June 5: Rusty sculpture at Cedar Breaks and elsewhere

It was already over 80dF when I left Cedar City, Utah, (elev. 5800 feet) this morning around 10 am, with a projected high in the 90s.  Good thing I was headed up to the 10,000 foot (only 4000 feet lower than the top of Mt. Rainier) level today.  It was an incredibly pleasant 70dF at the top.

The distance from Cedar City to Cedar Breaks National Monument is only 24 miles, but it’s a whole other world up there.  This was another of those places I’d always wanted to go back to, because I was too young to remember the only other time I’ve been here.  When I told my mother this morning on my regular Sunday phone call before I left town, she reminded me that Cedar Breaks was where, at age five, I threw an absolute tantrum because she wouldn’t let go of me the whole time we were there for fear that I’d fall over the edge <g>.  Her memories of the place, understandably, weren’t so great.

Which is a shame.  Cedar Breaks (misnamed for the junipers that are all over the place there, and the “breaks” where the land falls away jaggedly for over 2000 feet) is absolutely dropdead gorgeous.  Something else I hadn’t realized was that you can see the breaks from below on the road to them, before it dodges around the back and winds its way to the rim.

Looking up at Cedar Breaks from the access road. Zoomed and cropped — it looks a lot closer than it was.

Looking back in the other direction towards the southwest.

The color is caused by iron oxidizing in the soil, aka rust.  Most of southern Utah is rusty like this.  The pictures aren’t even as red as in person.  It’s incredibly vivid.

The view of Cedar Breaks from Point Sublime. Somebody back in the 19th century went a bit overboard with the name, but it *is* beautiful.

The six-mile-long road goes right along the rim of what they call an amphitheater, with half a dozen viewpoints.  I took a lot of pictures, and here are the best of them.

Another view from above.

This was taken at the farthest north viewpoint.

I also stopped in the visitor center, where I set my camera down while I was buying a magnet and forgot to pick it up again.  I didn’t realize I didn’t have the camera until I drove to the next viewpoint, went to take it with me, and realized I’d left it behind.  Fortunately, the people at the visitor center held onto it and put it in a safe place until I came back for it.  It’s not an expensive camera, but it would have been impossible to replace out here in the boonies <wry g>.

This is Brian Head, at the northern end of the Breaks. It’s a ski area in the winter, but at 11,000+ feet, you’d better be in *good* shape to ski there.

One last view of the Breaks.

The road back down from 10,000 feet to the oddly-named town of Panguitch (according to Google, an Indian word for big fish, which must be in the nearby lake) at 6000 feet wasn’t nearly as winding and steep, which was nice.  I passed tons of aspens, from still bare through just beginning to leaf out to the full lime-green beauty, the farther down I went.  I can just imagine how gorgeous that drive must be in the autumn, with all that blazing gold.  Speaking of which, Cedar Breaks is renowned for its wildflowers – in July.  Nothing blooming this early, alas.  And there was still snow on the ground (the road had just opened for the season a week or so ago).

On the way down from 10,000 feet. I bet those aspens are something in the fall.

From Panguitch I went east through more red rocks.  There’s a new visitor center in the canyon, built since the last time I was in this part of the world in February, 1997.  There’s also two tunnels, dug out by, you guessed it, the WPA, in the 1930s, which opened Bryce Canyon, my ultimate destination for the day, to automobile traffic.

Through the red rock canyon on the way to Bryce Canyon.

I got to Bryce late enough in the day that I decided the most important thing was to snag a campsite (which I did), and to kick back for a while, which I also did.  Here at 6800 feet it was still in the 80s when I got here, but the sun has gone down now and the temperature, happily, is dropping rapidly.  I anticipate good sleeping weather tonight.

Tomorrow I am going to get up early and go see Bryce before the tourists overrun everything.

 

Mirrored from M.M. Justus -- adventures in the supernatural Old West.

June 6: Hoodoos and slickrock and cliffs, and jaw-dropping scenery

I don’t think I’ve ever seen more beautiful scenery than I saw today. Not even the Blue Ridge Parkway. Not even the Icefields Parkway. Not even the Beartooth Highway. This was the desert version of all three, and it was spectacular. The photos I took don’t even begin to do it justice, and I took 150 of them today <wry g>.

I started the day at the crack of dawn by driving to the end of the road at Bryce and working my way back (this, as the brochure advised, puts all the viewpoints on the righthand side). I’d forgotten how pretty Bryce is (the last time I was here was in February, 1997). The colors and the shapes (collectively called hoodoos) and the curvature of the earth views are just magnificent, especially early in the day.

Bryce Canyon from Sunset Point.

The start of one of the trails down into the canyon. Given the temperature and the requirement to come back up whatever I went down, I decided discretion was the better part of getting myself in trouble.

Another view from the same spot.

But that was just the beginning of the scenery. I headed east on Utah Hwy. 14, which is marked on the map with those little green dots denoting a scenic route. This was the understatement of the year, if not the decade.

First, I stopped at a place called Mossy Cave. I never did see the cave, but there was a pretty waterfall (enhanced, it seems, by a canal dug back in the 1890s to bring water east of the mountains to the small town of Tropic). The real highlight, though, was being below the hoodoos without having to hike down and back out. Just a half-mile stroll in and back.

The stream along the Mossy Cave trail.

Things only got better from there, through canyons and broad valleys and up over hills and dales to the town of Escalante (Es-ca-LAN-te), where I ate lunch at one of those “okay, we’re too small a town for franchise fast food, so here’s something better than any franchise” places. Best hamburger I’ve had in a very long time.

