Sunday May 13 -

I spent today exploring Zion Canyon, with most of it repeating my favorite Zion hike from years past - The Narrows.  Getting there is sure a lot different.  In 2000, Zion began a shuttle bus system to cut way down on traffic in the park, and especially in Zion Canyon.  The shuttle buses are not only for getting people from Springdale to the park, but also from the visitor center to several stops in Zion Canyon.  The shuttle buses are frequent enough that the system works reasonably well, but there are a lot more turnouts along the road that are passed by the buses.  I knew during my 1997 visit that the shuttle system was coming, so I made an extensive sightseeing tour of Zion Canyon during that trip - and I got a lot of great photos from then.

In 2000, 2002 and 2004 I made mostly drive-through visits to the park - it is located between Las Vegas to the southwest and places like Bryce Canyon and Capital Reef to the northeast and Kanab and Page to the southeast - plus of course the drives up Kolob Terrace Road.

Today I took the shuttle bus to the end of the road in the park, a place called the Temple of Sinawava, a large round area that even includes a couple rock outcroppings in the middle known as the Pulpit and the Altar.  It is also where the Riverside Walk begins.  This walk follows the Virgin River upstream into the canyon, ending at the start of the Narrows.  And this is where the highlight of my day began.  The hike up the Narrows.  The Virgin River has carved a deep, narrow slot canyon in the sandstone rock.  There are places where the canyon narrows to no more than 22 feet wide and 1500 feet deep - "Wall Street", the locals call it, just past the junction with Orderville Canyon.  It is incredible to hike through something like this, and also up the Orderville Canyon, which meets the Narrows about 1 1/2 miles upstream.

The hike, though, is a wet one.  Much of the hike is in the river itself, some of it is along rocks and sandbars along the sides.  The water typically ranges from about one to three feet deep - at least if you choose your route carefully.  There are plenty of areas that are waist deep and even much deeper.  And during my 1994 visit I even hit a patch of quicksand in the Orderville Canyon.  The shallower water is also rocky, and the currents can be a bit strong, so it is slow-going, chilly and, yes, wet.

With the shuttles and the Riverside Walk behind me, I hit the water at ten.  At the start, there were only a few of us who ventured into the Virgin.  Although people would come into view now and then, for most of my walk into the Narrows it felt like I had the place to myself.  It took me about 2 hours to reach my turnaround point.  I had a snack in the Orderville Canyon and then started back.  Only to encounter a half-dozen people who followed me into Orderville Canyon, another half-dozen at the canyon mouth, and countless people heading upstream as I was working my way back down.  I rarely was out of sight of anyone during this stretch of the walk.  

The other big difference between the two halves of the hike was the brightness.  Much of the deep canyon is in the shade for most of the day, but for the couple hours after noon the overhead sun lightens up many parts of the canyon.  It makes for very different scenery, pictures and mood.

The Narrows hike was a great way to spend much of my visit to Zion.  I've taken this hike three times now, and have enjoyed it each time.

My feet were waterlogged and a bit sore when got back to the shuttle bus stop.  I rode it only to the next stop, Big Bend, which features a great view of the Great White Throne.  From there I walked the half mile to the Weeping Rock stop where I took the short hike up to Weeping Rock, a place where water seeps out of the sandstone, creating a small micro-environment.  Then I took the shuttle bus to the lodge, where I got some fruit and diet pop, and just took a nice break.  Then it was on to the Human History Museum, featuring a handful of displays on Native and pioneer settlers in the area, as well as on plant and animal life.  I skipped the movie and shuttle bus, and instead walked the rest of the way to the Visitor Center and the shuttle buses back into Springdale.

After an early dinner, I hit the road, driving back to La Verkin to get gas, some hiking munchies and the evening's pop.  Sure I could have picked up all of that stuff in Springdale, but I hoped to use the drive to get some late day sun photos of the landscape that lines Hwy 9.  Some high clouds had moved in while I was at Big Bend, and had hung around the rest of the day.  Until La Verkin when the sun poked through for a bit.  The drive back to Springdale was like this - the sun came out for awhile and then went back behind the clouds.  Fortunately it seemed to make an appearance at all the right times.  Not quite low enough in the skies to bring out the warm rock colors that I was hoping for, but low enough to bring out the color.  Later that evening I'd see the TV weather forecast for June-like temperatures and mostly sunny skies across Utah for the rest of May.  My kind of weather for this trip.

TV and preparation for tomorrow's trip to Capital Reef filled the rest of my evening.

Bryce Canyon and Kodachrome Basin

Monday May 14 -

I hit the road at about 8AM and drove into Zion.  My route took me east on Highway 9, the Zion-Mt. Carmel Highway.  The road follows a number of switchbacks up out of Zion Canyon, and then passes through a long tunnel.  It can be a bit of a surprise when you emerge from the east end of that tunnel the first time.  Rugged, rocky sandstone domes with a few trees and shrubs poking out wherever they could get a foothold.  Much different than the Virgin River-fed Zion Canyon, which seems downright lush by comparison.  It's almost like being in a different park.  And in many ways it is - most visitors to Zion never make it up here.

This was my fifth visit, but the last two barely count - mostly drive-thru visits near or shortly after sunset when I've flown into Vegas the last two times.  It's not a long drive, but there are a number of turnouts, and I hit most of them.  My favorite stop up here is Checkerboard Mesa, with both vertical and horizontal fractures in the stone, giving it a checkerboard-like appearance.  I've got a picture of a small tree sticking out of the mesa from my 1994 visit - I took a couple pictures of what I think is the same tree so I can check out its growth over the last 13 years.

From Zion I headed pretty directly to Bryce Canyon, except for a stop at Mt. Carmel Junction for some pop, and a stop at Red Canyon for a handful of photos.  Red Canyon provides a small taste of what is to come at Bryce.

When I originally planned the day, I rather ambitiously thought I might traverse the entire Bryce Canyon scenic drive.  But I got a lot more realistic as the trip approached, and by the time I left Seattle I knew that today I would only sample Bryce - I couldn't ignore it completely, coming this close for the first time in seven years.

Bryce Canyon isn't so much a canyon as it is a series of amphitheatres eroded into the eastern side of the colorful Paunsaugunt Plateau.  The erosion first created rock fins, which in turn became hoodoos as further erosion separated them from the plateau walls.  The hoodoos - mostly orange and white, but with some pinks, purples and other colors, number in the thousands, and some are several hundred feet tall.  I hiked down among them in my 1994 visit.  I took the scenic drive during my 2000 visit, but didn't feel much like hiking the next day - that's the day I ended up exploring Cottonwood Canyon and discovering Old Paria.

With today's rushed schedule, I parked the car at Sunset Point, and walked along the rim to Sunrise Point and back, snapping several pictures of the main amphitheatre.  And that was it.  I hit the road as soon as I got back to the car.  I realize that this wasn't much of a visit for what is a truly unique park, but at least now I'll have some Bryce Canyon pictures in my photo rotation at home (my stereo PC has all my digital photos on it - when it switches to screensaver mode after one minute, it puts on a slide show of my travel photos; this has proven to be a great idea for someone like me who takes far too many travel photos).

I headed to Cannonville and then took a side road south to Kodachrome Basin State Park, a 1997 discovery that I last visited in 2000.  And yes it is named after the film.  It is a small, colorful park.  Of course, just about everyplace in this part of Utah is colorful.  With late date sun and storm clouds receding to the east, I got some pretty dramatic photos of the place in 1997, making it a favorite memory from that trip.

