Road Trip 2013: Day Two

The Great Basin and Capitol Reef

September 16, 2013

Soundtrack:

• Bruce Springsteen -- The Rising
• Modest Mouse -- We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank

I woke up before dawn on Monday morning.  I hadn't set an alarm or anything, that's just kind of how it works when I'm camping.  It's nice because I can use that great early morning light for pictures.  On this particular morning, getting up early would give me a chance to see Great Basin National Park before heading to Utah.

Great Basin National Park, NV

Mule Deer

Most national parks have something special about them.  The other five parks I hit on this trip all have that something.  Capitol Reef has the reef cliffs.  Bryce Canyon has the hoodoos.  Zion has the red cliffs.  Death Valley has its magnificent desert landscapes.  Yosemite has the valley.  Great Basin?  I couldn't tell you why it needed to become a national park.  It's like Pinnacles in that sense, it's frankly very ordinary.  I'm guessing it was the pet project of some senator or representative who wanted a legacy.

Wheeler Peak, Great Basin National Park, NV

To be fair, I didn't get a chance to take in Lehman Caves.  I only spent a couple of hours exploring the park, and most of that was from within my car.  It's a beautiful area, no doubt.  I imagine it's got some nice hiking trails.  

Great Basin National Park, NV

Golden Eagle

I was back on the road into Utah by 8:30.  It became apparent very quickly that Utah is a state that has more beautiful scenery than it knows what to do with.  Not only is it beautiful, it's diverse.  Nothing can touch California when it comes to having a broad range of natural wonders in America, but Utah gives the Golden State a good run for its money.  I drove through deserts and mountains and lush farm lands on my way to Capitol Reef.  I was a bit in awe before I got to any of the state's real jewels.

Torrey, UT

My Campsite

I pulled into the Capitol Reef campground at 2:30.  A couple of mobile homes ahead of me were turned away, so I was bumming thinking I'd have to get a motel room for the night.  Turns out there was exactly one spot left, a walk-in tent site.  That was perfect for me.  I sleep in my Element anyway, so all I need is a table and a fire pit.  I grabbed the spot then headed back to the visitor's center to get a map.

Sulphur Creek, Capitol Reef National Park, UT

Across the street from the visitor's center was a large rock thing.  I decided to go check it out.  Once I had crossed the street I heard running water.  I found Sulphur Creek running through a little ravine in front of me.  Its water was reddish brown, and from the banks it was apparent that the water had been much higher just hours before.

Sulphur Creek, Capitol Reef National Park, UT

I headed for the petroglyphs next.  I've never seen real petroglyphs.  I'm pretty convinced the ones I saw tell the story of an alien invasion led by a square-headed robot warrior.  The aliens took all of the big horn sheep that they could get their hands on back to their home world.  Something like that, anyway.

The bummer was seeing all of the graffiti on the walls beside these ancient drawings.  I like to think the vandalism was done by some early settlers who just didn't understand the importance of the Indian artwork.  No one would confuse these petroglyphs with a Da Vinci painting, after all.  Unfortunately, I suspect the vandalism is more recent.  Sad and pathetic.

Capitol Reef National Park, UT

As you enter Capitol Reef from the West, you drive by an impressive series of red cliffs.  This is what they call the reef.

Capitol Reef National Park, UT

I'm not sure if reef is a geological term or just a name given to these series of cliffs.  I know 'Capitol' comes from the white sandstone dome that some say looks like the Capitol's dome in Washington, D.C.  I took a picture of it but it's not all that interesting, so you'll either have to use your imagination or look it up on the web.  According to Capitol Reef's official website the red sandstone cliffs act like a natural barrier similar to a coral reef.  That's not a very satisfying explanation, if you ask me.  Wikipedia says early settlers came up with the term 'reef' to refer to the cliffs.  OK, that's a little better.

Capitol Reef National Park, UT

A lot of trails and roads in the park were closed due to the recent floods and continuing rains.  That was the downside to going to the park during monsoon season.  The upside, aside from seeing an active Fremont River, was that a lot of the ground and rocks were still wet.  In some of the pictures you can see the dark red wet sections of earth.  The rains added some rich tones to the pictures I took here.

