Day 3: Tuesday, September 4th

"The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page." ~St. Augustine

Today's route: Tropic, UT to Bryce Canyon National Park to Torrey, UT

The experience of watching the sun come up at Bryce Amphitheatre is said to be an awesome one, so I have checked on the time for sunrise (7:06 a.m., not too bad for a non-morning person like me) and set the alarm accordingly. I’ve chosen to watch from Bryce Point, 4 miles south of the Visitor’s Center. The drive takes 20 minutes, and I’ve allowed for 45, so I park in the dark, the second car there.

Light starts to spread across the horizon, and as other cars arrive and empty out, I realize that there is a viewing point a few hundred yards off of the parking lot. I march down the trail in the mild 57° dawn to find a dozen people, several with cameras set up on tripods and aimed at the center of the back wall, where the light is starting to reflect on rock formations in the large open bowl below.

An older couple arrives several minutes later and the woman edges into a space next to me, and then beckons her husband to set up his tripod there. I slide closer into the rail so he can’t set up where it blocks my view. The tripod remains 3 inches off of my left foot, but I stand my ground, and the remaining stay goes without incident.

For 20 minutes before the scheduled sunrise, light continues to stray over the top of the ridge opposite the canyon wall where we hold our focus. I snap pictures continuously, thanking the inventors of digital photography for the ability to load up my 1Gbyte memory card without fear of missing a photo while changing film.

A single cloud hangs over the ridge, slowing the sun’s assault. As it finally clears the cloud, the back wall of the amphitheatre begins to glow in yellow and orange hues. The tall rock spires and hoodoos below slowly come out of the shadows row by row, gleaming in the charging daylight. Finally, 45 minutes and perhaps 100 pictures later, I head back to the parking lot content that I’ve had the ultimate Bryce Canyon experience.

But my day is not done here. I drive back up to Inspiration Point and hike a short segment of the Rim Trail to Sunset Point and back, loading up my camera’s memory card with images along the way. At spots where I encounter inclines on the trek, I find myself huffing and puffing after only 50 yards. Considering I’ve altered my diet recently, I am concerned that I have become ill due to the change. (Two days later I realize that it was because Bryce is at 10,000 feet, and I had been affected by the altitude.)

I’ve sensed you wondering, so now a short interlude to insert a word about hoodoos, spires and fins. I’ll paraphrase from the National Park’s Bryce Canyon web site <http://www.nps.gov/brca/index.htm>:

[During the erosion process], thin walls, or fins, composed of soft sedimentary rock are left standing under capstones made of harder rock. These capstones act like umbrellas, protecting the fins from the elements and slowing the process of erosion. Eventually erosion wears through the sides of the fins leaving isolated pillars or “hoodoos.”

Hoodoos are tall thin spires of rock that protrude from the bottom of arid basins and badlands… In common usage, the difference between hoodoos and pinnacles or spires is that hoodoos have a variable thickness often described as having a "totem pole-shaped body." A spire, on the other hand, has a smoother profile or uniform thickness that tapers from the ground upward.

There are 15 viewpoints along Bryce Canyon’s 18-mile scenic drive on the way south towards Rainbow Point. I leave Sunset Point and head down the scenic drive, where a family of wild turkeys streams across the road in front of me. I am slow getting the camera started, so have only a picture of the tom as he darts down the roadside ravine.

At Rainbow Point I hike a short while on a loop trail amid pine trees harboring darting nuthatches, and gaze occasionally into the canyon when the trail permits. The return drive towards the Visitor’s Center brings more photos of more hoodoos and fins, and also an arch or two. One last stop just outside the park at the Fairyland Point overlook brings me a nice view of The Sinking Ship. Time to head on and it’s only 10:25 a.m. – but it’s now warmed all the way up to 69°.

Here’s a Quicktime movie of the amphitheatre that I hope gives a good perspective of its scope. (You may have to click the play button twice before it runs.)

Follow this link to more photos of Bryce Canyon National Park. Link here
http://community.webshots.com/album/560878671sdSlzd

"The journey not the arrival matters." -- T. S. Eliot

I’m on the road again. I’m starting to feel like I’ve packed in too many sights in too short a time. Essentially I drive a half day, and visit a half day. Out by nine, into the motel by five.

