9/24 Zion National Park, Zion-Mt. Carmel Hwy, Kanab, North Rim

 Friday, September 24

We call Brett this morning to wish him a Happy Birthday, then head towards Springdale.

65 degrees this morning. We have breakfast and arrive in Springdale around 9 AM.  It is a zoo! Of course the Visitor's Center lot is full and as we go through town every shuttle stop is packed with a dozen or more folks, and there are a lot of stops!  This reenforces our thought to skip the Zion Canyon shuttle route and continue past it on the Zion-Mt. Carmel Highway. Even though masks are required on the shuttles, there's just too many people for us.

We check our height, 8'4", and width, 6'7", to be sure we will fit through the tunnels on this road. Quite a few people have the same thought, apparently, because the road is pretty busy, at least initially.  But, wow!  Around every corner is another great view!

These flowers were a surprise at one stop, and smelled wonderful too!

We stop a few places and walk a bit, taking in the amazing scenery.  Just can't capture the vastness and beauty with a camera!

Two tunnels. This one, built in 1930, was just over a mile long.  Larger vehicles (like the one waiting)had to pay for a permit and wait till they closed the tunnel and made it one-way so they would fit.

This is checkerboard mesa,  near the end.

 Next stop, Kanab. This is the largest town we have been in on this trip and we take advantage of it by finding a laundromat, and a nice place for lunch. The laundromat is clean and not very busy and with big machines it doesn't take long to do a few loads.  

For lunch, we go to Wild Thyme Cafe.  It is around 2:00, so not very busy.  We are in a room with a couple from Brooklyn who are headed to Bryce and a couple from Missouri, heading for Zion. Great sandwiches - Beth has a bbq chicken one with bacon, while Greg has a hamburger topped with pastrami - an unusual combination which he says is great!  Lots of smashed potatoes for sides, so we box the leftovers for a future breakfast. Tasty lemonade as well.

From here we take 89A south - next stop will be North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Some pastureland and cattle and one ranch raising bison.

 We travel through a large area of recently burned forest.  Green on one side of the road and burned on the other.  We come to a gas station and stop since we aren't sure there will be much on the North Rim. $4.55 is a record! (Turns out to be $3.90 at the North Rim.)

And then areas with some burned trees, some survivors and small evergreens and aspen which are turning quite yellow.

As we get closer to the North Rim we see lots of young aspen which are a brilliant yellow and orange! The North Rim is over 200 miles (driving) from the South Rim, but only 20+ miles as the crow flies.  We are at a much higher altitude here.

 Here the fire was in 2006, we find out later from a ranger; so the aspen are in the 6-10' range in height.  Aspen are a colony-type tree.  One huge root ball can send runners that create an entire grove of trees.  Since the root ball does not burn, aspen are much quicker to come back after a fire.  Evergreens take much longer.

The Visitor's Parking Lot is large and quite full.  If this is the lesser visited side of the Grand Canyon, the south side must be overwhelmed!

 We get a map and talk with a ranger named Steve who has a few suggestions of areas to see.  We head to the campground first and find, not surprisingly, that it is filled. There are quite a few cabins in the area too, which are filled.  The man at the campground asks if we ever do dispersed camping and gives us a rough map of the Kaibib National Forest and suggests a road with several sites.  We have to drive back out of the Grand Canyon park and up a dirt road, but find a nice spot in the forest to spend the night. Right next to some yellow aspen, with no one else in sight. Much nicer than a crowded campground!

We relax and have dinner and walk a bit in the area.  No trash, which unfortunately isn't always the case when boondocking, and Greg finds a few more neat rocks! Can't remember what dinner was - something fantastic, I'm sure :)  We plan to get to Cape Royal Road early tomorrow - maybe for sunrise.

9/23 Cathedral Gorge to Zion's Kolob Canyon, Kolob Terrace Road

 Thursday, 9/23

Up at 6AM, Pacific Time. 49 degrees.  We spot these handsome bucks as we're leaving the campground - showing us their better side.

We've decided to skip going out of our way to look for garnets since the place is advertised quite a bit and according to the rangers, not very productive.    Instead we get back on a stretch of 50, that loneliest road  and go west to reach 93 South.

Whole lot of nuthin'!

An hour or two later, we stop at a small town named Pioche.  It is a small, old mining town that offers free overnight spots and showers for travelers!  Too early to stop for the day, but a shower sounds pretty good, so we stop to check it out.  The town has a lovely park with green ball fields, a pool, pool house, etc.  A sign says that they sold some land and used the proceeds for this park.  We see a groundskeeper and ask about the showers and she kindly takes us to the pool house and unlocks things for us.  Such a sweet, welcoming lady!

 Just a few miles farther and we come to Cathedral Gorge State Park.  An otherworldly place with slot canyons that are quite different from Little Wild Horse Canyon. 

 The tall rock formations here remind me of the sand castles made by dripping wet sand.  But the rocks are hard and the trails created by water are quite interesting. 

Here's the view looking up!

Only sign of life among the rocks.

 Once we came across some other people and had to back up to find a spot wide enough for us to pass each other! Another time we come to a VERY narrow rock-strewn passage with VERY tall walls, and a bit of claustrophobia sets in for Beth - had to get out of there! Don't think I've ever felt that before!

