SunMan
King Taco
Really grooving on this. 
Smokey Mountain Road and Alstrom Point look to be all time!
Smokey Mountain Road and Alstrom Point look to be all time!
Grand Staircase - Glen Canyon Adventure
- Thread starter kcowyo
- Start date
chnlisle
Post Master
OK I need to stop taking pictures and composing prose. Wow great stuff.
OP
OP
kcowyo
Senior Member
After catching a lucky break with some good color at sunrise, we leisurely pack up and start the bouncing back to the main trail. The same final 6 miles that we had raced down the night before, we took more slowly and savored the 360 degree view. The trail isn't well traveled as there is no beach access to Lake Powell this way, just a scenic overlook.
Soon we find the scenery changing from a wide open sandy plateau, to a gray moon-like landscape. The colors in the hillsides are gone replaced by grays and purples, the land burned by underground mines nearby. The red sand is gone and it looks like we are driving on ash.
About that time, the Tacoma and FWC posted previously, catch up to us waving as they go by. We would play leapfrog on the trail for the next hour as we took turns pulling over to take photos. Clearly he recognized our FWC as well, and we saluted each other's good taste each time we passed one another.
Reaching the small town of Big Water, we stop at the rest area for uh... rest, and then head a few miles west on pavement before our turn off for Cottonwood Canyon. Now the guidebooks will tell you this is an easy 2wd dirt road of about 50 miles in length and that takes about 2 hours to reach Escalante. Let me remind you though what they say about believing everything you read....
This was a great little drive, the books don't lie about that. An easy 2wd dirt road is where I take exception. And that whole "run it in 2 hours" thing was complete BS. The road was hammered with deep ruts and rocks. Slow going for sure. At 2 hours in, we had only gone 25 of the 50 miles, and I wasn't stopping for many pics. Doing the math in my head, it's clear my afternoon plans to reach Cathedral Valley are out the window. We'll never make it in time. Once I resigned myself to that fact, I decided to make the best of Cottonwood Canyon and enjoyed the drive.
The desert colors along this trail are spectacular, more than enough to compensate for the poor road conditions. We see several more vehicles on this trail than the day before. We're approaching the boundary for Kodachrome State Park, when the colors & topography suddenly go off the chart and we're in a whole different canyon.
Slipping into Kodachrome SP the back way, we stop at Grosvenor Arch, a rare double arch at the south end of the park. The trailhead is empty, so we grab our cameras and go for a little walk. We snap a cheesy self-portrait that is too ridiculous to post here, but may find it's way on our Xmas cards next winter. The sky has cleared up and the winds have started up again but it's a good afternoon. It's barely after lunch but we have taken in an eyefull already.
Grosvenor Arch -
After some time in the sunshine, making each other laugh and taking it all in, we return to the truck. Out come the maps and I attempt to figure out how to salvage the afternoon. We have a few miles back to Hwy 12 and then several more miles to Torrey, near Capitol Reef NP, where I had hoped to visit Cathedral Valley in the northern region of the park. Clearly I had bitten off more than we could chew for a 4 day weekend. The next day we would be heading home, so getting as far north as we could at this point was key.
Cathedral Valley and Goblin Valley were out. Too far. The nearby Posey Lake and Hells Backbone trails were still closed for the year. My shock absorbers, on their last legs at this point, are begging for a break. We would have to retrace almost 80 miles of highway, that we had already driven on this trip, to get somewhere new.
What to do, what to do....
.
Soon we find the scenery changing from a wide open sandy plateau, to a gray moon-like landscape. The colors in the hillsides are gone replaced by grays and purples, the land burned by underground mines nearby. The red sand is gone and it looks like we are driving on ash.
About that time, the Tacoma and FWC posted previously, catch up to us waving as they go by. We would play leapfrog on the trail for the next hour as we took turns pulling over to take photos. Clearly he recognized our FWC as well, and we saluted each other's good taste each time we passed one another.