Utah Hwy 12 was not on my mapping software, or on my navi system either, but after finding the route on Yahoo Maps, and verifying it to Rick’s route during my planning sessions, I take it anyway. I am soooo glad I did. UT 12 is such a beautiful hidden secret. As the car icon floats along the navigation display between Bryce Canyon and Capital Reef National Parks, no road beneath, the environment changes with altitude from scrub oak to elegant aspens to scented pine.

Utah, at least the southeast portion, has spectacular landscapes. The scenery changes mile upon mile. God has definitely been here. At one time, while the earth was forming, he sent down his angels, who sculpted fascinating shapes in the cooling terrain. Then he arrived with his palette and proceeded to apply broad strokes of dark chocolate browns, pale grays, vibrant oranges, deep reds and pastel greens.

The temperature in the desert is rising again, but in the mountains west of Capital Reef, I hit a rain squall so severe I have to slow to 25 mph. The temperature cools from 98° to 83° in minutes, and several lightning strikes brighten the gloomy horizon. I stop to take a picture of a lowland lake from an overlook, but my hair stands on end, so I get back in the car and drive. Here’s a link to more photos taken along UT 12: http://community.webshots.com/album/560877004CDHyzD

Due to the early start to my day, I am three hours ahead of plan arriving at the motel, so I drive the remaining 8 miles to the Capital Reef NP Visitor’s Center. There I discover that the hard rains have caused flash floods, and the scenic drive is closed. On the way back to the motel, and despite the still threatening skies, I stop at four or five turnouts to take pictures. I also follow a dirt road to a trailhead leading to a short hike, and a panoramic view of Sulphur Creek Canyon, fashioned by what is now a dry river. Still, I have a short day, and it’s back to Torrey to unload for the night.

To accompany my dinner at the motel restaurant I order a brew called "Polygamy Porter". The maker, Wasatch Breweries, has a sense of humor. The label states "Why Have Just One?" under a drawing of an (Mormon?) elder surrounded by three young serving wenches. The brewers are even natives, associated with the Utah Brewers Co-op, Salt Lake City!

I go back to the room and surf through the TV channels. It seems that Utah TV allows "The Closer", but "Saving Grace" is not part of the programming schedule. A fan of both shows, I don’t even wonder why.

Today’s drive:
Tropic, UT to Torrey, UT via Bryce Canyon NP and Capital Reef NP
165 miles, around 4 hours (excludes in-park time)

Tomorrow:
Capital Reef National Park and Goblin Valley State Park

Day 2: Monday, September 3rd (Labor Day)

"A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it." –- John Steinbeck

Today's route: Mount Carmel Junction, UT to Zion NP to Cedar Breaks NM to Tropic, UT

Because there is plenty of warning on street signs and park literature, I get up early to make sure I am at the Visitor’s Center in time to find a parking space (signs announce “Visitor’s Center lot is full by 10am” and “pick up a shuttle in Springdale bound for the Visitor’s Center”).

So after an in-room breakfast of oatmeal and a banana, and with no Internet to steal my time, I’m on my way by 8 a.m. for a full day of hiking, scenery, and more driving and some change. I even have time to stop at Checkerboard Mesa again to snap more pictures, and still make the Visitor’s Center by 8:30. There are plenty of open spaces at this time. I park and wander over to the shuttle boarding area – other than the UT-9 route through the south and east ends of the park, there is no auto traffic allowed in Zion. (This is a different shuttle from the Springdale one.)

Zion Canyon is a large expanse of trails and scenery bounded by massive stone walls that have been carved away by the Virgin River over millions of years. The stone towers stand sentry over the visitors as the park shuttle motors between scenic stops set along a 10 mile drive along the canyon floor.


The idea is to get on and off of the shuttle, and explore the park through the various trails that run from the shuttle stops. Some visitors are adventurous enough to hike down the river between narrow canyons (appropriately named “The Narrows”), or climb to the top of a stone fortress called Angel’s Landing, so they are only on the shuttle to get to the trailhead. With the time constraints I had imposed on myself, I won’t be going more than a couple of miles round-trip on any one trail.

Although the canyon floor is a manageable 4000 feet, the temperature at 8:30 a.m. is already 90°.

