first time since buying the house that we've left it for more than a day or two, and preparing the plants for two weeks of inattention, plus a host of other details, took seemingly endless time. Some plants, particularly those that need daily attention, are farmed out to Helen's garden club friends who have extra house or greenhouse space. Many others have been placed in a large wicking container, where they can absorb water from a large enough reservoir to last a week. Another friend will visit the house at least once a week. The cat will travel with us.
Packing the RV for a trip is also a new experience - very different from living in an RV full-time. We're making notes as we go, and will have a better checklist for the next trip, hopefully speeding up the process of getting ready.
So we didn't get on the road until 11 AM. The weather was perfect - cool and clear, and we made good time up US 6 through Clear Creek Canyon, and then under the Continental Divide on I-70. Yes - that's "under" the Divide, via the Eisenhower tunnel - which runs for several miles about 2000 feet below the actual Divide. I measure this portion of I-70 by the passage of the ski areas. First, the US-40 exit, with signs for Winter Park - just across Berthoud Pass, then Loveland, with its slopes over and around the east end of the tunnel, then the exit for Breckenridge - 10 miles or so to the south, then Copper Mountain, with many of its slopes spread out right along the expressway, then Vail, also spread out along the south side of I-70.
The mountains are still bright with splotches and streaks of yellow aspen leaves enlivening the somber green coniferous forest. The high peaks are snow-covered, down to about the 11,000-foot level. The upper levels of Copper Mountain, above tree line, looked like they had sufficient snow to allow skiing.
Soon, we were through Glenwood Canyon and Glenwood Springs (pop. 12,768) and into the gradual transition to the sparsely vegetated semi-desert of western Colorado and then Utah. Having decided to spend a day or two in the Moab area, we took Exit 212 and turned southwest on what is optimistically labeled US-6 Business. The only business on this entire loop is the ghost town of Cisco - a half mile of occasional crumbling vacant buildings along the railroad track, one mobile home that looked occupied, and absolutely nothing resembling an operating "business". Just past Cisco, we turned south on SH-128, a narrow, twisty blacktop strip, reasonably well maintained but never intended for wide-body motorhomes. I'm glad we didn't meet any large vehicles coming the other way.
After 10 miles or so of desert, we again joined the Colorado River (which we've been loosely following ever since the upper end of Glenwood Canyon, almost 200 miles). From here to Moab, the road becomes even twistier, closely following the river through the shallow beginnings of what will become a major canyon. About 20 miles north of Moab, we stopped at Hittle Bottom, a BLM campground on the river. This is one of half a dozen similar BLM campgrounds on this stretch of river. They all have a graveled driveway, markers defining campsites, a pair of vault toilets, and nothing else (a few have boat ramps for river access.) These areas are mostly designed for tent camping, but a few sites have parking areas big enough for large RV's. They cost $10/night, which seems like a rip-off for such a primitive place, but our Golden Age pass cut that to a more reasonable $5.
We spent a quiet evening enjoying the scenery, trying to identify the plants, and walking along the river through dense stands of tamarisk - a pretty but invasive exotic species that is being cut and burned in many places along the river in an attempt to re-establish the native vegetation. After dark, we stayed out watching the stars. Out here, the atmosphere is very clear, and the city lights are far away. After living in a densely populated metropolis for several years, we've forgotten how many stars can be visible. The Milky Way passes directly overhead from horizon to horizon, and is so bright that at first we thought it was clouds.
10/3/04: In the morning, we continued toward Moab (pop. 4852), deciding at the last minute to stay at Dead Horse Point State Park rather than in Moab. A few miles north of Moab, we joined US-191 and turned back northwest on 191, then turned southwest on SH-313 to the State Park. The campground was full - surprising on a Sunday night in mid-October. It appears to be quite a pleasant campground, with electricity at the 21 sites (but absolutely no water - which has to be trucked in from Moab for the Visitor's Center). I don't know how many of the sites can accommodate big rigs. We perused the displays in the visitor's center, walked the interpretive path behind the visitor's center, walked a short trail along the rim, and drove on out to the Dead Horse Point overlook, where we found limited but adequate parking for the RV and enjoyed the view for a while. This is one of several points extending out into the complex canyons of the Green and Colorado Rivers, not too far from where they join. The rivers are generally in a relatively narrow lower canyon, and are rarely visible from any of the upper viewpoints.