My main target for this visit was the Panorama Trail, which leads to a few loop trails and a spur to Panorama Point.  I have hiked a short fragment of it a couple times, to check out Fred Flintstone Spire.  And I would discover that I really didn't need to hike much more than that.  Half the trail follows the walls of an outcropping - pretty, certainly, but the view didn't change much.  Then it cuts through a juniper forest, so there wasn't much of a view of anything.  Finally I hit the spur to Panorama Point.  An uphill climb to the top of a small mesa offering 360-degree views...  Oops.  No, it dead-ended on a smaller outcropping in front of that mesa, offering 180-degree views dominated by the scene I'd been seeing for the whole hike.  Oh well.  It was a pleasant enough hike, but there were a couple other trails I might have considered instead.

I took the nature trail near the campground, checked out Chimney Rock, and then finished my visit with the short hike to Shakespeare Arch.

It was now 4PM, which I figured would give me enough time to get to Capital Reef for some late day sun along the scenic drive.  But as I was hiking at Kodachrome Basin, I could see some clouds coming in.  As I headed north along the Boulder Highway through Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, the clouds thickened.  By the time I reached Dixie National Forest and Boulder Mountain, it was seriously overcast and my car was even hit by some sprinkles.  So much for last night's wonderful weather forecast.

At my last scenic overlook stop, I had a view of Capital Reef National Park.  No sun on those rocks.  So I figured that I'd just head into Torrey, check into my hotel, get some dinner and make a relatively early day of it (it was actually pushing 7PM).  The sun came out while I was eating, but it would set at about 8PM.

I capped off the day with a short walk around Torrey.

Capitol Reef

Tuesday May 15 -

Today I focused pretty exclusively on Capital Reef National Park.  Over millions of years, the lands surrounding what is now southern Utah were built up with layers and layers of sedimentary rock, some from tidal flats, some from ocean bottom, some from deserts, some from volcanic ash, and so on.  Each has a color and erosion threshold determined by how its mineral content and how it was created.  Approximately 65 million years ago, the region was pushed upwards, eventually creating the Colorado Plateau.  Millions of years of erosion led to what we now call Zion Canyon and Bryce Canyon.

Capitol Reef began during the uplift.  A 100-mile-long section of the earth's crust buckled, basically creating a bend in the layers.  Throw in their different erosion patterns, and we were left with a long ridge, with a few deep slot canyons crossing them - pioneers referred to such ridges as reefs.  Capitol Reef National Park protects the reef and some surrounding areas.  Where the Fremont River, and now Highway 24 cross the reef, early Mormon pioneers took advantage of the plentiful wall and created the farming and orchard community of Fruita.  Remnants of the Fruita community, including some of its famous orchards, still exist in the park.  And a thousand years before the Mormons arrived, the Fremont Indians had homes in this area.  Petroglyphs and a handful of other features from their occupation of the area also exist in the park.

I woke to a nice sunny day.  It would stay sunny all day - late afternoon clouds that developed in the west ultimately stayed there.  I hit the road, stopping for some breakfast snack items and some diet pop.  Torrey is just west of Capitol Reef, so I hit the west end of the park.  The reef runs north-south, so even though the park is about at its widest where Highway 24 crosses it, the park is only about 15 miles wide here.  Of course, it was morning, so the sun was coming from the east.  As a result, the western part of the park was not in its best color this early in the mornings.  Even so I did make a few photo stops along the highway, including Panorama Point, which offers more interesting views than yesterday's Panorama Point did.  I took the short walks to check out the view of the goosenecks of Sulphur Creek and the view from Sunset Point.  Of course, the name "Sunset Point" suggests that the best views from here would come when the sun is in the west.  And this walk seemed to confirm that.  But it was a pretty enough walk along the way, so it was worth it.  I've been here for sunsets during past visits, and I have to say that I've been a little underwhelmed, but time of year can be a big factor in such things.

I passed the visitor center and continued east on Highway 24.  My first stop was the old one-room schoolhouse, a leftover from Mormon pioneer days.  It is surrounded by a number of fruit orchards.  The National Park Service maintains the orchards; visitors can help themselves to fruit - but they have to pay for any that they take with them (discourages people from picking the orchards clean for selling purposes).  Of course, it is still spring, so nothing was ripe.  During past September visits, apples and pears were generally available.

Next up was the site of several clusters of Fremont Indian petroglyphs.  Here the morning sun was quite helpful - the only cluster that didn't photograph well was the cluster in full sun.

My next stop was the Hickman Bridge trailhead.  A few trails start here, most fairly strenuous as they head up to the tops of parts of the reef.  The Hickman Bridge Trail, in comparison, is a moderately easy 2-mile (total round trip) hike up to Hickman Natural Bridge and back.  There is a bit of a climb at the start, but nothing too difficult.  It offers great views of the sandstone monolith Capitol Dome - it resembles the U.S. Capitol - from which the reef gets its name.  There are also several rounded volcanic rocks, apparently carried downhill from Boulder Mountain by glaciers during the ice age.  Some have been arranged in a circle, the foundation of a Fremont Indian pit house.  A Fremont granary was built into one nook in the rock.  There were a number of "grand" scenic views, but I found myself also taking pictures of the micro-views, such as the spring wildflowers which were in bloom.  Shortly before Hickman Bridge came into view, I passed a couple very small natural bridges.  And Hickman Bridge itself was nicely photogenic.  All in all, a great hike with a lot to see in such a short distance.

It was after noon when I finished the hike.  I continued east, stopping at the Behunin Cabin.  The tiny one-room cabin, which was home to a family of 10, was built in 1882, making the Behunin family among the earliest Mormon settlers in the area.  Mom, dad and the youngest slept in the cabin.  The boys slept in a cove in the rock wall; the girls slept in the back of the wagon.  Nowadays, some parents feel guilty if any of their kids have to share a room, and most kids bedrooms today have TVs in them.

Then I headed out the east end of the park and turns south on the Notom-Bullfrog Road, which connects Highway 24 to Bullfrog on Lake Powell.  I took the whole road during my 2000 visit, catching a number of views of the east side of Capitol Reef.  Not its most scenic side, but it satisfied my curiosity.  Today I only headed down the road for about six miles - this time with my digital camera.  I had planned on only going four miles to the pavement's end, but I would find out that more of it is paved than before.

I made a handful of photo stops as I headed west back into the park.  Where Grand Wash meets the Highway, I parked the car and hiked into the gorge for a half-hour before turning around.  Now a popular hiking trail, at one point it was one of two washes that cut through the reef, making it useful as a pioneer road - well, except for when flash floods poured through.

A couple more photo stops, and I finally made it to the visitor center.  I picked up a new park brochure and the headed into the park for the scenic drive.  The Capitol Reef scenic drive lives up to its billing - it is among the most scenic of scenic drives I've found, especially in mid to late afternoon.  It follows the western face of the reef for 10 miles.  It is this face of the reef that showcases the many colorful layers of rock and the varied erosion patterns.  The entire length of the drive could be regarded as a good photo opportunity - it's a good thing that they don't have turnouts every inch of the way.  The sun was a bit too high in the sky for bringing out the color in the rock as fully as I like, but with some clouds beginning to build in the west I didn't want to run into a repeat of yesterday.  It took me 75 minutes to make the 10 mile drive - and that only sampled Grand Wash and Capitol Gorge.

Back in Fruita I took pictures of some of the old Mormon settlement sites - a barn, a house, a smith's shop.  I left Fruita at about 5PM.  I made a few repeat photo stops on my way west, repeating visits to Panorama Point, Chimney Rock and Twin Rocks to get better sunny shots than what I got this morning.

I had dinner at a restaurant on the far eastern edge of Torrey, keeping an eye on the sun and the rock.  I thought that I might head back for some late day sun pictures, but as I left the restaurant the sun slid behind some clouds.  I decided that I probably had enough pictures - after picking up some pop for the evening, I headed back to my hotel.  The sun would come out again, but I decided that I had done enough sightseeing for the day.