The shuttle stops at six or so points along the way, up to the last drop-off at the Temple of Sinawava (don’t ask me what the temple looks like or why it was named as such!). My first stop is Emerald Pools. I take the 1/2 mile-long trail out to the lower pool snapping pictures along the way. When I start the hike back up the trail, I stop to turn off the ‘beep’ that occurs every time I press the camera shutter. But, no! I’ve misread the menu in the glare of the morning sun, and reformatted the memory card, wiping out a couple of dozen photos! Checkerboard Mesa is gone!
I lumber back down to the pool and recover at least some of the scenic pics. I’m just glad this was the first stop! I’ll just have to beep for now. Here’s the second attempt at the waterfall above Lower Emerald Pool.

I hoof it back to the shuttle stop, taking pictures as I go, hoping I’ve recovered most of the lost ones and zeroes. I stop at Weeping Rock, and find the overhang where 4500 year old water is seeping out of the stone. It’s about a twenty minute trip. Plenty of morning left.

After a few more quick stops for photos of rock formations with names like The Three Patriarchs and The Great White Throne, I am dropped off at the Temple of Sinawava depot. Here I find a paved, mile-long walkway along the Virgin River. I trek through forest glens and under craggy overlooks, spotting squirrels and mule deer along the way. It’s nice to be in the shade and out of the heat.

It’s time for me to get moving. For this trip, I am only here for a half-day. I hike back to the shuttle stop, which takes me back to the Visitor’s Center. There I take the time to fish the camera manual out of the trunk (I bring everything!) and figure out how to eliminate the annoying shutter beep. I’ve been at Zion for four hours, yet I have more stops to make today. On to Cedar Breaks National Monument.

Here is a link to more Zion NP photos:

http://community.webshots.com/album/560826482MUWGQf

Cedar Breaks is a small scale preview of what I expect to encounter tomorrow. It’s a miniature version of Bryce Canyon, boasting an amphitheatre-like canyon that sprouts hoodoos of all shapes and sizes. There is not much in the way of hikes here, and as opposed to Zion, you view the canyon from above while driving around the perimeter. I find lots of turnouts with nice views, but I’m in and out of the park in 45 minutes. Still, the scenery is refreshing, and the temp has cooled down to 68° - of course, it is around 10,350 feet altitude.

Here is a link to more Cedar Breaks NM photos: http://community.webshots.com/album/560825025jjlGWu

"If you come to a fork in the road take it." ~ Yogi Berra

And so far I’ve managed to take the right one, too. There is a great surprise along UT Hwy 12 on the way to Bryce Canyon NP and Torrey, UT. As you enter the Dixie National Forest a few miles west of Bryce, you encounter some amazing red stone formations in Red Canyon. (photo below; follow this link to more: http://community.webshots.com/album/560857774rMyAbN).

In fact, UT-12 is one of the most scenic – and forgotten – highways ever. More discussion and a few pics of scenery along UT-12 in the next post. But for now, it’s time to check in. My motel is new and inexpensive. The extension section where I’m staying reminds me of a modified version of some of the portable trailers used for add-on school rooms. But it’s clean!

Today’s drive:
Mount Carmel Junction, UT to Tropic, UT, via Zion National Park and Cedar Breaks NM
160 miles, around 3 1/2 hours (excludes in-park time)

Tomorrow:
Bryce Canyon National Park and Capital Reef National Park

Day 1: Sunday, September 2nd

Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car." ~ Elwyn Brooks White

Today's route: San Diego, CA to Mount Carmel Junction, UT

Already I am late! I left home 45 minutes past my scheduled departure because I was cruising the Internet, checking out college football scores from Saturday. Probably it’s a good thing I’m leaving the net behind. But wait, I’m bringing along a laptop to log notes for these blogs, so maybe I’m doomed yet, as several of my night’s lodgings have free WiFi connections. I’ll just have to take a vacation from the net, too. Possible? We shall see.

Today is mainly a travel day, geared towards positioning me near the first of the Utah National Parks: Zion. My route (see below) takes me from San Diego, through Las Vegas and across Nevada to the northwest corner of Arizona. I will spend only a short while in AZ before I cross the border into Utah.

