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 ~
.