Especially after I realized that I had taken 420 photos today.

Goblins, Ghosts and Dinosaurs

Wednesday May 16 -

Today was an easy day, something I don't usually do much of when I'm on vacation.  The main goal was to get from Torrey to Moab, the reverse route of past trips from Arches National Park to Capitol Reef.  It is not a particularly long drive, but I turned it into an all-day trip with a few stops along the way.  After breakfast I headed east on Highway 24 through Capitol Reef to Hanksville.  It is a pretty drive, but I am usually in enough of a hurry that I don't make many stops along that route.  

I took time for that today.  North of Hanksville, I made a repeat visit to Goblin Valley State Reserve.  Goblin Valley features a valley of what I might describe as miniature mushroom-like hoodoos with round stone caps and whimsical shapes, thus goblins.  I hiked down into the valley, exploring its nooks and crannies, and taking pictures of the more interesting goblins.  My favorite goblin closely resembled the robot from the TV show Lost In Space.  

Running north-south just to the west of Goblin Valley is a ridge that from the east side looks a lot like the east-facing side of Capitol Reef and the Cockscomb ridge to the south.  My first thought was that it might even be part of Capitol Reef, but it was too far to the east.  Given the angle of the rock, I suspected that it may be tied to the San Raphael Swell, a feature of this part of Utah.  I would find out when I got home that it is the San Rafael Reef, different from but very much along the same lines as Capitol Reef and the Cockscomb.

I began the day with a sit-down breakfast.  When I reached Green River, I had a sit-down lunch.  A first time for both on this trip.  Then it was east on I-70 to Thompson Springs, where I left the highway and headed up into Sego Canyon.  In small area there are several panels of rock art that represent three different cultures - Historic Ute (1300AD-1600AD), Fremont (100BC-600AD) and Barrier Canyon (2000BC-100BC).  The Barrier Canyon style features large hollow-eyed ghostly humanoids painted in red on the walls, representing some of the oldest man-made "American" art I've seen.  The rock art is protected by law, but that historically has not always been the case.  Some of the panels are scarred with graffiti, and the Barrier Canyon figures on one panel were used for target practice at some point.  

My last sightseeing stop of the day was just of Highway 191, halfway between Thompson Springs and Moab.  There is a short, well-signed trail at Mill Canyon that showcases a number of petrified dinosaur bones.  Most of the ones highlighted were from Camarasauruses, the largest of the sauropods.  Bits of a Camptosaurus, Allosaurus and Stegosaurus bones were also featured.  Across a wash from the bones was the remains of an old copper mill building - the canyon was named after this mill.  Nearby was a coach station that marked the halfway point between Moab and Thompson Springs.  Early trains passed through Thompson Springs, and in those days it was an 8-hour coach ride from Moab to the Thompson Springs station.  The Halfway Station was, well, at the halfway point - a good place to stop for lunch on those trips.  

After making a brief last stop at the site of a WWII Japanese-American internment camp, I headed into Moab.  My hotel, the Sleep Inn, is located at the south end of town (which continues to spread south along the highway with each visit).  After dropping my stuff off in the room, I headed into town to get an early dinner and to pick up some groceries - I'm here for five nights.  Then an evening of reading and TV.

It was overcast when I reached town - I was actually a bit concerned that it might start raining when I was at Mill Canyon (the dry dirt road is fine for a two-wheel drive car, but it is reportedly impassible when wet).  It would actually rain for awhile later in the evening.  I think that the dry-sunny forecast I saw a few days ago is officially dead.

Back to top

Moab-area Arches, Canyons and Hiking

Thursday May 17 -

In 1991, I made my first visit to Arches National Park just outside of Moab, Utah.  I was making the first of what would be four western road trips.  One of my goals was to visit all of the western states that I had not yet been to.  I had never been to Utah at the time, and I didn't know much about the state other than some very basic ideas about the Mormons.  I ended up picking Arches as my Utah stop for a couple reasons.  First, because it was close to the Four Corners area and the Grand Canyon - both targets of the trip - it wouldn't take me too far out of my way.  Second, there was a really cool photo of Delicate Arch on a calendar I had hanging in my cubicle at work.

With a bit of reading up on the area, I ended up targeted three nights in the area on that trip - I would take advantage of a buffer day I had built into my schedule to make it four nights instead.  I fell in love with the place.  This trip marks my sixth visit to Moab.  Arches is still a favorite park, but I must admit that I've covered most of its highlights multiple times.  During my 2000 and 2004 visits I began to sample sites in the area outside of the park.  But in 2004 I also had a new mission - I now had a digital camera and that gave me a good excuse to revisit everything.

Everything of course didn't mean everything.  I skipped a couple well-off the beaten path arches in the park - Eye of the Whale Arch and Tower Arch.  And when I looked through an old guide on the park I discovered another major arch - Ring Arch - that I had not been to before.  I also didn't cover the basics like Park Avenue or the roadside rocks on that last visit.  

This visit was intended to pick up the parts of the park that I missed last time as well as to explore the area more thoroughly.  After breakfast, I headed into the park, and stopped at most of the turn-outs from the entrance to Courthouse Wash, including a longer stop at Park Avenue for some morning light photos.  

I parked in the lot just past Courthouse Wash.  The wash gets enough water that it presents a stretch of green willows that runs through the park's desert scenery.  The information I had on Ring Arch said that to get to the arch I would have to follow the wash for about 1 1/2 miles and then keep an eye out for the actual arch.  It was pretty dismal going at first.  With last night's rains, the wash was wet, filled with water in some places, and as I accidentally discovered it had areas of sinking sand.  After about a quarter mile, I was beginning to think of skipping this arch.  But then the walk became a lot easier, and usefully I found a pair of footprints that I generally followed for much of the way.

With about a third of a mile to go, I quite by accident got a look at Ring Arch.  That was especially helpful when I soon noticed that the footprints I was following began heading in the wrong direction.  I followed a deep, narrow channel upstream until I found a section of slickrock.  As soon as I climbed that, the arch came into direct view.  A quick walk across the slick rock put me near its base.  

The walk back was routine.  I now knew the route, and when I got to the area where I had early problems I happened to discover a trail that made the walk a lot easier.  When I reached the start/end of the trail, I looked back - the route I took was nearly invisible, so it was no wonder that I had missed it.

Next up was my return visit to Eye Of The Whale Arch, a repeat albeit out of the way site.  The hike itself is pretty straightforward, little more than following some 4WD roads for a while.  A pretty, but uneventful hike, other than when I got out to the site, I found that the road was closed beyond that point.  There is a second arch in the area - Leaping Arch - but to see it I had to venture beyond the fence marking the closed road.  I wasn't sure why the road was closed, but I wasn't going to miss the second arch.  I would find out later that the reason for the closure was pretty basic - 2006 rains washed out part of the road a few miles from here.

I'm not in as good hiking shape this year as I was during my 2004 visit.  And I've been bugged with lots of congestion and a deep chest cough.  Although I didn't feel sick, the congestion and cough, probably in combination with my generally worse shape and perhaps even the jump to much higher elevations left me feeling winded a lot more easily.  As a result I wasn't hiking as fast as I usually do.  And that didn't leave me with enough time for a visit to Klondike Bluffs and the hike to Tower Arch.  Instead I visited a few scenic view sites and then worked my way back towards Moab.  I had also hoped to get some afternoon shots at Park Avenue, but by now some clouds had begun building up, blocking the sun.

Back to Moab for dinner and an evening of TV - the Ugly Betty season finale - and reading.  And camera battery recharging.  And refilling my water-bottles for tomorrow.

