3/12-15/17
Current Location: Notom-Bullfrog Road, BLM Land just outside Capitol Reef National Park
We took advantage of Rooney enjoying another night with his new best friends to hike Zion National Park and get some riding in. As we had partook in the last day of the year to driving yourself around Zion we headed in to ride the shuttle around Zion Canyon and sightsee and hike some other trails.
We knew what a mess the park would be midday on a weekend around spring break so we got there around the first shuttle, about 7am, and started a hike shortly after to the Emerald Pools. This was a nice morning jaunt of a few miles and a decent climb. We could see the lower pools but the trail directly to (and under I believe) was closed due to rockfall. We had the upper pools to ourselves and I scrambled nearly under the falls that fell a 100-200 feet from the narrow crack on the red rock canyon wall. The water cascaded into a veil by the time it crashed onto the rocks below, all funneling down to the basketball court sized pool before working its way further down into the canyon. We stayed around for a few minutes watching the sun crest the walls a thousand feet high on the opposite side of Zion Canyon and light up the waterfall. We scampered back to the shuttle and took it to the end of the canyon road to the Narrows. The river had increased from about 50 cf/s only 3-4 days ago to over 150 cf/s this day, meaning any upward travel through the riverbed was not allowed. Looking at the river and knowing the temperature of the water was only about 40 degrees we were glad the decision was made for us. We were told the day before (at 115 cf/s) sections were waist to chest deep so full wetsuits were needed. We looked at the Narrows from a distance, a little disappointed to not see one of the highlights of the park but glad we got a similar experience at Kanarraville Falls the day before.
As predicted the park was a zoo around lunch so we headed out back to our campsite from the night before knowing there is a nice system of trails to mountain bike directly from camp. We had a beer and geared up for some easy trails that rolled through the sagebrush bushes along relatively smooth single track. Not having truly mountain biked in a while it was a nice couple hours of screwing around on easy trails and enjoying the nearly 80 degree afternoon. After we made dinner under another beautiful sunset across the 40-50 miles we could see in each direction from our site.
Without any real plan we pointed ourselves towards the Grand Canyon the next day. We made it as far as the UT/AZ border and the Glen Canyon Dam visitor center where we chatted up a fellow Sportsmobile owner. In talking about each of our respective trips he mentioned he had spent the previous night on Alstrom Point above Lake Powell back in UT. A 5 minute internet search and with his recommendation we pointed back north into UT and some healthy dirt roads. We traveled over 20 miles on ever-less smooth roads. I don’t want to say they were rough because by off-roading and by our van standards they were pretty tame. We seemingly passed through just about every geological era as we covered the van in numerous shades of dirt. From volcanic gray dust to red sandy double track we had just about every form of dirt road you can imagine. At about 20 miles and a few random turns around the desert we approached the edges of cliffs above Lake Powell and the “rock garden” everyone described. All 2wd high clearance and cross over SUVs are typically turned back here (not that we saw a soul for this entire drive). We poked our way across slick rock, marked only by piles of rocks every few hundred feet and a general compass direction where we thought we wanted to go. We finally rolled up to the highest and last point we could to Alstrom Point which, if the gas is hit instead of the brakes, we’d end up pulling a Bonnie and Clyde launch into oblivion. This was a narrow point, maybe a football field size plateau overlooking a thousand feet or so of southwest sheer walls down to the curving shores of Lake Powell
Although our expectation, and everyone else’s experience, has been solitude we did have a group show up right behind us in a side by side ATV and an SUV who were taking engagement photos at the point. They stayed much of the afternoon and through sunset but they were nice and we chatted a few times as we all wandered around the mesa top and enjoyed the sun. At one point we heard a buzzing rapidly approaching from the southwest and in an instant a scenic helicopter buzzed our two groups not more than 30’ above us at full speed. They clearly knew the area because their aim was perfect to almost scrape Alstrom Point and the top of the van and then in a second be over 1,000 of cliff, dropping quickly towards the lake. They made a beeline for a huge feature known as Gunsight Butte and threaded the needle through the namesake notch in the butte. We were all left stunned for a few seconds and then, giddy, tried to track the helicopter across the lake to its next move.
The happy couple, their friends and photographers departed as the sky fell dark and we sat out on some rocks looking down onto the lake eating dinner. The sunset beauty was equaled by the full moon rise shortly thereafter. Photos abound in the desert during early and late parts of the day.
The next morning, alone for dozens of miles other than the one boat we could see camped on a sandy beach well below us on Lake Powell we ate breakfast and wandered the mesa before bouncing ourselves back towards dirt and civilization. This was a perfect sidetrack from a random recommendation in a touristy parking lot. The remote nature of this spot, the views and the weather were exactly what we had pictured for our trip.
We now headed south towards the Grand Canyon, fully preparing ourselves for the exact opposite to the solitude we had experienced the few days prior. We stopped at the famous Horseshoe Bend with about a few hundred of our closet foreign tourist friends and made our way to check out some forest service roads just outside of the Grand Canyon for campsite ideas. We hung out for the afternoon, cleaned some and made lunch before heading into the park for a round of late afternoon braving of parking lots that are absurdly large, snack bars and yelling children. That aside the views into the Grand Canyon are gorgeous and it’s not too difficult to find some quiet pull outs and view points. We watched sunset with about a hundred other people from a random view point. As the sun set the crowds disappeared and only a few of us remained to watch the colors change in the sky and the stars come out. We went back to the van and made some dinner while the sky darkened and saw a few other campers in the lot, clearly set up for the night. We somewhat did the same but had planned to leave back to the forest service roads after cooking and taking some star pictures with the canyon. After another stop at a view point and more campers set up, we decided to just set up ourselves where we planned to watch sunrise, at Grandview Point. Turns out there is either a policy to allow or at least no enforcement to the contrary for sleeping in a car/camper in the lots for the view points of the Grand Canyon. Who knew? Worked out well for us.
The next morning we walked the few feet to the viewpoint to take in the sunrise of the canyon with some other hearty tourists and photographers.
As a bit of a sidebar, I have to say the Grand Canyon was beautiful but it did not blow me away. It’s shear size is impressive. When you see a tiny, tiny headlamp almost 4,000 feet below you at 10pm while you’re taking star photographs under a nearly full moon, you get a good sense of the scale. The terrain though is not particularly new for us. The canyon walls, the shades, the stepped levels giving away millions of years of geological secrets. They are all impressive but not particularly unique to the Grand Canyon itself. I believe I would feel very different if I was able to spend more time hiking down or being on the river itself but taking the tourist route of viewpoints and staring down at the small glimpses of the Colorado well below, we were glad to have taken advantage of a great sunset, full moon and sunrise for our Grand Canyon experience.
We made our way out of the park in early afternoon back towards Utah. After an unsuccessful attempt in figuring out how to get a Navajo Tribal permit to hike some slot canyons around Page, AZ we decided to find a campsite within striking distance of Kanab, UT. The main attraction of Kanab is the BLM visitor center that each day holds a lottery for only 10 walk-in permits to hike “The Wave”, a world famous rock formation that only few knew of and even fewer hiked until the Windows 7 background featured the phenomenon and a permitting system had to be implemented to only allow 20 people per day to hike the 6 miles or so to the rock formation. This time of year there are 100-200 people arriving at this tiny office at 8:30am each day for a bingo style, wooden ball, spherical cage lottery drawing. We figured we were in the area so we better throw our name in. No such luck though and we decided not to hang out for another couple days to try again and again, as many people we talked to at the office were doing.
No soup for you!!
On to Bryce Canyon then Capitol Reef National Parks.