Capitol Reef National Park, UT

I was able to take the scenic drive up to Capitol Gorge.  The gorge itself was closed, of course, as was the Grand Wash, but the effects of the flooding was very evident, so that was cool to see.  The road on the scenic drive crossed a number of streams, but the road was designed to go under the stream rather than over it, so it was covered in mud in certain areas.

Capitol Reef National Park, UT

Capitol Reef is just what I like in a national park.  Its beauty seems to be boundless.  There's a lot to see. I only scratched the surface on this trip.  It has that aura of wonder that the best parks have.  It's easy to get away from the crowds.  That's key.  I will definitely be going back.

Road Trip 2013: Day One

The Loneliest Road in America

September 15, 2013

Soundtrack:

• Editors -- The Weight of Your Love
• Pearl Jam -- Vs.

Six days.  Four states.  Six national parks.  One national monument.  1,800 miles on the road.  That's not a bad way to spend a week.

U.S. Route 50, NV

My original plan had been to spend two weeks and drive to Mesa Verde to see the indian ruins there.  That plan fell through when I had to cut my trip down to one week, so I came up with another destination: Bryce Canyon.  I'd been planning to hit it on the way to Mesa Verde anyway, but with this new plan it became the end point.  It's actually driveable in a single day, but I wanted to be able to relax and see some of the sights, so I decided to break it up into a series of shorter half-day drives.  I'd camp along the way and try to stick to what seemed to be scenic roads.

Sand Mountain, NV

My big problem was Nevada.  There's a reason why Nevada was the place the government used to test their atomic bombs.  Except for the small portion of Lake Tahoe that sits in the state, Nevada is a barren wasteland.  It takes about three hours to get to the state line from the Bay Area, and it would take about four hours to get to my first destination in Utah from the Nevada border.  Getting across Nevada would take about six hours, and there is basically no place to stop for the night outside of Reno, Tahoe and Las Vegas.  Well, there's one more place, Great Basin National Park.  It's just West of the Utah border.  This would be my first stop and it would take me all day to get there.  So much for half-day drives.

U.S. Route 50, NV

I'd been hoping to take Interstate 80 across Nevada.  It basically follows the route of the original Continental Railway.  From a historical perspective, that seemed like it would be interesting.  Highway 50 provides a more direct route to Great Basin, though.  It's got an interesting history as well, since it follows the route of the Pony Express.  Also, since it's not an interstate I'd be able to pull over and take pictures whenever the mood struck me.

What I didn't know until I'd driven the 110 mile stretch between Fallon and Austin--110 miles without so much as a single gas station--was that Nevada's portion of Highway 50 is known as the Loneliest Road in America.  It's a well-deserved moniker.  Austin has one gas station.  It's only seventy miles to the next town of Eureka.  It, too, has a single gas station.  It was like that all the way through Nevada and for the section I drove it in Utah.  I had the road pretty much to myself, though, so that was kind of cool.

U.S. Route 50, NV

I caught the remants of the big storm front that caused all of the flash flooding in Colorado and Utah earlier in the month.  I've seen a lot of dry river and creek beds out in the desert, but this was the first time I'd seen any running with rain water.  The rain has nowhere to go in this area of the country.  That's where the name the Great Basin comes from, it's like a big series of sinks with no outlet to the ocean.  Water runs off of the mountains and into the low lands, where it sometimes forms large salt water lakes like California's Mono Lake and Utah's Great Salt Lake.  In other areas it forms large temporary pools that evaporate fairly quickly in the dry air.  I saw a couple of these pools in fields along the drive.

I reached Great Basin National Park after sunset.  There were very few campers in park.  My campsite had a creek running directly behind it.  I roasted a couple of dogs on the fire, smoked a cigar and called it a night.  It was a long day of driving, especially since I made a lot of stops, but with all of the weather and water it made for a rather dramatic day on the road.  This would turn out to be the least interesting day on the trip and it had been far from dull.