Back to top

Friday May 18 -

An easy day of sightseeing, with only one hike worth noting.  After breakfast I set off on a Utah Scenic Byway 279 - the Potash Road - tour.  Just north of where US191 crosses the Colorado River as it leaves Moab, there is a left turn for Highway 279.  This highway closely follows the Colorado River for about 17 miles, where it ends at a facility that produces potash.  As geological forces pushed up the surrounding sandstone, the Colorado cut some shallow, vertical wall canyons both before and after it passed through what is now Moab.  For most of the 17 miles the road is in the canyon.

My first couple sightseeing stops were at panels of petroglyphs.  The first set of Fremont petroglyphs were pretty interesting, and I got a number of photos of them.  The second set, however, were more easily accessed and thus were covered with graffiti, so much so in fact that it was hard to make out more than a few petroglyphs.  I didn't photograph any of the second set.  My next stop was at the parking area for Poison Spider Mesa.  There I saw a series of 3-toed dinosaur footprints embedded in some rock.  There are also some petroglyphs here.

My main target for this route was my next stop - the trailhead for Corona Arch.  Corona Arch is a nearly freestanding arch, and it is huge - 140 by 105 feet.  It is actually one of three impressive arches visible during the 1 1/2 mile hike out to the arch.  The first one - Gold Bar Arch a.k.a. Pinto Arch - isn't mentioned on the trail sign, but it is clearly visible from the highway and for much of the first quart of the hike.  A little more than halfway through the hike, both Corona Arch and its neighbor, Bow Tie Arch (a pothole arch), come into view.  Several people were already at the arch, but by the time I got up close, they were on their way back, so I had the arches to myself for at least a little while - nice for taking pictures.  I think it was during my 1997 trip that I first took this hike and concluded that Corona Arch is one of my favorites.  And unlike yesterday's mostly underwhelming scenery I hiked through to get to Eye Of The Whale Arch, the walk to Corona Arch is generally quite interesting.  Of course it doesn't hurt to have an arch or two in view for most of the hike.

After finishing the Corona Arch hike, I crossed the highway to the Gold Bar camping area and took some pictures of the Colorado River.  Then I got in the car and continued on towards Potash.  I made a photo stop at Jug Handle Arch and then a few photo stops in the Potash area.  It has been a long time since I was at this place, but in the years since then I had seen it twice from the nearby mesa at Dead Horse Point State Park.  I got some pictures of Dead Horse Point from this angle, and I believe that I also got a bit of the more distant Canyonlands-Island in the Sky mesa.

By now I ran out of pavement.  During a couple of my photo stops, I had been passed by caravans of Jeeps heading for Canyonlands' White Rim Road, which can be accessed from here.  But just not with my low-to-the-ground 2-wheel drive rental car.  I turned around and headed back into Moab where I got some lunch.  

Then I headed for the BLM's Sand Flats Recreation Area, high on the sandstone ridges above the east side of Moab.  Geologically speaking, the sandstone ridges and fins here are very closely related to those just to the north in Arches National Park.  The Moab fault, which runs through the heart of Moab and the Spanish Valley, helped to create roughly parallel cracks in the sandstone, and erosion dug into some of these to begin producing rock fins.  But Arches National Park's Salt Valley is believed to be the location of a collapsed salt dome, which opened up the spaces between the fins to even more erosion.  So although it looks to have a lot in common with Arches, there are some key differences.  But it was the looks that I wanted to see.

The real claim to fame, though, is that folks here established some challenging mountain bike, jeep, and ATV trails.  The Slickrock Bike Trail in fact helped put Moab on the mountain biking map.  Hiking is allowed, but I didn't find enough here of interest on the map to try to compete with the various vehicles for trail space.  So instead I took Sand Flats Road through the seven miles of the recreation area, and then tacked on another mile for a bit more sightseeing value.  I got a number of pictures of interesting sandstone scenery as well as of the La Sal Mountains, just to the southeast.

I headed back down into Moab and then headed north and then east to Castle Valley.  In 2000 I got a picture of a couple formations there - the Castle and the Priest and Nuns - that proved to be one of my favorites from that trip.  I tried a similar shot in 2004, but the morning lighting wasn't as good.  It was after 4PM now, so the sun was at the right angle, but unfortunately I had more late afternoon clouds building up, so I only got some filtered light on the formations.

I then continued into the Manti-La Sal National Forest and up into the La Sal Mountains.  I had planned on taking the La Sal Mountain Loop, which ends on US191 just south of Moab, but a sign warned that the road would dead end due to a bridge being out.  Oh well, that was okay.  I'd go up as far as I could, enjoying its cooler temperatures (the La Sal reach upwards of 13,000 feet) and its views of the surrounding canyon  country.

I was nearing  my planned turnaround point when I came upon a side road named Sand Flats Road.  Oh?!  Could this be the same road that I had driven on at Sand Flats Recreation Area?  I figured I'd give it a try, because if it was then I'd have a much shorter drive back to downtown Moab.

Turns out it was indeed the same road, although it would be a while before I recognized much of the landscape.  The area I saw earlier from Sand Flats Road featured rock fins and sandstone.  Here the view was dominated by the mountains and high country trees.  But eventually I reached the point where I recognized some of the landscape.  As I continued on, I recognized more and more, and soon I passed the site where I had turned the car around earlier.  Although I did not get the La Sal Mountain Loop drive I had hoped for on this trip, I did get up into the mountains, and I did make a loop drive out of it.

Dinner, errands and then back to the room.  I was hoping I'd sleep well tonight.  I'd been sleeping rather badly for much of the trip, and I keep getting drowsy during the wrong parts of the day.

Back to top

Saturday May 19 -

My main goal today was to wrap up my Arches National Park loose ends.  The biggest of these was the hike at the Klondikes.  On my way into the park, I made a stop at the lower end of Park Avenue so that I could make sure that I had pictures of Baby Arch in my collection.  I also kept an eye on the Great Wall for Arch in Motion.  I did find an arch, and it was at approximately the only location marked for one on the maps I saw.  But it just doesn't look anything like pictures I saw of Arch in Motion later in the day.

I hit the turn-off for Salt Valley Road.  A mostly gravel - sand in places - road that heads down into Salt Valley and then cuts northwest across the park to the Klondike Bluffs, an outcropping of sandstone fins in the isolated northwest corner of the park.  As crowded as the better-known parts of the park are, the Klondikes get relatively few visitors.  But after having Ring Arch and Eye Of The Whale Arch trails to myself, the five hikers I encountered made it seem downright busy.

The Klondikes are visited primarily for Tower Arch, a good-sized arch with a sandstone tower located immediately behind it.  The Marching Men, a series of sandstone spires that line part of the trail, are also usually featured in discussions of Tower Arch and the Klondikes.  But according to a guidebook I have, there is also the small Buffalo Arch and a pair of arches called Parallel Arches along the route.  During my only previous visit to the Klondikes, Tower Arch was my focus.  I took the moderately difficult trail out to the arch, had lunch, and headed back, a roundtrip of about 3 1/2 miles.

One of my maps notes another arch in the area, Anniversary Arch.  But instead of being on the main hiking trail, it is located off of a jeep road that approaches within about a quarter mile of Tower Arch.  This alternative route to Tower Arch is suggested for people with high clearance, 4-wheel-drive vehicles.  Even before I saw the sign in the parking area that suggested it, I was already thinking that I might take the regular trail out to Tower Arch, and then connect with the jeep road and take that back, a 6.1 mile hike in all.  And that's what I ended up doing.

