Arches and Canyonlands National Parks

 

We are on our last day of our month long adventure through Utah to see the 5 national parks.  This last stop, Moab, Utah, allowed us to visit Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park.  To add to the fun, our friends, the Cover’s, from Idaho joined us in their RV.

Arches is comprised of many large sandstone formations and cliffs which have created some natural arches from erosion.  It has a fantastic scenic drive with many great viewpoints.  As is our routine, we did a few of the short hikes which took us up close to a few of the arches.  As with the other parks, pictures do not give you the full beauty and majesty of the park.  These hills, canyons, etc., go on for miles.

Here are some pictures:

Top of entrance hill looking down at highway into Moab and the visitor center.

    How do these rocks not fall over???

  This is called Park Avenue.

     

 

The last picture is Landscape Arch.  You can see how it has become very thin.  In 1991 some people were standing beneath it when they felt dirt and small rocks falling on them.  They quickly moved and within minutes 170 tons of rock fell from the arch.  You can see the debris towards the bottom of the picture and see the jagged edges where it broke off at each end of the arch.

The  Canyonlands National Park is about 30 miles away from Moab.  The park is very large and is divided into three sections of which one, Islands in the Sky, is close to Moab and has a scenic drive.  The other two sections are much further away and are more for 4 wheel drive use.  It is a much different perspective as the drive has you on top of the plateau looking down into canyons, like the Grand Canyon.  What is fascinating about this is the canyons have so many levels, hence the term “Islands in the Sky”.

 

We had a great time visiting all the parks and will continue to debate what is our favorite.  We definitely will be back.

We are now headed to Salt Lake City for the weekend then a couple of stops in Nevada before heading into the San Francisco bay area for a couple of weeks.

Route to Moab: From Torrey, Utah we took Highway 24 east to Highway 95 north to Interstate 70 east to highway 191 south into Moab.

Capitol Reef National Park

 

We are finishing up our stay in Torrey, Utah, which is near Capitol Reef National Park. This is park 3 of the 5 in Utah we are seeing this month.  Before I get to Capitol Reef let me tell you about leaving Bryce. 

On our moving day from Bryce we woke up to this

SNOW!

The snow was falling, lightly, on and off for a few hours in the morning.  Around the RV it accumulated to about an inch.  Fortunately the temperature was hovering right around freezing so the snow was not sticking to the roadway.  With the snow on the ground and a good wind it did affect our decision on what route to take to Capitol Reef.  Our original plan was to take Scenic Highway 12 which is a direct route from Bryce to Torrey, but the road, we were told, is narrow and climbs to 10,000 feet with many switchbacks, big climbs and steep descents.  We decided it would not be a good idea to try it with the RV in tow.  We took an alternate route that kept us lower and on more traveled routes, including an interstate.  It added about 60 miles to the route but it was a good decision.  It also allowed us to make a stop in a large town, with a Wal-Mart, so we could do some grocery shopping.  These towns near the national parks have slim pickings for groceries.

Back to Highway 12.  Since we did not take it to get to Torrey we decided to spend one or our days driving it from Torrey back towards Bryce.  What a great decision!.  This is a must see for anybody that comes to see the Utah parks.  It also confirmed our decision not to drive it with the RV.  For many miles of the road it actually is on top of the crest of the mountains.  This means the road was as wide as two lanes with a small shoulder on both sides then cliffs that drop off, big time!  With the truck, and no RV, we had to drive 20 mph.  We drove it halfway back to Bryce, stopping in the town of Escalante for lunch then turning around to come back.  I don’t think my pictures can give you the majesty of the views you get on this road, but here are some of them.

 

 

Capitol Reef is what the call a water pocket.  It is in between two large ridges.  It has some great vistas, canyons and rock formations.  Some of the sights require you to drive off road (dirt roads) to get to them.  There are some hikes, which we did a couple.  One was the Great Wash Basin.  The trail is actually a dry river bed.  They warn you to not take the hike if there is any possibility of rain or flash flood.  This was fascinating as it took us to the “narrows” which is where the canyon walls come very close. 