Reaching the small town of Big Water, we stop at the rest area for uh... rest, and then head a few miles west on pavement before our turn off for Cottonwood Canyon. Now the guidebooks will tell you this is an easy 2wd dirt road of about 50 miles in length and that takes about 2 hours to reach Escalante. Let me remind you though what they say about believing everything you read....
This was a great little drive, the books don't lie about that. An easy 2wd dirt road is where I take exception. And that whole "run it in 2 hours" thing was complete BS. The road was hammered with deep ruts and rocks. Slow going for sure. At 2 hours in, we had only gone 25 of the 50 miles, and I wasn't stopping for many pics. Doing the math in my head, it's clear my afternoon plans to reach Cathedral Valley are out the window. We'll never make it in time. Once I resigned myself to that fact, I decided to make the best of Cottonwood Canyon and enjoyed the drive.
The desert colors along this trail are spectacular, more than enough to compensate for the poor road conditions. We see several more vehicles on this trail than the day before. We're approaching the boundary for Kodachrome State Park, when the colors & topography suddenly go off the chart and we're in a whole different canyon.
Slipping into Kodachrome SP the back way, we stop at Grosvenor Arch, a rare double arch at the south end of the park. The trailhead is empty, so we grab our cameras and go for a little walk. We snap a cheesy self-portrait that is too ridiculous to post here, but may find it's way on our Xmas cards next winter. The sky has cleared up and the winds have started up again but it's a good afternoon. It's barely after lunch but we have taken in an eyefull already.
Grosvenor Arch -
After some time in the sunshine, making each other laugh and taking it all in, we return to the truck. Out come the maps and I attempt to figure out how to salvage the afternoon. We have a few miles back to Hwy 12 and then several more miles to Torrey, near Capitol Reef NP, where I had hoped to visit Cathedral Valley in the northern region of the park. Clearly I had bitten off more than we could chew for a 4 day weekend. The next day we would be heading home, so getting as far north as we could at this point was key.
Cathedral Valley and Goblin Valley were out. Too far. The nearby Posey Lake and Hells Backbone trails were still closed for the year. My shock absorbers, on their last legs at this point, are begging for a break. We would have to retrace almost 80 miles of highway, that we had already driven on this trip, to get somewhere new.
What to do, what to do....
.
pods8
Contributors
Surreal views.
Tomas Tierra
Contributors
beach camping is not seaming so cool all of the sudden...
DROOL!
DROOL!
OP
OP
kcowyo
Senior Member
Forgot to finish. Must be short term memory loss... or ADD... or uh, what was I saying?
Rolling out of Kodachrome SP, we decided to see how far north we could get. My thought was maybe we could find a nice campsite between Boulder and Torrey, up in the mountains. Passing through Henrieville quickly, we snap the above photo at Nelsons and continue north.
The drive north on Hwy 12, as opposed to the drive south, is no less scenic. My plan to travel up Hells Backbone and Posey Lake into Torrey, scrapped, we enjoyed Hwy 12 plenty as far as a 'Plan B' goes. We stopped in Boulder, at the Boulder Mesa for dinner and treated ourselves to a full meal deal including appetizers and dessert. We had watched our pennies enough on this trip that we felt we could splurge for a nice dinner. This wasn't our first stop at Boulder mesa and it won't be our last, if you know what I mean.
As we ascended the climb up the mountains, the weather turned quite cold. By the time we made it to the summit at 9400 feet it was snowing. Not good. I had thought of making it into the Lower Bowns Reservoir to camp, but the snow on the ground and the snow falling made me reconsider. It was getting dark and I knew we could handle an evening in the cold, but who knows about Spring snowstorms? We could have woken up the next day to a picture perfect morning or we could be waking up to a foot of snow, potentially trapping us at the end of a remote trail.
I look at my beautiful co-pilot, a trooper till the end and though she won't say it, I finally do...