As Buffalo Arch is clearly visible from the parking lot, I checked that one off my list even before I started.  The hike begins with a significant climb, followed by some downs and ups, rocky at first but eventually in some sand, with views of at least three minor arches along the way.  Finally the Tower Arch and Parallel Arches come into view at about the same time.  Assuming that you're looking for Parallel Arches.  Tower Arch of course is the goal for most hikers, and it stands out so it would be hard to miss.  Parallel Arches are about 200 feet away, but they are almost flush up against a rock wall.  And with them in the shade at this time of day, they would be easy to miss.

Just as I started keeping my eye out for them - hikers pass them just before reaching Tower Arch - I ran into a couple that was using the park brochure as their guide.  They ooh'ed and ah'ed over Tower Arch, and we chatted a bit.  Then I asked them if they saw Parallel Arches.  After some discussion, they concluded that they hadn't.  Oh well, they guessed that they would miss them this time.  This they said from about 50 feet from where Parallel Arches come into view.

There were three other people at Tower Arch when I got there, but one was about to leave.  The husband in the other two was doing some fancy photography work, and so his wife/other was staying off the arch, which worked out nicely for my own picture taking, too.  It's a bit difficult to photograph the arch, given what all is around it, but I was satisfied that I had some decent pictures of it.

At this point I committed to my plan to take the jeep road back.  My first reward consisted of several great views of the arches.  With my 10x optical zoom helping me out, I think I got better photos of Tower Arch from the jeep road than I did at its base.

I made decent time along the jeep road.  For the most part it was easier hiking than the trail I had hiked out to Tower Arch.  Of course, it was a lot longer.  Another nice feature of the route was the fact that it put me in some rather different scenery, between the outside walls of the Marching Men and some outcroppings of rock fins.  With this being my sixth trip to this relatively small park, it's probably a bit surprising that I can still discover new sights to see.

I finally saw a couple significant indentations in the rock fins adjacent to one another, and soon concluded that from this angle I was actually just barely seeing through one of them.  I didn't see a path over to them, but I took several photos of them so I would have something to compare to whatever I could find on Anniversary Arch on the web.    Turns out that later in the day I came across pictures of Anniversary Arch.  Or should I say arches.  The north and south arches are essentially adjacent to one another, and they looked to be about the same size as what I saw.  But not quite.  My guess is that the pictures were taken from the opposite side of the arch, but beyond that I think it would be too much of a coincidence for there to be two sets of adjacent arches in that space.

I kept an eye out for more arches, but didn't see anything of any significance after that find.  I followed the jeep trail up a ridge and Salt Valley came back into view.  It would have been nice if the jeep road heading for the trail head parking lot.  Instead the jeep road and the parking lot access road cross about a mile of the floor of Salt Valley to reach the Salt Valley Road, essentially taking me about a mile out of my way.  But that was okay, especially since at this point it was very easy hiking.  The floor of Salt Valley was covered with wild flowers in bloom, mostly orange globemallows and white flowers of some sort.  I was also getting some great views of the Fiery Furnace, Devils Garden Campground fins, the main Devils Garden fins, and a couple more sets of fins to the northwest of the main Devils Garden fins.  I also had plenty of water, too, which always helps when you're hiking in the desert.

Storm clouds where developing in three directions - I had seen a few distant lightning strikes from the the jeep trail during my hike - so I didn't linger in Salt Valley after I finished my hike.  The sandy sections of the road would be a problem if it started to rain.  I reached the main road near the area of fins that I targeted several times for sunset pictures.  With the building clouds, I was getting a nice mix of rock, clouds and color, so I took several pictures.  I also noticed an arch not far from the picnic area near Devils Gardens.  Just around the corner from the very popular Skyline Arch, this one didn't even warrant a parking area, although it was clear that several people had pulled off the road at this spot, I assume to get a good look at the arch.

I made a stop at Fiery Furnace on my way back, but by now clouds had pretty much obscured the sun.  It started to sprinkle by the time I reached the visitor center.  It was early enough that I wanted to see the park video.  And sure enough it included a clip filmed the day before my first visit when some tourists captured the sight of a huge chunk of 306-feet long Landscape Arch falling off on video.  The rangers were all excited about it at the time, but in 1994 and 1997 they were frustrated - they had a copy of the PAL-format video, but nothing had been budgeted to transfer and use it.  I was glad to finally see it.

I also picked up a CD product - Stone Canyon Adventure's Arches National Park.  It is routinely reported that there are at least 2000 identified arches in the park, but I have never come across such a list.  The park brochure notes only Tower Arch for the Klondikes, a second source ignores Anniversary Arch, a third source notes Tower and Anniversary Arches, but makes no mention of Parallel Arches or Buffalo Arch.  The CD includes some specific location information and even photos of the arches, although at least some of their pictures look nothing like some of the pictures I got.

But it did confirm one thing for me.  Many of the things they call arches are rather minor, little more than slightly widened cracks in the rock.  Until I get more time to go through their pictures, I'll have to be happy in the knowledge that I've now been to all of the major named arches in the park.

An early dinner.  An evening nap - I get so drowsy on this trip, and yet can't sleep very well at night.  And with lots of clouds in the sky, it's the fourth day that even if I were targeting sunset photos, I likely would not have gotten any.

Back to top

Sunday May 20 -

Today I focused on Canyonlands National Park-Island in the Sky District.  I have tended to use Island in the Sky as kind of a filler on Moab trips, something I fit into some afternoon.  As a result I've got a number of good pictures from east-facing viewpoints, and I've hiked to Mesa Arch several times, but my pictures from west-facing viewpoints have tended to be shot into the sun - or shot near sunset and thus the canyons are in the shadows.  I wasn't in a big hiking mood today, so I decided to make a daytrip out of it, focusing on the west-facing sites first.

First I had to get there.  North on Highway 191 and then southwest on Highway 313.  Highway 313 is a scenic byway with a handful of BLM-maintained viewpoints and facilities.  The scenery is outstanding, and with the daytrip I had time to check out all of the viewpoints - and a few additional stops.

Canyonlands is made up of the canyon country and plateaus that surround the confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers.  The rivers divide the park into three distinct units.  Island in the Sky is the plateau country that separates the Green River to the west and the Colorado River to the east.  Why "Island"?  At one point - the Neck - the plateau top is only 40-feet wide, just wide enough for the road and a bit of shoulder.  In ranching days, that was handy - herd the cattle onto the plateau and then only a 40-foot fence was needed to keep them there.

A road heads down the center of the plateau to its southern tip - Grand View Point - with hiking trails and overlooks in both directions.  A side road adds some additional places to explore on the western side of the plateau.  I covered all of the roads, all of the overlooks, and a few of the shorter hikes.  I began at the visitor center and Neck area, checking out views of Shafer Canyon and Taylor Canyon.  At Aztec Butte, I hiked up one of the buttes where I checked out some of the granaries that the Fremont Indians had built there.  At Upheaval Dome, I hiked out to the dome viewpoints.  The dome is actually a mile-wide crater, the cause of which is still under speculation - collapsed salt dome, meteor crater and volcanic explosion are among the competing theories.  

Grand View Point arguably has the most impressive views in the park.  The canyon country actually has multiple layers, basically canyons within canyons, with additional views of many nearby sites, from Glen Canyon to the La Sal Mountains, from the Maze District of the park to the southwest to the Needles District to the southeast.  It is one of two must-see highlights every time I visit Island in the Sky.  

By the time I had reached Grand View Point, dark clouds were taking over much of the sky, casting shadows on the views.  Lightning strikes were visible in the not-so-distant distance.  It even rained for a bit.  My last stop was Mesa Arch, but by the time I pulled into the parking lot it was actually raining.  But it was a spotty kind of rain, and as I sat in the car I watched some sunshine crawling across the plateau.  As it got close I hit the trail.  And just as Mesa Arch came into view, the sunlight hit me and then the arch.  The background canyon scenery was still darkened by clouds but eventually the sunlight illuminated Washer Woman Arch, visible through Mesa Arch, giving me some interesting photos.