And then the real gorgeousness began. The local term for the shining, smooth, red and white landscape dotted with dark green junipers is slickrock, I suspect because it would be hard to keep your footing on. The road came out on a viewpoint above miles and miles of this amazing territory, where I could do nothing but goggle and say, “Really? Seriously? Really?” I don’t have words for how beautiful that view was, and the pictures don’t do it justice. It was absolutely amazing.

Looking across one of the most spectacular views I’ve ever seen. The photo looks like crud in comparison.

And one more try. It was so amazing, really.

Another failed try at capturing this unreal place. See the road snaking down? That’s where I was headed.

And then the road wove down through it, for miles. This stretch is called the million dollar highway, for how difficult and costly it was to build, but it was worth every penny. To the dairy farmers of Boulder, too, apparently. Before the road was built, the milk they sent for sale to Escalante often turned to butter on the rough trail. Or sour cream, which then exploded <g>.

I passed through the tiny hamlet of Boulder, and began the climb up over Boulder Mountain. I haven’t seen that many aspens since I lived in Colorado. I can only imagine what it must look like in the fall. Gold as far as the eye can see. Today, it was all pale green, except at the viewpoints (the pass topped out at 9600 feet) with more curvature of the earth views. This was a road I know we didn’t travel when I was a kid, because it wasn’t actually paved until 1985.

A view of the Waterpocket Fold, which is the main feature of Capitol Reef National Park, as seen from near the top of Boulder Mtn. Pass.

My goal for today was Capitol Reef National Park, beyond the northern foot of Boulder Mountain. The last time I was here, too, I wasn’t old enough to really remember. I have vague memories, but that’s it. And, again, I was on scenery overload. Tall dark red cliffs and monuments in all sorts of shapes and sizes, looming overhead like they were going to lean over enough to make a tunnel. I’m pretty sure the ten mile scenic side road (as if the whole place wasn’t scenic) wasn’t paved the last time I was here, either, and while I originally decided to take it because it was 97dF outside this afternoon here (only in the 70s on Boulder Mountain – part of me wishes I’d camped up there instead and come down here in the morning) and I wanted to stay in the AC some more, it was still far more beautiful than it had a right to be.

Aptly named Chimney Rock, in Capitol Reef National Park.

Along the “scenic drive” at Capitol Reef.

The campground here is in an old Mormon fruit orchard, so at least there’s shade, and now that the sun’s gone down the temperature is actually quite lovely. But heat aside, it was the most amazing day of the trip so far. I’m still just shaking my head at the glory of it all.

Mirrored from M.M. Justus -- adventures in the supernatural Old West.

June 7: Crossing the mighty Colorado and other bridges

It was only 70dF when I left Capitol Reef NP at seven this morning <wry g>. I’d have liked to do some hiking, but not with temperatures approaching 100dF in the afternoon. Today was my last real day in the desert, though. It’ll still be warm at Mesa Verde over the next day or two, but after that I’ll be way up in the Colorado Rockies for a few days. Of course, after that I’ll be crossing the Great Plains, but still… I have to take my optimism where I can get it. Part of me is wondering if I should have headed across Canada, turned south when I got to the other ocean, and come back across the middle of the U.S. Oh, well. Too late now <g>.

But here’s two more Capitol Reef photos, anyway.

Capitol Reef in the early morning light.

Can you see the pictographs? These were left in what’s called desert varnish (the black stuff on the rocks) a thousand years ago almost.

Today was sort of Monument Valley North. I’m only a hundred miles or so northeast of the real Monument Valley tonight, but I can remember going there when I was a kid, and trust me, what I saw today was plenty. Lots of huge monoliths rising from the ground. And very few places on the narrow two-lane road to pull over and take a photo.

One of the few photos I managed to take of Monument Valley North (my name for it — don’t try to find that on the map).

Oh, and the mighty Colorado wasn’t all that mighty. Or at least it didn’t look mighty enough to justify photographing it, apparently.

Natural Bridges National Monument, which preserves three of the largest natural bridges on the planet, was much more photo-worthy. It was the first designated federal property in the state of Utah, which is saying something, and was brought into being by Theodore Roosevelt. Well, the monument was, not the bridges. They’re natural, formed by water over thousands of years. Never mind.

Two of the three bridges were easily viewable. The third one was perpendicular to its viewpoint, and so you really couldn’t tell what it was. But here are the two that actually looked like bridges.

Sipapu Bridge (a sipapu — SEE-pa-pu — is the little hole in the center of a kiva that connects the regular and the spirit worlds).

Owachomo Bridge (oh-WACH-oh-mo). Owachomo means rock mound in Hopi.

I also saw lizards (I think they were lizards, anyway), and a beautiful prickly pear cactus blossom (along with more other kinds of flowers than should have been blooming in that heat). Pretty nifty.

I saw three lizards at Natural Bridges. I’m not sure what kind he is, but this was the best picture I got of any of them.

A yucca in bloom.

Prickly pear cactus blossom. It was about four inches across. Just gorgeous.

The rest of the drive over to Cortez, Colorado, where I am now, was mostly through farm and ranch land, and I didn’t see anything really worthy of photographing. But tomorrow is going to be fun. I’m going to Mesa Verde National Park, just ten more miles down the road, and see cliff dwellings.

Mirrored from M.M. Justus -- adventures in the supernatural Old West.