There is an old water tower and picnic area built by the CCC back in the mid 1930's.  The CCC certainly employed a lot of people, as we've seen their work all over the country! And it has lasted!

We stop at Miller Point overlook and then head east on 319 at Panaca, which is a great thing since traffic continuing south (towards Las Vegas) seems backed up for a long way! 

 We travel through more rocky terrain and then greener ranch land and cattle,

till we reach the turn to Zion's Kolob Canyon. This is the western part of the park and not as crazy busy as Zion Canyon.  We get maps at the visitor's center and take a nice 5 mile drive.  Canyons, hanging valleys and beautiful scenery. A beautiful day in the 70s with brilliant blue skies!

 The ranger at Kolob advises that the other part of Zion is extremely busy and if we want to get a parking spot at the shuttle into the canyon, we should be at the main Visitor's Center by 6:00 in the morning.  Otherwise, folks have to park in the town of Springdale and get another shuttle to the Visitor's Center shuttle! We have to go through town anyway, so we'll take a look tomorrow.

We've read about boondocking on Kolob Terrace Road, just outside the Park, by the town of Virgin.  There are some nice spots in trees near water, but they all seem to be claimed.   We drive on and see some gorgeous scenery before we run into the National Park land again - no boondocking on National Park land.

 So we turn around and find this nice spot for the evening, back on BLM land.  Temperature only drops to the mid-60's, but that is quite comfortable with no covers!

9/22/21 Great Basin National Park, Lehman Caves, Stella Lake

 9/22/21

The term Great Basin refers to an area that includes much of Nevada, as well as some of Utah and small parts of Oregon and Idaho.  In this area, the few existing rivers do not join other rivers in going to the sea, but "dead end" in the basin where any extra water is retained in lakes or reservoirs until it evaporates.

48 degrees as we rise early and head to the Visitor's Center to try to get a spot on the Lehman Caves Tour.

  We get there at 7:15 to be in line for an 8:00 opening, and there is already another person waiting!  Beth makes coffee for he and Greg and Greg chats with him and a few others who soon arrive with the same idea.  Unfortunately, the ranger says it is not likely that there will be even one cancellation, but they offer to do an abbreviated tour for those who can't get on the main tour.  We will only see a small part of the 2 mile long cave, but at least we will get a peak!   We will meet at 10:00, so we have a nice breakfast and spend some time looking at the displays and reading about the park till then.

The caves were discovered in the spring of 1885 by Absalom Lehman.  They were quite an attraction and in the 1930's a bit of a "resort" was established, which included a log lodge, cabins, a dance hall, dining room and swimming tank.  One of the cabins has been restored to represent that era.   A few apricot and pear trees still remain from this time!

Great Basin National Park was established in 1986 to preserve what is basically a desert mountain island in the Snake Range.  You can go from desert heat and sagebrush to alpine cold at the peak of Mt. Wheeler in just a short time. 

 There are 14 of us on the tour of the caves. There are quite a lot of beautiful cave decorations, including stalactites, stalagmites, flowstone, draperies, columns and more. Formations are almost continuous, with not a lot of plain rock walls.

 Our guide takes us into an area with several short trails which we are free to explore for twenty minutes or so.  There is some lighting, but we wish we'd brought flashlights!  At one point he turns off all the lighting and you cannot see your hand in front of your face.  What a wonderland - millions of years in the making!

There are signs that Native Americans used the part of the cave near the surface, perhaps for burial ceremonies as remains have been discovered there.  Today there are bats using the cave - they have not yet experienced white nose syndrome, which has killed many bats worldwide.  We had to fill out a questionnaire as to where we had traveled recently and those who had been to other caves had to follow more protocols.

Next we head for the 12 mile long Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive, which goes from 7,000' to nearly 11,000'.  We wind our way upwards, stopping at several overlooks.  Lots of the Rubber Rabbit Bush early. The trees change as we change altitude, going from pinyon pine and juniper to mountain mahogany, then into aspen, ponderosa pine and Douglas fir.

We meet a couple from Missouri at Mather Overlook and chat for a while - we'll catch up with them again later.  We take photos for each other, so here we are!

At the end of the road, we take one of the trails toward Stella Lake. 

A group of turkeys crosses our path and pause to drink at a small stream.

Not a lot of green grass - only by the stream.

  We meet the couple from Missouri again and walk part way with them. They have been on the road for a couple of weeks, just coming from California which they said was quite smokey from fires.  

Through lots of aspen groves and spruce. 

 At Stella Lake we are near the treeline, and the bare, rocky mountain peak which hides a remaining glacier.  They say it can snow here any time of the year, but it is quite pleasant today.

 Another trail leads to a grove of Bristlecone pines - ancient trees that live at higher altitude than any others and can reach thousands of years in age! But we aren't up for another trail today.

Back down the mountain and to our campsite.  This interesting sign is near the campsite turnoff, but we don't see any marmots.  Only more turkeys.

 We relax a bit, and Greg grills some Greek burgers we had brought from home for a tasty dinner (lamb and feta and spices).