Grand Staircase-Escalante NM & Capitol Reef NP
This is the third in a series of postings for 2010. The first was Great Basin 2010 and the second was Cedar Breaks/Bryce Canyon 2010
The destination leaving Bryce was Moab, UT where we planned to stay 2 nights. The Grand Staircase-Escalante was along the way on our trip over the Scenic Hwy 12 to get to Capitol Reef. I am not sure that I can adequately describe the scenery we passed through. Extremely diverse comes to mind. Since it was a long drive, We chose not to stop at the Escalante NM visitor center just past Cannonville and the Escalante NM visitor center near the town of Escalante which meant giving up cancellations in the passport book. Soon after the road past Escalante we stopped at a lookout to view the most desolate landscape that I have ever seen. I think it was part of John Powell's Second Expedition (after the Grand Canyon trip). I did not see how anything could live there except for cactus. Along Scenic Hwy 12 we saw red rocks and red canyons, while rocks and white canyons, red and white sand, arroyos and you name it. Just when I thought I'd seen everything, we crossed a narrow ribbon of land where if you ran off the right side of the road you would fall 1000 feet but if you ran off the left side you would only fall 900 feet. There were no rails at all. Marilyn, who is not fond of heights, was beside herself. I even felt nervous but she never knew it. Having survived that, we began climbing to 8,000+'. Soon we were again into those pesky aspen groves near Boulder Mountain. We rounded a curve to see 15 or so cattle in and along the road with one pesky cow going right down the centerline. We 'danced' a bit, then I roared past in my hot H3. Marilyn again was beside herself. I think I should say that most of Utah seems to be open range. Everywhere we went there were cattle guards/gaps. Even entrance/exit ramps on the interstates had them. Did I mention that Budget Rental did not have a mid-sized car for us when we landed in SLC? They offered us a Hummer H3 for the same price because it was the only vehicle they had and all others waiting had refused it. I didn't want it either but we were burning daylight waiting for others to return a car so it could be cleaned up for us. So I took the Hummer so we could be on our way. We were styling in our white H3 which even helped us herd cattle. It did get 20 mpg which surprised me a lot especially as many mountains that we climbed.
When we hit Hwy 24 just to the east of Capitol Reef we decided that Scenic Hwy 12 was everything it was cracked up to be. I always considered Capitol Reef NP as a drive-through park on the way to another park. They did not charge an entrance fee just as Great Basin NP did not. I consider a national park that is long north-to-south but short in the east-to-west dimension to be a tall-and-thin park (my made-up term). Great Basin is that way. Cedar Breaks is that way. Bryce is that way. So before we got to Capitol Reef, we had been to three tall-and-thin parks. But Capital Reef takes the prize in this category. Where we were crossing was about 25 miles in width. Other parts of the park are only 5 miles wide, just enough to contain the waterpocket fold which is what this park is all about.
We went to the visitor center of course. I wanted us to spend no more than 2 hours in the park. I thought we could pick some fruit at the Fruita Area ( old Mormon settlement), check some geology, check some petroglyphs and then drive on through. But we decided to do the Scenic Drive ($5 per vehicle) which is something I thought that only a geologist would truly love. But we saw some interesting historical references as well as the strange geology. We also saw many warnings about don't be there if it rains since it is prone to flash flooding. We were nervous when thunder started and light rain commenced. We wondered what would Bill & Polly Holly do. So we cut the self-guided scenic drive short. We did see marmots and mule deer in the Fruita Area. We were not allowed pick any fruit since a late freeze had nipped the fruit on the trees (remember that late snow I mentioned earlier). As we left, we took pictures of petroglyphs along the way. We then followed the Fremont River out of the park and on to Hanksville making progress on our trek to Moab. The Fremont River merged with the Dirty Devil River and the Muddy river becoming the Dirty Devil River which empties into Lake Powell. I tried to no avail to get them to change the name to the Dirty Red Devil River. Maybe next year. We then drove to I70 to the town of Green River, UT. After eating we went east to Hwy 191 which took us to Moab. Moab and Park City are the two main tourist towns in Utah so baby we did it all!!! At the motel, I chuckled every time I saw at every entrance the sign: Bicycles Are Not Allowed in Rooms - We Have Special Storage For Them. No need to tell you what people do in Moab! We noticed that Arches NP is tall-and-thin also. We noticed that Canyonlands was tall-and-thin too. So is the Glen Canyon Reacreational Area. Do they know how to form a park any other way in this area???
So we were now safely in Moab with our date with Arches NP coming up early the next morning. Remember, before this trip started I thought that the cream would be Bryce and Arches. Having seen Bryce I was now anxious to see Arches.