On the way back to Moab, I took one last swing into Arches National Park.  It was too early for dinner, so I figured I'd make one last attempt to find Arch in Motion, along the park's main road.  I measured the distance more carefully this time - the arch I have seen is actually a bit early - but even by getting out of the car and walking around I failed to find anything that even remotely resembled the picture of Arch in Motion that I have.

I wanted some afternoon sun photos of Park Avenue, but Arches was under the clouds that had been passing over Canyonlands.  But just as I got to Park Avenue on my way out of the park, the sun started to come out at Park Avenue.  I took advantage of my Mesa Arch-like luck and got the photos I wanted.  A nice way to end my Moab-area sightseeing.

Dinner in Moab, followed by an evening of TV and packing.

Back to top

Turn the Page

Monday May 21 -

Today marked the start of the second half of my trip.  It was also a travel day, as I repositioned myself from Moab, Utah, to Page, Arizona.  I drove mostly non-stop, as during my 2004 visit I spent three days in Mexican Hat as a base for exploring sites in the southeastern corner of Utah.  I must admit, though, that it was hard to resist the temptation of taking several photo stops along the way.  I kept having to remind myself that I got those photos during my 2004 trip.

I did make a couple exceptions, though.  I liked the way that the sun was hitting Church Rock, so I got a few more pictures of that favorite photo stop.  When I toured Valley of the Gods in 2004 it was late afternoon, so I wanted a morning light tour.  It is actually a long stop - 17 miles at about 90 minutes, given the photo stops.  I took a photo of Mexican Hat Rock and a few shots of Monument Valley.  Late lunch in Kayenta, Arizona.  And then a direct drive to Page.

Actually, almost to Page.  My major new sightseeing stop for today was Lower Antelope Canyon, a Navajo Nation Park.  Antelope Canyon is an amazing slot canyon, deep, narrow and corkscrew-twisted.  I toured Upper Antelope Canyon in 2004, and wanted to see the lower canyon this time.  It is actually deeper and longer than the upper canyon, and I ended up taking more than 100 pictures of the place as I worked my way through the canyon (it is almost too narrow in some places for someone my size, given all the angles and twists, but I squeezed through those spots).  The ideal exit is to reverse one's route through the canyon, but I was glad for the alternative of a ladder.  One of the interesting aspects of walking back on the surface is that from above the canyon appears to be little more than a crack in the ground.  

I have plans for another slot canyon hike in the area, but it wouldn't be anything like Antelope Canyon.  Well, except for one feature of slot canyons.  In the southwest, slot canyons can form where a river or a wash runs into rock, especially if there is already a crack in the rock.  The water eventually erodes its way through the rock, leaving a canyon.  There is a high risk of danger when a thunderstorm dumps a bunch of rain upstream.  Water does not soak into the ground very well in the desert, so it tends to run into washes that combine into bigger washes as it works its way downstream.  What may be only a couple inch deep stream of water flowing its way down a wide wash can become a deep but narrow gusher inside a slot canyon, with all the power and force of the water that originally carved the canyon in the rock.  Thus it is crucial to pay attention to weather forecasts - not only at the canyon site but for miles upstream.  In the 1990s, a dozen or so tourists in Lower Antelope Canyon were killed when a lot of water unexpectedly came down the wash and squeezed its way into the canyon.  A monument to their memory stands not far from the entrance into the canyon.

After finishing up at the canyon, I headed into Page and checked into my hotel.  Dinner, an evening of reading and prepping for tomorrow's hike, and then I headed over to Windy Mesa, a bar I discovered during my 2002 visit.  Mostly just friendly locals and live music.

Back to top

Page-area Canyons and Hiking

Tuesday May 22 -

Rain.  It was raining when I woke up.  It would rain off and on all day, including some fairly heavy rain later in the day.  So no hiking plans for me.  Instead, I decided to drive across the Navajo Nation over to Canyon de Chelly National Monument near Chinle.  From there I would swing down to the Navajo capital of Window Rock.  And then I'd head back to Page, hoping that the rain would end at some point during the day like the weathercast promised.

My route reversed part of yesterday's drive, but at Kaibito I turned south onto Indian Road N21.  My map showed a natural bridge at White Mesa, but I've never seen it from the main highway.  However, some information I got on Navajo lands sightseeing said that it could be seen from N21.  And sure enough, it came into view.  A bit further from the highway than I had expected - I probably would have missed it if I weren't actually looking for it - but it was obviously big enough to be seen quite well from this distance.  

The highway put me in Red Lake, but I was soon back on yesterday's road, passing east through Kayenta.  I got a nice view of their own Church Rock, this one looking a lot more like a traditional church building.  In the background was another reef, Comb Ridge, which heads  north from near here up to the Bluff, Utah, area.  Then it was south on another local highway to Many Farms and from there to Chinle.  

After stocking up on pop in town, I headed for Canyon de Chelly.  Canyon de Chelly is a long, steep (nearly vertical) wall canyon that has been home to natives for several centuries.  The bottom is farmed by Navajo and, by the way, it is generally off-limits to tourists unless they're accompanied by a Navajo-authorized guide.  The National Park Service, however, maintains many scenic overlooks along the rim of the canyon.  But it's not just a pretty canyon one sees - most of the overlooks provide views of one or more Ancestral Puebloan ruins.  They are often somewhat distant views, but here is where my 10x optical zoom camera came in handy.  I spent more time at Canyon de Chelly than I had figured on, checking out all of the viewpoints but one (it was closed for some reason).

It was getting late, but I figured I'd still see Window Rock, named for the arch located behind the government offices.  I'd been there several years ago, but had come by a different route.  It turned out to be an hour-long drive, and the roads must have been laid out differently, because I never saw what I was looking for, and found myself on my way out of town before I realized it.  Oh well.  With being an hour further to the south and east, I didn't have time to go back and try to find it, as the drive back to Page would be a longer one than I had figured on, and it was already well after 5PM.

I made good time, but it would get dark fairly early (I was on Page time, which like the rest of non-Navajo Arizona does not use Daylight Savings Time).  And it started pouring about the same time that it got dark.  So it wasn't a very interesting drive on the way back, crossing both Hopi and Navajo lands at dusk and eventually in the dark.  But at least I saw the natural bridge, and I've been wanting to revisit Canyon de Chelly for years.  Not the day I had originally planned on, but it turned out to be a pretty good alternative.

I scrounged up something for dinner at a local convenience store and spent what little was left of the evening re-planning the rest of my Page stay.

Back to top

Wednesday May 23 -

It was raining when I got up.  I wrote for a while, trying to catch up on my journals and photos while watching TV.  The weather forecast promised sunny skies by mid-day, and the promise held.  So after an early lunch I began my sightseeing.  My plans had me hiking in Wire Gap Canyon and the White House Trail, but Wire Gap is a slot canyon and White House is a wash, and I figured they'd be a mess with all the rain.  So I began my sightseeing with some easy stops at the Lake Powell Dam area, getting some decent mid-day pictures of the place.  I then headed west on US 89, figuring I could pick up some information on Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness and then take my chances on Wire Pass Gap.  Along the way I noticed a few cars parked in an unmarked parking area in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, so I thought I'd check that out.  Turns out that spot is the trailhead for Toadstools Trail.  I'd find out that it leads to an area of toadstool-like formations.  I only hiked it far enough to get past an area of alternating brown and white-layered rock to an area with greens and oranges.  All quite pretty, and it is always great to discover another new hiking opportunity.  I'll note this trail for my next trip to the area.