Dead Horse Point gets it name, according to local legend, as follows: On the way out to the point, there is a narrow neck where the canyon walls almost join - it appears to be less than 75 feet across. Local cowboys, in order to capture herds of wild horses, traditionally herded them out onto the point and then built a fence across this narrow neck to prevent them from escaping. They then picked the most promising horses, roped them to take back to the ranch, and released the rest. Apparently, they once forgot to take down the fence when they left, leaving an entire herd of horses to die of thirst on the point.
On the way to the state park, we had seen large RVs perched high on rocky promontories west of the highway, so we headed back there to find a place to camp for a night or two. We ended up north of Mineral Bottom Road and west of SH-313, at approximately N38° 34.1', W109° 49'. (Note that the maps disagree on the name of this road. Street Atlas calls it Mineral Canyon Road, and it's apparently also called Horsethief Trail). Here, there is a large area called "Big Mesa Designated Campsite", laced with primitive jeep tracks with quite a few level camping spots, some located on the edge of a little cliff with panoramic views. There were half a dozen other RVs up there, occupying the best sites of course, but we found a very nice spot and set up camp. In a short walk around the top of our little mesa, Helen found several very interesting dried flower stalks of the desert trumpet flower, which will look great in her dried flower arrangements (if we can get them home - they are very fragile).
In the early evening, we drove into Canyonlands National Park, checked out the small visitor's center, and drove out to the end of the road at Grandview Point. We spent a long time wandering around, enjoying the long views and the interesting rock formations. Helen spent over an hour with the camera, walking west on a trail that closely follows the canyon rim. The rim at this point is smooth flat whitish sandstone - almost like walking a wide city sidewalk, except that it is occasionally disrupted with faults or inclusions of other types of rock, and the faults have trapped enough soil and moisture to provide opportunities for a few trees and shrubs.
Since we planned a long backcountry drive in the jeep tomorrow, we headed out to the main highway to fill up the gas tank. By the time we got back to our campsite, it was well after dark on a moonless night, requiring careful navigation of the network of jeep trails leading to our RV. Again, we spent a while outside watching the stars. The temperature is in the low 60's at this time of night - very pleasant for sitting outside in a light sweater.
10/4/04: After studying maps for a while, we decided to head west from our campsite in the jeep, hoping that Mineral Bottom Road down to the Green River would be within our capabilities (this will be our first 4-wheel-drive experience). After a few miles of fairly smooth, straight, nearly level gravel road across the desert, the route started very abruptly down the side of the Green River canyon. It's a steep, narrow, two-track, sometimes rough, occasionally scary because of the long vertical drop just a few feet from our wheels, but not technically difficult. The views as we switchbacked down the cliff face were splendid. At the bottom, we had a choice and turned up-river, but the trail faded out after a couple of miles. Backtracking and heading downriver, we followed the road along the river for several miles, enjoying the views that opened up as the river swept through a huge bend. This road continues for almost 100 miles, through the southern portion of Canyonlands National Park and east into the Colorado River canyon, and then climbing back up to the mesa near the National Park Visitor's Center. Someday, we should do the whole thing - but that requires primitive camping for a night or two along the way, for which we had neither the time nor the equipment now. After a few miles, we turned around and retraced the route to our campsite, observing a few other potential RV-accessible campsites along the road, but none better than where we are camped now.
10/5/04: With the motorhome and toad, we backtracked out to SR-191 and then headed north to I-70 and west to Green River, Utah. This little town (pop. 1914) on the eponymous river is well known as the starting point for canoe, kayak, and raft trips down the river. Earlier this year, we had started the planning for a 10-day canoe trip from here down to the confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers in Canyonlands National Park, but the trip never materialized. Maybe next year.
We stopped at the John Wesley Powell River History Museum, located on the riverbank in Green River, Utah. It's quite small and was a disappointment. The information presented is broad - the history of the entire river basin, including all the early explorations, geological information about the Green/Colorado river system, and somewhat more detailed information about Powell and his two river expeditions. With the limited space available, the presentations were generally quite superficial, and we've previously read quite a bit about these topics. There was little in the way of artifacts - a modern reproduction of one of Powell's boats, and photos of some of the events and individuals. So we didn't get either much entertainment or much new knowledge, and moved on quickly. We stopped to replenish supplies at the larger of the two small grocery stores and found it very poorly stocked.
A few miles west of Green River, we turned south on SR-24 and followed it all the way to Torrey, Utah (pop. 174). The highway is generally good - well maintained, usually with a narrow paved shoulder. The scenery is varied and interesting - small but steep mountain ranges rising abruptly out of the desert. The desert is usually covered with a sparse juniper-piñon pine forest, with bands of cottonwood turning yellow along the stream bottoms. There had been a heavy rain a couple of days ago, so some of the streams actually had water in them.