It’s 108° in Riverside as I head north out of San Diego. I hope it’s not an omen of things to come. But the temperature varies from 96° to 111° as I cross the desert. I sure hope there’s a cool spell coming! In Vegas, where it’s 106°, I stop to fill up. Two commandments of driving across the desert are “Pay attention to the fuel gauge” and “Carry lots of water”. Two gallon jugs of water in the trunk will carry me through several days until I make Grand Junction and find a grocery store for refills.

At the gas stop, I have to go inside to pay. I notice the slot machines as I walk in, and since I have a few $1 bills, I decide to try my luck. I put the first two bills in the poker machine, it shows my credits and I place a $1 bet. After I pre-select the “Deuces Wild” game, I push the “deal” button, and the electronic cards display left to right: Ace of spades, 2 of diamonds, 10 of spades, King of spades, 2 of clubs. I was looking at a royal flush first time out. I select the “hold” button for each card and press “deal” again. I’ve won $5! I AM A WINNER! I cash out, take my $3 winnings and hit the road ahead of the game!

"Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel coast to coast without seeing anything." ~ Charles Kuralt

There is not much to Nevada once out of Las Vegas, until you reach Mesquite, which is on the AZ border. Fortunately the speed limit beyond Vegas is 75 mph until you reach St. George, UT.

Mesquite, NV is building up to become another mini-Vegas – there are now 4 or 5 casinos, and they offer concerts by well-known stars like LeAnn Rimes and Kellie Pickler. OK, maybe they’re not all well-known, unless you happen to be an American Idol fan.

After Mesquite you cross into that small section of AZ. You can tell when you enter Utah, as just beyond the AZ border the terrain changes from the drab beige that characterizes the deserts in Nevada and Arizona and the earth turns deep red. St. George, my departure point from the Interstate to the Utah NPs, is a paltry 98°.

The day’s trip lasts about 8 hours, an hour and 20 minutes longer than I’d planned. Coupled with my late start, I’m two hours late getting into Mount Carmel Junction, my stop for the night. Part of the reason is that I have a motel room on the east side of Zion, and it turns out that UT Hwy 9 to get to Mount Carmel Junction goes directly through the park. I stop at Zion’s south gate and purchase an annual national park pass for $80. It will come in handy for the rest of my NP visits, as well as my return into Zion in the morning.

The road through Zion contains a number of switchbacks, elevation gains and two tunnels, so that 18 miles takes 45 minutes. I also stop to take a few photos on the east end of the park, including Checkerboard Mesa (below), one of the parks more famous landmarks.

The navigation system (or “navi” as Acura likes to call it) has mostly behaved all day. There have been times past when it knew where I was going and where I was, but not the route in between because of limited landmarks. There is not much out in the desert to go by a lot of times, and when the routing is unavailable, the “miles/time to go” read-out takes a vacation.

I like to zoom out to the 15 mile scale so I can follow the route as I drive. I watch the distant towns come into view, and monitor the “miles/time to go” read-out to get a rough idea of how much driving is left until the destination.

I finally arrive at the Best Western East Zion Thunderbird Zion around 6:45pm MT. It’s 104°. After unpacking, I wander into the restaurant and order the spicy chicken salad, which turns out to be quite tasty. Back in the room I go over tomorrow’s route and plans, then call it a night. After all, I have to get back on schedule.

Today’s drive:
San Diego to Mount Carmel Junction, UT
520 miles, a little over 8 hours

Tomorrow:
Zion National Park and
Cedar Breaks National Monument

Pre-trip Planning

To get away from one's working environment is, in a sense, to get away from one's self; and this is often the chief advantage of travel and change.
~Charles Horton Cooley

Welcome to my southern Utah Scenic Drive blog. For those of you who haven’t experienced blogs yet, and I can’t imagine too many of you who haven’t, a blog (web log) is a continuously running narrative that adds text, photos, audio or video on a regular basis over a period of time. The latest material will always be at the top of the page, so as you scroll down through the blog, you’ll be marching back into time.

I’m optimistic that I’ll remember to properly label each post so that you can navigate through the blog more easily. Today’s post discusses my pre-trip planning routine. Hopefully you’re not too bored before we actually get in the car and get underway. (Next entry, I promise!) And maybe you’ll learn some things, too.