"This could be a really bad decision by tomorrow morning. Do you still have that hotel freebie on your Am-Ex, that we could use for a room in Torrey?"
She informs me she does, somewhat relieved. We push on to Torrey in the dark, and grab a room at a Days Inn, or something like that. She not only got us the last room they had, it was the honeymoon suite. Because sometimes cool things like that just happen to us. We enjoy a hot tub and our first hot shower in days, while the snow continues to fall outside.
The next morning was cold, no doubt about it. There isn't much snow on the ground but the icicle hanging off my water drain leads me to believe we made the right call. Fighting through a horde of German tourists at the free continental breakfast, I get my coffee and bagel and prepare for the ride home. Rather than make our way east over to Hanksville, I chose to try an new route home from Torrey. We head west to Loa, and continue north on Hwy 72 to I-70. Hwy 72 was a total shocker. What a beautiful drive through ranches and mountains. We saw more reminders of the chilly night before...
Crossing I-70, we continue north to Price, on Hwy 10, through the small towns of Emery and Ferron. We really enjoyed this drive and plan to make this our new route to the Capitol Reef Area. Cruising through Price, we continue north and back home to Wyoming, after another 4 amazing days in southern Utah.
The two biggest highlights of the trip were the unplanned stop at Stanton Creek and the Smoky Mtn Rd. We unfortunately missed out on Cathedral Valley (again) and Goblin Valley SP in depth (again). I found the southern end of the Notom-Bullfrog road to be in much better condition (less washboards) than the northern portion was 2 years ago. All told we spent $238 on gas & food, which seemed a much better use of funds than some other options we had that weekend. And we realized that while we always escape the crowds by coming to Utah in late April, we can't escape the winds. And in the high country, snow is likely going to happen. No biggie. We will be back anyway...
*End Notes -
During the unpacking, I put together a short list of gear we brought, but didn't use -
5 gallons of extra fuel
5 gallons of extra water
box of firewood
Zodi shower kit
shower tent
toilet chair
fold up table
socks
bottle of Rum
~ 30 ~
.
Rolling out of Kodachrome SP, we decided to see how far north we could get. My thought was maybe we could find a nice campsite between Boulder and Torrey, up in the mountains. Passing through Henrieville quickly, we snap the above photo at Nelsons and continue north.
The drive north on Hwy 12, as opposed to the drive south, is no less scenic. My plan to travel up Hells Backbone and Posey Lake into Torrey, scrapped, we enjoyed Hwy 12 plenty as far as a 'Plan B' goes. We stopped in Boulder, at the Boulder Mesa for dinner and treated ourselves to a full meal deal including appetizers and dessert. We had watched our pennies enough on this trip that we felt we could splurge for a nice dinner. This wasn't our first stop at Boulder mesa and it won't be our last, if you know what I mean.
As we ascended the climb up the mountains, the weather turned quite cold. By the time we made it to the summit at 9400 feet it was snowing. Not good. I had thought of making it into the Lower Bowns Reservoir to camp, but the snow on the ground and the snow falling made me reconsider. It was getting dark and I knew we could handle an evening in the cold, but who knows about Spring snowstorms? We could have woken up the next day to a picture perfect morning or we could be waking up to a foot of snow, potentially trapping us at the end of a remote trail.
I look at my beautiful co-pilot, a trooper till the end and though she won't say it, I finally do...
"This could be a really bad decision by tomorrow morning. Do you still have that hotel freebie on your Am-Ex, that we could use for a room in Torrey?"
She informs me she does, somewhat relieved. We push on to Torrey in the dark, and grab a room at a Days Inn, or something like that. She not only got us the last room they had, it was the honeymoon suite. Because sometimes cool things like that just happen to us. We enjoy a hot tub and our first hot shower in days, while the snow continues to fall outside.