I continued west to House Rock Valley Road, a packed dirt road that heads south to Highway 89A down in Arizona.  It is impassable when wet, but even with the morning's rain it had already dried out enough to not be a problem for my car.  I headed south to the Wire Pass Trail Head parking area, but my curiosity got the better of me, so I kept on driving - I wondered what was further down the road, and I hoped to get some decent views of Coyote Buttes, which are generally off limits to most hikers (only 10 permits per day are issued).  What I found was continuing colorful scenery as I followed the Cockscomb south.  I soon reached the Arizona border and entered Vermilion Cliffs National Monument.  I continued on for another five miles, enjoying great scenery the whole time.  I also found a couple more trailheads, again good to know for future visits.

I headed back to the Wire Pass parking area and set off on my hike.  I had forgotten how far it is from the parking lot to the actual slot canyon.  It is a nice, colorful walk, to be sure, but it took me about 40 minutes to hit the slot.  Because it was late afternoon by now, and I'd have a long walk back to the car, I only explored the first slot area.  It continues on, as Wire Pass connects with Buckskin Gulch and Paria Canyon - I took a much longer hike here back in 2004.  With just one more day in Page, I figured that I at least got a taste of this area, along with a couple pleasant surprises, but further exploration will have to wait until my next visit.

It was late enough that I got some nice late day sun photos on my way back to Page.  A quick stop to the grocery store and KFC for dinner and evening snacks.  The season finale of Lost was tonight, so I decided to have dinner in the hotel room.  I capped off the night with a return visit to Windy Mesa.

Back to top

Thursday May 24 -

Old Paria is just a dot on the map.  While I was camping at Bryce Canyon back in 2000, I decided to take a day trip loop, hitting Kodachrome Basin, and then taking the Cottonwood Canyon dirt road south through Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument to US 89.  I then took the paved highways back to Bryce Canyon.  After finishing up with Cottonwood Canyon, I hadn't planned on another unpaved road, but I was curious about the little dot on the map.  And five miles later I was driving down a steep hill into the most colorful canyon area I think I have ever seen.  The Paria River has carved out a broad valley through layers of an assortment of colorful clays, pretty much every major color and several minor ones that you can think of.  I explored the area a bit and vowed to return someday.  Which I did in both 2002 and 2004.  On those trips I did more hiking, following the Paria River upstream until I got to the point where I would have had to start wading to continue the hike.

I was ready for that this time.  The old pair of tennis shoes I brought for the Narrows Hike at Zion National Park were also going to serve me here as well.  There was one difference since my last visit.  Although Old Paria was originally a Mormon settlement, more recently its claim to fame was that it was the location for several western movies.  An old set had been destroyed by flooding, but it had been restored as a sort of an attraction.  But several months ago, arsonists destroyed the replacement set.  Although I was never sure why some felt they needed to restore the flooded out set, I still don't like to see stuff like this happen.  Especially when the parking area is right next to it, and my car would be there unattended for much of the rest of the day.

But the car is insured, so I hit the trail.  The first half hour or so was as familiar as ever, given that I have hiked it a couple times before.  Then I made my first river crossing and entered into new territory.  Like the Narrows hike, I spent much of the hike alternating between the water and sandbars, but here there was a lot more sand than water hiking.  I noticed a distant geographic landmark fairly early on and set that as  my turnaround point target.  It took me longer to get there than I had planned on, but it was a nice hike.  Unfortunately, the sun disappeared behind some clouds for much of the time, which muted the colors for photograph purposes.  Fortunately it came out while I was working my way back my starting point, so I got some decent pictures of the most colorful parts of the canyon.

I spent more than five hours in the canyon, which didn't leave much time for more sightseeing.  But still...  When I left Paria, I headed east on US 89, taking it all the way to Kanab, where I stocked up on beverages and snacks.  Soon after I doubled back towards page, I took a side road, heading north into Johnson Canyon.  It is a pretty area, and there are a number of trailheads along the 20 miles or so that I covered.  As I neared my turnaround point I got some good views of the Paunsaugunt Plateau featuring the Pink Cliffs "stairs" of the Grand Staircase, which includes Bryce Canyon.  But this was just a sample visit to check out the area a bit more.

I don't know if I'll want to try a downstream hike of the Paria River, but with Toadstool Trails, a limited visit to Wire Pass Gap, missing the White House Trail and Buckskin Gulch, and discoveries like House Valley Rock Road and Johnson Canyon, and I've already got a pretty good idea what I'll want to see in the Page area during my next visit, probably in 2009 or 2010.  But except for some late day sun pictures on my drive back into Page, this ended my Page area sightseeing for this trip.

Back to top

Arizona Strip

Friday May 25 -

The main goal for today was to get from Page to Las Vegas.  Although I had thought about a Grand Canyon-centered route, I ended up taking US 89A from Marble Canyon to Fredonia.  This gave me a chance to check out the Arizona end of House Valley Rock Road (seems much tamer on the Arizona side) and to check out the views of the colorful staircase cliffs of the Grand Staircase from some forest service viewpoints.  I also made a short stop at Pipe Spring National Monument, which features a four-season spring that originally served the natives, but eventually a Mormon ranch took over the site.  Not far from Hurricane, I got some unexpected distant views of the upper reaches of Zion Canyon.  From there I drove straight through to Las Vegas.

It was the start of the holiday weekend, but it was early enough in the afternoon that I had beaten rush hour.  I was checking into my room at the Alexis Park Resort at around 4PM.  I had stayed here for a conference back in 1996, and I have made it my regular Las Vegas hotel ever since.  It is far enough off of the Strip that it is easy for me to get in and out for my sightseeing goals, and it is fairly close to a cluster of gay bars.  I'm not much into the Strip and what it has to offer, but I can walk to the Strip in just 20 minutes from there, so it is ideally situated for my purposes.

I did head over to the Strip soon after I settled into my room.  I got the obligatory photos and then found a place for dinner.  The weakness of Alexis Park is that there aren't a lot of restaurants in the area, and I'm not inclined to eat at hotel restaurants.  I also did my obligatory bit of gambling.  Even made a nearly 5:1 return on my investment.  Of course, in my case, nearly 5:1 translates to a $4.75 win after betting $1.  

Back to the hotel to get cleaned up and then prepared for tomorrow's sightseeing and hiking.

I capped off the day with plans to visit Gipsy, what tends to be my usual bar when I'm here in Vegas.  No one was at Gipsy, but the place next door - Piranha - seemed to have the crowd - though receipts seemed to tie it to Gipsy.  It started slow, but the crowd built up.  When I left sometime after 12:30AM (sightseeing and hiking plans tomorrow, after all), there was actually a fairly long line of people looking to get into the place.

Viva Las Vegas

Saturday May 26 -

I slept through the night, not waking until 8AM, which I think is the first time I've slept through the night AND the latest I've slept on this trip.  There were some high clouds to the east, but they would get out of the way soon enough, and I'd end up with a great day weather-wise.  Okay, so it was hot.  But this is May in the desert around Las Vegas, so with that in mind and I can't say that it was too hot.  In fact, if someone were to tell me that today's temperatures were below normal, well, you would get no argument from me.

Today's plans were a mix of old and new.  I hit the road heading back north on I-15.  I took the exit for Valley of Fire State Park.  This was either my third or fourth visit to the park.  I had a great visit in December 2002, where I took lots of great pictures.  However, only a year later I went digital, so I had a good reason to revisit the park, this time with my digital camera in hand.

The park has a bunch of interesting, colorful sandstone outcroppings.  Much of it is a deep reddish-orange Aztec sandstone layer, petrified sand dunes with lots of iron coloration in them.  The jumble of uplifts that created Nevada's landscape jumbled up the sandstone, and it erodes fairly easily - including lots of holes, many of which would be considered arches if they were at Arches National Park - although almost none that I saw approached the size of any of the named arches at Arches.  In the White Domes and Fire Canyon areas, the coloring is different.  Whites, yellows, pinks, some purples, and so on set a very pastel scene.  Some of it is nearly pure silica, although the colors are an indication of how much iron or other minerals are in the rock.