 

Here are some other great pictures from the park

 

 

   How is that rock in the center staying in place!!!

Next up is Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park.  Our friends from Idaho, The Cover’s, decided to meet up with us in their RV, so it should be a very enjoyable week.

Route:  From Bryce Canyon we took Highway 12 west to Highway 89 north to to Highway 24 east into Torrey, Utah.

Bryce Canyon National Park

 

National Park number 2 on our month long trip to see the 5 parks in Utah.  This is just amazing.  We both do not understand how we did not come here when we lived in California and had an RV.  We waited way too long!

So we left Zion and took the alternate route so as not to go through the tunnel and busy road through the park.  It added about 60 miles but it was a very scenic drive.  We left weather where it was in the 80’s during the day and 40’s at night to where it is in the low 50’s during the day and in the teens at nights.  So far the coldest night has been 16 degrees.  For those of you not into RV’s that means filling the onboard water tanks and disconnecting your water hose and sewer hose.  I forgot to disconnect the sewer hose the first night and had some issues the next day, but fortunately it warmed up enough to resolve the issues.

The big difference is instead of being at the bottom of the canyon, like we were in Zion, we are now at the top, at almost 8,000 feet.  So you see some snow still on the ground and when the wind blows it is really cold.  Not as busy here as it was in Zion but still a good crowd. Many foreign speaking tourists both at Zion and here.  From my great language skills I would say France, Germany and eastern Europe.

OK, back to the park.  This park features Hoodoos.  These are rock formations caused by erosion of the sandstone.  We first encountered these when we visited Banff in Alberta, Canada.  Here it is the whole canyon.  Words do not do it justice so I will just post some pictures.

     

Our first full day here we drove the entire park and stopped at each of the viewpoints.  We really could not do much else as the wind was blowing and made it feel like it was in the 20’s outside.  Reminded both of us of living in Chicago!!

On Friday we drove back on the road we came in to take some pictures of the tunnels they have made in the rock.

We then drove north on the highway 12 scenic byway, which we will be taking to our next stop.  We drove to the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, which is a huge park, but mainly is not accessible unless you have a good off road vehicle and want to hike.  We attempted to visit one landmark but they have not graded the roads since winter and I thought we would lose the shocks on the truck, so we turned around.

Today, Easter Sunday, we took a 2 1/2 hour hike down into the canyon at Bryce.  It is called “Walk amongst the Hoodoos”  Easy going down, hard coming up, but it was neat to see the Hoodoos up close and to be at the bottom of the canyon.

Tunnel carved into the rock on the trail

  You could probably kick these over, if you could get to them.

  This was our walk up.  I told Fran I had completed a heart stress test, and PASSED!!

We are here for another couple of days then we move to Torrey, Utah which is near Capitol Reef National Park.

Route:  From Zion we took Highway 9 west to Highway 59 and 389 east and north to Highway 89 north to Highway 12 into Bryce.

Zion National Park

 

We left Pahrump and drove to Zion National Park in Springdale, Utah.  This is our first stop in our month long trip to see all 5 of Utah’s National Parks.  We are staying at a private campground/hotel about a 1/2 mile from the park entrance.  It is very convenient as we could walk to the park pedestrian entrance and pick up the shuttle bus to go throughout the park.

Here is our view from our RV

The good part of this trip was the weather was fantastic.  It got up into the 80’s during the day and the high 40’s at night.  The bad part was spring break.  The whole area was very busy during our visit, especially on the weekend.

Besides the beauty of the park one of the main attractions is to “walk the narrows”.  This is a trail that begins on dirt for about a mile or so then ends at a stream where you then walk in the water for another few miles to view the narrows, where the canyon walls come close together.  To accomplish this you need to rent waders, waterproof shoes and a walking stick.  As we are not avid hikers and the water was 40 degrees we chose to stop at the waters edge and wish all the hikers well.

Here is the where the water trail starts

We did most of the easy and moderate hikes but passed on the strenuous ones.  Here are some pictures from our travels through the park.