The next morning was cold, no doubt about it. There isn't much snow on the ground but the icicle hanging off my water drain leads me to believe we made the right call. Fighting through a horde of German tourists at the free continental breakfast, I get my coffee and bagel and prepare for the ride home. Rather than make our way east over to Hanksville, I chose to try an new route home from Torrey. We head west to Loa, and continue north on Hwy 72 to I-70. Hwy 72 was a total shocker. What a beautiful drive through ranches and mountains. We saw more reminders of the chilly night before...
Crossing I-70, we continue north to Price, on Hwy 10, through the small towns of Emery and Ferron. We really enjoyed this drive and plan to make this our new route to the Capitol Reef Area. Cruising through Price, we continue north and back home to Wyoming, after another 4 amazing days in southern Utah.
The two biggest highlights of the trip were the unplanned stop at Stanton Creek and the Smoky Mtn Rd. We unfortunately missed out on Cathedral Valley (again) and Goblin Valley SP in depth (again). I found the southern end of the Notom-Bullfrog road to be in much better condition (less washboards) than the northern portion was 2 years ago. All told we spent $238 on gas & food, which seemed a much better use of funds than some other options we had that weekend. And we realized that while we always escape the crowds by coming to Utah in late April, we can't escape the winds. And in the high country, snow is likely going to happen. No biggie. We will be back anyway...
*End Notes -
During the unpacking, I put together a short list of gear we brought, but didn't use -
5 gallons of extra fuel
5 gallons of extra water
box of firewood
Zodi shower kit
shower tent
toilet chair
fold up table
socks
bottle of Rum
~ 30 ~
.
SunMan
King Taco
During the unpacking, I put together a short list of gear we brought, but didn't use -
bottle of Rum
Good gawd...What was wrong with you?
bottle of Rum
Good gawd...What was wrong with you?
pods8
Contributors
Good gawd...What was wrong with you?
Esp. with a honeymoon suite...
Esp. with a honeymoon suite...
Mark W. Ingalls
Contributors
I look at my beautiful co-pilot, a trooper till the end ...
KC,
I am looking at mine right now, too. She hasn't been able to stay out of the hosp. long enough to go camping since last summer (and we even tried once or twice) but she smiles that big ol' smile of hers whenever I show her pictures from your (and other's) trip reports.
Thanks for blessing her, and me.
Edna & Mark
KC,
I am looking at mine right now, too. She hasn't been able to stay out of the hosp. long enough to go camping since last summer (and we even tried once or twice) but she smiles that big ol' smile of hers whenever I show her pictures from your (and other's) trip reports.
Thanks for blessing her, and me.
Edna & Mark
OP
OP
kcowyo
Senior Member
Mark, I'm humbled. Truly humbled sir.
I've always hoped that sharing my pics and little tales might inspire others to get out, as I have been inspired. It never occured to me that they might provide some comfort to someone. What a generous sentiment. I'm grateful...
Please extend our very best wishes to Miss Edna. I hope she's able to get out this summer, to find even more comfort & inspiration. You take care too.
- KC
.
I've always hoped that sharing my pics and little tales might inspire others to get out, as I have been inspired. It never occured to me that they might provide some comfort to someone. What a generous sentiment. I'm grateful...
Please extend our very best wishes to Miss Edna. I hope she's able to get out this summer, to find even more comfort & inspiration. You take care too.
- KC
.
KC,
Great prose with great pics. Seems I traveled nearly the same route southbound on my way to Expo, too bad we didn't cross paths. Kodachrome, Cottonwood Rd, running the riverbeds of Nipple Creek and Tibbett Canyon then to Alstrom Point.
What would be really weird if you stayed at the same campsite along Cottonwood.
Great prose with great pics. Seems I traveled nearly the same route southbound on my way to Expo, too bad we didn't cross paths. Kodachrome, Cottonwood Rd, running the riverbeds of Nipple Creek and Tibbett Canyon then to Alstrom Point.
What would be really weird if you stayed at the same campsite along Cottonwood.
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