In addition to its colorful rocks, the park features numerous panels of petroglyphs, some petrified logs, some short hiking trails, and some historical sites.

I visited all of the sites featured on the map except for the last of the petrified log sites.  I've seen plenty of petrified wood over the years, so I figured one more log more or less wouldn't mean much.

During past visits, I've generally returned to I-15 when I was finished at Valley of Fire.  This time, I continued east into Lake Mead National Recreation Area.  For the most part my visits to Lake Mead NRA have been limited to the area around Hoover Dam.  However, the park's Northshore Drive heads southwest down to the Henderson, Nevada, area, just to the southeast of Las Vegas.  This alternate route back to Las Vegas would give me a chance to see some of the park and to visit a few sites.

My first stop was Overton Beach, where I had hoped to get some cold pop.  No such luck.  What was apparent here was that the water level of Lake Mead (like Lake Powell near Page) was quite low.  As a result, marina usage was low here and most of the facilities appeared to be closed.  So I headed south on Northshore Drive, making a handful of photo stops until I reached Echo Bay.  There I found a pop machine.

The first of my two targeted stops was at Redstone.  There a short hiking trail circles some red rock outcroppings in a generally pretty setting, making for some nice photos.  The second stop was at the Northshore Summit Trail.  There a short trail climbs up to a hilltop that provided great views in all directions, mountains, plains, the Bowl of Fire outcroppings and even distant views of Lake Mead.  While I was up there, a handful of helicopters flew by, one even descended below me, seemingly to give the pilot a closer look at something on the ground.

I made a handful of photo stops as I continued out of the park.  I was back a the hotel by about 5:30PM.  Dinner at a nearby restaurant, followed by some time catching up on my journal back at the hotel before heading out for the evening's nightlife - same as last night.

Back to top

Sunday May 27 -

A three-event day, but it made for a full day with the driving I did to connect the dots.

First stop, Hoover Dam.  Of course, I've been to and across Hoover Dam several times over the years, but as with a few of my stops in recent years the repeat visit gave me a chance to capture it with my digital camera.  That's as good an excuse as any, but that doesn't take anything away from the fact that Hoover Dam is an impressive engineering accomplishment.  The art deco touches (it was built at the height of the art deco period) stood out more to me, too, I suppose as a consequence of my last year's visit to Miami Beach - the art deco capital of the world).  I also got there just in time for some sort of Memorial Day weekend event - a bunch of men on motorcycles - Vietnam Veterans, I suppose - did a mass ride across the dam.

My next stop was a continuation of yesterday's exploration of Lake Mead National Recreation Area.  White Rock Canyon heads downhill from US93, dropping about 800 feet in three miles, until it reaches the Colorado River.  It begins as a typical desert wash but soon becomes a slot canyon through dark volcanic rock and tuff (it gets the name "White Rock Canyon" from a large white boulder that was carried downstream in some long ago flash flood).  Near the end of the trail is the Arizona Hot Springs, featuring 111-degree water.  I had no interesting in treating myself to a soak in 111-degree water after hiking through a 111-degree canyon, but I did want to sample the slot canyon, so I hiked perhaps 1 1/2 to 2 miles down into the canyon.  The trail starts out by following a wash for a ways.  After a while, there is rock on both sides of the wash.  Just after a short patch of more colorful rock - oranges, pinks and reds - I hit the volcanic rock, and the walls on the two sides of the trail were now much higher.  In spite of a warning sign, the stretch of the trail that I hiked was pretty easy hiking, both down and back up, except it was indeed hot.  Even though I drank up before starting the hike, I downed more than 2 liters of water on the hike itself.

I treated myself to a scenic view stop further south on Highway 93, and I stopped for some soft drinks at Rosie's Den (home of "Burto The Famous Jackass").  I continued south until just before I reached Kingman.  Then I headed west through Bullhead City, Arizona, and crossed the Colorado River back into Nevada.  A few miles later, I turned onto the Christmas Tree Pass Road, and two miles later I turned into the Grapevine Canyon parking lot, the last of my Lake Mead stops.

Grapevine Canyon is the site of a spring, at least during non-drought years, so it has a but of lush flora to it, completely at odds with the grey gravelly landscape that surrounds it here in the Newberry Mountains of the Mojave Desert.  Although a canyon hiking might be interesting, its more impressive claim to fame is the fact that the rock walls at the mouth of the canyon are covered with petroglyphs, which have been dated to be about 150 to 800 years old.  The older petroglyphs are believed to have been created by the Amacava people, ancestors of today's Mohave and other Yuman tribes of the region.

What surprised me about these petroglyphs was how geometric and complex they were.  I usually see humanoids, animals and a handful of mostly simple abstract shapes.  Not here.  Among the many markings I saw, only one was distinctly humanoid.  Certainly well worth the stop and the short hike along a wash to get to the mouth of the canyon.

Beyond that, it was back to Vegas.  Dinner on the Strip.  Nightlife at Piranha.

Back to top

Monday May 28 -

Today I headed back to Death Valley to pick up sites in the part of the park that I skipped when I was here three years ago.  Specifically these included Scotty's Castle and the Ubehebe Crater area.  I also planned on a few return visits to some other sites, but I got such a great set of photos here back in 2004 that I really was just planning to round out the collection.

What I forgot was just how big this park is.  I had only made it about halfway into the park last time, I was heading to more northerly sites, which added upwards of about two hours of additional driving to reach this area and work my way back.  Scotty's Castle was once the home of a Death Valley entrepreneur - today it is like an out of place oasis, featuring a fancy home, a clock tower, and a number of other ranch-type buildings.  I took a walk around the grounds, and walked up the hill to pay my respects at the grave of Walter Scott, a.k.a. Death Valley Scotty.

From there I drove over to the Ubehebe Crater, a half-mile wide volcano blast crater that is only about 2000 years old.  There are a number of such craters in this part of Death Valley.  Along the way another car and I stopped to gawk at a coyote that was hanging out by the road.  It acted like a moocher, but one doesn't do any favors by giving human food to such animals - they lose their fear of man and their fear of cars, and they really need both to survive in the wild.

It was suddenly after 1PM, and I was at the northernmost point of my visit to the park.  I had at least an hour's drive just to get to the road to Stovepipe Wells, a real oasis in the valley, offering cold pop, junk food, postcards and ice cream.  Nearby are views of a dune fields with dunes up to a hundred feet high, and of the Devil's Corn Field, where some desert plant grows in clusters resembling the way corn plants are stood together in the fall.

I originally thought that I might make it back to Vegas for dinner, but instead I was leaving Stovepipe Wells at 3PM.  So mentally I made plans for just two more stops on this trip.  The first was a repeat tour of the Artist Drive, a loop drive through an exceptionally colorful part of Death Valley, with green, red, orange and purple rock mixing in with the whites, browns, yellows and greys found all over the rest of the park.

My last stop was at Badwater, which at 282 feet below sea level is the lowest point in North America.  A must-see stop for any visit to Death Valley.

Finally the drive back to the city.  I stopped for gas and later for dinner, so I reached the hotel just after sunset.  Cleaning out the car, cleaning up myself, and packing for the trip home finished off the night.  No nightlife, though.  I was just too tired for it.

Heading Home

Tuesday May 29 -

Up, dress, check out, and over to a colleague's house for a work day - she works at home in Las Vegas.  Then off to the airport and back home.  An uneventful ending.  Even the airport processing when a whole lot more smoothly and quickly than when I had arrived in Las Vegas.