       

 

 

This is the Zion Canyon Lodge with its massive tree and lawn

The park has a highway that goes through it to take you to the eastern side and onto Bryce Canyon.  This road is narrow, has many hairpin turns and includes a mile long tunnel.  They have height and width restrictions to go through the tunnel without an escort, otherwise you have to pay $15 for a round trip so you can drive down the center.  Our big red truck was too wide so we paid the fee and got to use both lanes.

 

As Bryce Canyon is our next stop this road would be the shortest route for us to take with our trailer to get there.  According to the park rules we should not be able to take our trailer but we saw many motorhomes, tour busses and trailers going through it.  However, after driving the road, we have decided it would be best to take the alternate route that adds about 60 miles to avoid this road and tunnel.

On the eastern side the landscape changes somewhat.  The rock formations are more layered and have a wind swept look to them.

This is called Checkerboard Mesa

We hiked the Canyon Overlook Trail which was well worth it.  It takes you to a view of the western side of the park.

 

Route: From Pahrump we took highway 160 to Las Vegas where we picked up Interstate 15 north highway 9 into Springdale.

Death Valley, California

 

We spent the last 3 days in Death Valley.  It was our first visit to this park, which seems strange as we both spent so many years in Southern California and never made the trip.  I guess we just saw it as a very hot place with nothing to see.  Since we began our travels I had put this on our list as a place to visit, but in the winter months.  This year it worked out for us for the route we are taking and I am glad it did.  It is a nice place to see for a couple of days, longer if you are an avid hiker.  The weather was great as it only got into the high 70’s during the day and around 40 at night.

Before I get into our activities in Death Valley, let me tell you about the drive to get there.  The route from Lone Pine to Death Valley is Highway 190 which crosses two mountain ranges, going as high as 5,000 feet, before arriving in the valley.  The road over the mountains is narrow and winding so it made for slow going pulling a 40 foot trailer.  Adding to that is the fairly steep inclines and descents.  Most of the time we were driving around 25 mph.  We stopped at one point, at a turnout, so we would use the trailer restroom.  When we got out of the truck we could smell burning brakes from the trailer.  We let the brakes cool down and I backed the trailer brake gain down so the truck would do most of the stopping and this helped.  It took us over 2 hours to cover the 100 miles and over half a tank of gas, which means we probably averaged 4 miles per gallon.  We made it with no problems but both of us commented how it reminded us of the mountain scene in the “Long, Long Trailer” starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

We tried to see all the major sites, but some require an off road type vehicle to get to and can take most of a day.  Others required some long moderate hikes.  The only full service RV park is in Furnace Creek and is run by the National Park Service.  Even in this park they only have about 20 or so full hook up sites, everything else is dry camping. 

Furnace Creek.  In the summer it can be reach 120 degrees here.  I believe this is where the highest recorded temperature on earth was recorded at over 130 degrees.

The lowest point in North America.

Very near our RV park was the Furnace Creek Resort.  This is a very nice hotel built back in the 1920’s.

They call this area the Devil’s Golf Course.  It is very rough land that has some interesting patterns in the soil.

Volcanic crater.

We took a drive to a peak that overlooks the valley.  It is called Dante’s Peak.

The highlight of the visit was a tour of Scotty’s Castle.  There is a whole story behind this house that I will not get into now, but short story is that it was the summer home of a wealthy couple.  It was built back in the 1920’s and 30’s.  What is so neat about it is that the owner donated the house and furnishings to a charitable foundation he set up in the 40’s so they could conduct torus.  Later the foundation sold the house and furnishings to the National Park Service.  So everything in the house is as it was back in the 30’s.

The house

Our tour guide, who is a NPS Park Ranger.  They dress from the 1930’s to conduct the tour.

The music room

One of the living rooms from the upper floor.

Another stop was the large sand dunes in Stovepipe Wells.  The blowing sand gets trapped here due to the mountains. 

Dunes

Fran’s shadow in the sand.

Great time in Death Valley.  We have now moved on to Pahrump, Nevada where we will spend 3 weeks before moving into Utah.

Route:  From Lone Pine we took Highway 136 to Highway 190 to Furnace Creek.  From Furnace creek we took Highway 190 to Highway 127 to Highway 160 into Pahrump.