We arrived in Torrey at around 4 pm, set up camp quickly at the Thousand Lakes RV Park (a pleasant place we stayed in 6 years ago), then backtracked 10 miles to the Visitor's Center at Capitol Reef National Park, collecting literature and refreshing our memory about the park. We then did a late-evening drive down the park road along the base of the towering cliffs of the Capitol Reef (so-named by the early explorers: "reef" because this high, steep, north-south ridge represented a major barrier to travelers, and "capitol" because the Navajo Sandstone layer at the top of the reef is eroded into huge symmetric domes which reminded the 19-century explorers of the dome of the U.S. Capitol building. We've previously described this park in more detail, in Chapter 20.
As darkness approached, we stopped for dinner at Cafe Diablo in Torrey, based on someone having voted it "best restaurant in Southern Utah". The menu is contemporary southwestern, and quite creative, with the spices somewhat muted and subtle by southwest standards. Much attention was paid to attractive presentation of the food, but in spite of that, the meal was excellent. They offered an extensive selection of moderately priced wine. The walls were covered with interesting framed prints by a local artist - all for sale. The place was full on a weeknight, although we only waited about 10 minutes for a table. The dessert tray was very tempting. Our waitress said she was also the pastry chef, and lured us into ordering one dessert to share, even though we were already stuffed. It was a delicious caramel apple tort.
10/6/04: We'd like to spend longer in this area, but with a deadline approaching, we decided to pack up and move on this morning. We turned south onto SR-12 just east of Torrey. This is one of the most interesting of the scenic routes we've driven, and we recommend it highly. The 2-lane highway is smooth and well maintained, although a bit narrow and sometimes without shoulders in portions of mountainous sections.
The first part of the drive goes through the valley of the Fremont River. Although very small, the river flows all year, and has enough water to allow a significant amount of irrigation of fertile-looking farmland and orchards. Then we climbed steeply up the flank of Boulder Mountain, getting increasingly spectacular views to the east, with Capitol Reef in the foreground and the high snow-covered Henry Mountains as a backdrop. Helen bought a geology book with mile-by-mile descriptions of the rock strata along the way and the geologic history of the region, so we had fun matching up the scenery with the written technical descriptions as we drove. We topped out at 9400 feet, stopping at many viewpoints along the way. Utah builds wonderful pullouts at the scenic places - large, and usually a loop, making it easy for large RV's to use them.
At the summit, the mountain is mostly grassland, with bands of aspen occupying the more sheltered areas. Some of the aspens have already dropped their leaves, but the rest are still brilliantly yellow.
Somewhere in the tourist literature we've been collecting, the Burr Trail was described as very scenic, so when we arrived at the little town of Boulder (pop. 180), we parked the motorhome at a wide spot on the highway shoulder and took the Jeep east down the "trail", which at this point is a reasonably good paved road. This road extends 40 miles or so eastward through Capitol Reef, where it connects with other primitive roads, which give access either to SR-24, far to the north, or to Bullfrog Marina, on Lake Powell 50 miles or so to the South.
Initially, we drove through a small gentle canyon among ponderosa pine, where ranches are gradually being divided up for modern houses on modest "ranchettes". After a few miles, we entered Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and the development stopped. The pines gave way to typical piñon/juniper forest, which then gradually faded into real desert. We couldn't resist searching through some of the ancient dead junipers for beautifully weathered twisty branches and roots to add to Helen's creative flower arranging materials.
We seem to be at the border of the sagebrush, which has been the major vegetation further north, and creosote bush, which will become dominant further south. There's still not much cactus - just small prickly pear, although these prickly pear have some of the biggest most wicked looking thorns we've seen.
The land is sloping gently down to the east. Capitol Reef and the distant mountains beyond it begin to fill the horizon. The road becomes gravel and begins to descend through increasingly steep canyons, cut through multi-colored layers of sandstone. The last drop down into the deep valley against the west flank of Capitol Reef is breathtaking, with the narrow road traversing many switchbacks cut precariously into the side of the cliffs. We stopped often to take photos - parking in the middle of the shoulderless road, since there was almost no traffic and pullouts were rare.
On two occasions, we had to cross a steep-sided wash, still wet and slick from the recent rains. One had a near-vertical 3-foot drop on each side, fortunately cut through soft sand and gravel that collapsed as we went over it, softening the grade a bit. The Jeep handled this almost effortlessly.