This blog is a record of my latest auto trip, which was a tour of many of Utah’s southern National Parks conducted over 9 days in early September, 2007. I have decided to publish this not only to share the anecdotes and photos from my trip, but to keep my hand in writing, and as practice for my planned USA national tour, targeted for the end of next year.

Here are the major destinations along the way:

Day 1: Travel Day
Day 2: Zion National Park
Day 3: Bryce Canyon NP
Day 4: Capital Reefs NP
Day 5: Grand Junction, Co
Day 6: Arches NP
Day 7: Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park
Day 8: Grand Canyon NP – North Rim
Day 9: Travel Day

There will be the occasional minor stops, too. You can see that I’ve packed a lot of scenery into the trip.

This is not the first time I’ve done a solo trip of any length, and not the first one in my Acura TL (whose navigation system becomes part of the story towards the end). But I’ve not seen any of Utah’s National Parks to date, and I’d like to thank Rick Brookes for the idea and for the main route. For the most part I borrowed the plan he gave to his new in-laws for their honeymoon trip a few years ago, but I did add to his route in a few places, most notably my extension of his Utah loop into Grand Junction, CO to scout out retirement possibilities.

I will tell you he did a good job. Here’s a map of the planned route (BTW, clicking on any image will open up a larger version of it. Use your browser's "Back" button to return to the blog.):



A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving. ~Lao Tzu

Well, that’s not my style, Lao. I used Microsoft’s Streets & Trips software to do route planning. Rick turned me on to this product too, as he uses it for his epic motorcycle tours. This is one of the applications that MS got right (and at the annual upgrade time, Costco usually has some good rebates on it).

MS S&T allows you to plan routes by selecting locations (like national parks!) or typing in an address, or simply entering a city. Once you’ve put in all the destinations and in the order you want to visit them, you can add stopovers at these locations from minutes to days (overnights), and also pinpoint items of interest in the area, including parks, restaurants, hotels and other popular attractions.

One of the features I like is to be able to tell the software when you’ll depart or arrive at a location, and how fast or slow you think you’ll drive on Interstates, state highways and local roads.

When the route is completed, you can print out a map with directions, or even a turn-by-turn strip map. The directions include mileage and times, so when you tell the software that you want to spend 3 hours in Cedar Breaks National Monument, the printout reflects your planned arrival at 12:30 p.m. Mountain Time and your departure at 3:30 p.m.

Oh, and if you’ve set up some of the other options (like your expected mpg), it will do things like tell you when you should consider stopping for gas or add a 20-minute rest stop every 4 hours.

OK, I will admit to being anal, obsessive-compulsive, whatever when it comes to travel. I have my packing checklists, pre-trip prep checklists, and an Excel-based itinerary planned to the half-hour. That’s where I log the hotel location and reservation information. The idea here is that as I do iterations of the route, I can see where I can add a stop, where I need to leave earlier, and when I can expect to arrive at the motel for the night. I also accumulate planned costs here to get an idea of what I'll be spending on the trip.

As I’ve indicated, I plan to treat the Utah trip like my larger journey planned for next year; I’ll post a blog page for each day of the tour, with a few photos of the parks I visited and some commentary regarding my journey. I’ll also provide links to more pictures that the reader can follow if interested.

I will be sorting through my pics over the next several days to select a few of the hundreds I took (actually it was just short of 1300). In some cases, a rock is a rock is a rock, but at other times with the right framing and light, the essence of the place comes out. Occasionally I'm lucky enough to record that on "film". After scanning the pics from each place, it strikes me as amazing how differently the earth was sculpted over time and events. And it turns out, with the right subject matter, it's sometimes hard to take a bad picture!

Anyway, more stories to come and photographs of real scenery, too. I better get this thing posted so my niece, who is due to give birth any moment now if she hasn't already, will have something to read while she's waiting! I promised her days ago...

So, the plan for the tour is up and out by 9am each morning, stopping every 2 hours to stretch and allow the blood to flow through my legs again, and to cruse at about 8 or 9 mph over the speed limit. And to trust my navi system to work in the boondocks, unlike last year’s trip to Denver. See you next time on the road!