When we reached the junction with the north-south trail, on the east side of the valley, we decided we were out of time and turned back to retrace our route. It would have been fun to continue down to Lake Powell, but that will have to wait for another occasion. Back at the steep wet wash that we crossed earlier, a huge front-end loader had materialized from somewhere, and we had to wait 10 minutes while he smoothed out the crossing. It's interesting that someone provides maintenance for these remote roads. The return trip was uneventful but scenic - the scenery can appear very different when facing the opposite direction.
Back at the motorhome, we hitched up and continued down SR-12 to Escalante, (pop. 782) where we found a campsite available in Escalante Petrified Forest State Park, setting up camp at about 6 pm. Half a dozen of the 22 sites were empty, although most were filled by dark. We found a large enough and level enough site (#18) and quickly set up for the night. Site 22 would be the most convenient for bigger rigs, and a few others would be adequate. No cell phone signal.
We quickly walked over to the trail through the petrified forest, hoping to complete it before dark. It turned out to be a steep climb up to the top of the mesa behind the campground. The main loop is a mile long, and wanders past several patches of petrified wood, including some 5-foot-long sections of logs about 2' in diameter. A .75-mile loop branches off the main loop and goes steeply down the far side of the mesa to a large number of even bigger logs. In some parts of this steep and difficult trail, chunks of petrified wood form natural steps in the trail, and are gradually being polished by the passing feet. Helen went slowly along the main trail, inspecting the petrified wood and other rocks in detail, while Dave hurried along the additional loop, catching up with Helen just before dark. The last portion of the trail was traversed in barely enough light to watch our footing.
10/7/04: We've run out of sightseeing time. Today will be a fairly straight run to St. George, via SR-12 past Bryce Canyon National Park, to US-89, then northwest to I-15 and then on South to St. George. There were other routes that, on the map, looked more scenic and perhaps were shorter, but a Forest Service Ranger in the Escalante Multi-Agency Visitor Center strongly advised us not to try them with the motorhome. Had we not been on a deadline, we might have taken them anyway (perhaps on the return trip next week?), but it seems advisable to take the conservative route today. We've been on portions of this route (six years ago), but much of it is new to us. The Bryce Canyon portion is very attractive, with frequent pullouts available to enjoy the interestingly eroded sandstone cliffs along the way. A few miles past the Bryce turnoff, the Forest Service has a brand new Visitor Center - with some of the exhibits not yet installed. While we were in the parking lot, a big tour bus crammed with Chinese-speaking people stopped for a rest break. It made for interesting people-watching.
US-89 from SR-12 north has been recently rebuilt. It's still two lanes, but has wide shoulders, gentle curves, and smooth pavement. I-15 is currently being repaved, but the southbound lanes south of SR-12 are finished except for some shoulder grooming, and traffic is not disrupted. So the rest of the trip into St. George (pop. 54,049) was uneventful. We found Templeview RV Park without difficulty and were comfortably settled into site 245 by mid-afternoon. The sites are mostly back-ins and a bit narrow for our taste, but for a close-in urban RV park this is about as good as it gets. The park has over 200 sites, but it appears that at least half are semi-permanently occupied by mobile homes or park models. It is very computer friendly - a separate room has two PC's for guest use as well as a desk with modem plug-in for laptops. We used neither, preferring to use our new cell phone for Internet access directly from the RV. The park staff seems friendly and helpful.
10/9/04: Dave spent 6 hours playing volleyball on both Friday and Saturday, at the Dixie Center. The Huntsman Senior Games is a huge annual event, extending over several weeks, including many sports, and involving over 7000 athletes. I played with one of two Denver-Area teams in the over-65 age group that has practiced together as a single group for a couple of years. They sent one team to the Huntsman Games last year (before I joined the team), and acquired enough new players to send two teams this year. We were joined by one player from the East Coast, who had also played with the team last year. Helen relaxed at the RV all day, and experimentally took Tillie for a walk on a leash.
10/10/04: No volleyball on Sunday - this is Utah! At 9 AM, we picked up Jim Bole, a volleyball team member from Golden, at his hotel and headed for Zion National Park to do some sightseeing and hiking. The weather forecast was for isolated thunderstorms, and we had a solid overcast as we headed north. It began raining as we entered the park. We bravely parked at the Visitors Center, put on our rain gear, and headed to the shuttle station. (No private vehicles allowed in the upper part of the canyon until the end of October). By the time we got off the shuttle at the end of the road, the rain had stopped, the sky brightened a bit (although still overcast), and the day turned out to be perfect for hiking, cooler than normal, and no direct sun. We did the river walk up to The Narrows and then decided that without spare shoes and quick-drying clothes, and with a considerable danger of flash floods from the forecasted storms, we would not wade the river on up the narrow canyon. Maybe next year. It was interesting to see the big white flowers of Angel’s Trumpet (Datura) in bloom along the road and trail. Helen continued ambling slowly along the trail, examining rocks and flowers. Jim and Dave hustled back to the road and shuttled down to the Angel's Landing trailhead, deciding that we had time to do at least part of this much longer and steeper trail.
As it turned out, we did the entire trail, about 1600 vertical feet to the top, arriving back at our rendezvous with Helen (at the Visitor's Center near the shuttle station and our car) only a bit later than planned. See Chapter 21 for a detailed description of this spectacular hike.
10/11/04: Volleyball all day. A highlight was a late afternoon match between the Canadian and American National Teams. It was good to get a close up view of some top-notch players, on the same courts where Dave had been playing earlier.
Helen went to the arboretum and walked miles of trails. Some trails wound thru a volcanic area, where the charred trunks of trees in the river bottom from a recent fire blended right in with the red/black burned volcanic debris still piled on top of the landscape from an ancient eruption. Helen was delighted to find many desert bushes with good botanic labels.
A trip to Snow Canyon State Park, northwest of St. George, was interrupted by a brief stop at the Kayenta art colony. Several galleries were open and nearly deserted. The art was expensive and exquisite. Outside the galleries was a well-labeled flower garden. The colony is a community emphasizing a blending of homes into the natural landscape - no brightly colored paint and no lawns, only desert scrub right up to the houses.
Snow Canyon State Park was a delightful drive with pullouts for short hikes and information boards illustrating the particular features of each hike. Volcanic debris was mixed with layered sandstone and ancient older rocks - an interesting jumble.
In the evening, we felt like a good steak, and browsing the local tourist literature led us to Rococo Steakhouse, perched high up on the edge of mesa just west of downtown St. George, near the airport. The view out over the city was great, the restaurant nicely appointed, and the food was good but in no way exceptional.
12/12/04: Last day of volleyball. It ended fairly early, but we were lazy and hung around the RV relaxing and packing up for tomorrow's trip.
10/13/04: Time to go home. We wanted to get home fairly quickly, so as to be able to get chores done around the house and leave as soon as possible for our planned trip to the East Coast (hoping to catch the end of autumn leaf color and get through the northern portion of the trip before the first snowfalls). Yet there were unfamiliar secondary highways beckoning too. We compromised by taking I-15 a short distance NE to Cedar City, then SR-14 east to SR-143, which took us past Cedar Breaks National Monument. We didn't stop, contenting ourselves with the views from the road. This is attractive high-altitude country (over 10,000 feet) with wonderful scenery. These highways are good, although steep and twisty.
Just north of Cedar Breaks, we turned East on SR-148 and began a long, fairly gentle 4000-foot descent to Panguitch (population 1549). Here, we turned north on Highway 89, and followed generally level river valleys. At Junction, we decided to prolong our rural-road experience a bit longer and turned east on SR-62 rather than continuing straight north to I-70. This took us to SR-24, which trended southeast, and then SR-72 northeast all the way to I-70. This somewhat zigzag route took us through interesting tiny towns and fertile irrigated valleys, occasionally winding steeply up and over an intervening range of small mountains.
Once back on I-70, we found ourselves climbing the western edge of the San Rafael Swell. This is a 900 square mile upthrust of rock, the edges eroded into interesting near-vertical cliffs, the center relatively flat but cut by several deep canyons, with few roads, several pictograph and fossil sites, and lots of interesting rock formations. Crossing it on I-70 gives just a tiny sampler of what's here. We'll have to come back and spend some time in the more remote areas. There are several scenic pullouts along the highway, and we stopped at each.
As dusk approached, we stopped at another scenic view area, accessed by a long ramp that took us up onto a little hilltop, well away from the expressway, and with parking for big trucks and RV's as well as cars. After enjoying the view for a while, we decided that it would be an excellent place to spend the night. I recommend this as an overnight spot for any RVer. It's approximately 18 miles west of Green River, Utah at about milepost 140, accessible only from the eastbound lanes.
10/14/04: The first part of today's trip, an 18 mile descent down from the San Rafael Swell into the Green River valley, was spectacular scenery, and new to us. The rest of the day, all on I-70 was familiar territory. We arrived home late in the day and tired, and headed to our neighborhood Italian restaurant to unwind over a plate of pasta. Now we have to hustle around to get the house and yard ready so we can leave again in a week. This time we’ll be gone for over a month while we visit relatives in the east.