If you haven’t toured southern Utah, you have missed some of the most spectacular
vistas in the whole country. I have been through the area three times on a
motorcycle, but never really saw it, I was going too fast to focus on anything
but the road. That way of traveling certainly has its own appeal, but that’s a
story for another time. Suffice it to say, the road alone was worth the trip. On
this adventure we took the time to see as much as we could.
We had our first on-road “event” on I70 just after passing
Vail. I looked in the mirror and saw clouds of smoke, never a good thing. We
pulled over on the narrow shoulder and discovered that the left side
(naturally) dolly tire had blown out and was literally shredded. A harrowing
hour-plus later, we had the spare tire mounted, the car back on the dolly and
were headed down the road again. Kayeanne did a great job directing traffic. I
wish I had taken a picture of her gesturing to the truckers to give us a little
room.
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| Monsoon season has arrived |
We hadn’t planned to spend a week at Portal RV Resort in Moab. We intended
to spend three night there and then move to one of the BLM campgrounds along
the Colorado River, but the temperatures were so high when we arrived that we
elected to stay at Portal to be able to run the AC units all day. Of course,
two days later it started raining. It rained every day for the next 12 days,
and the temperatures never exceeded 80 degrees. So much for the budget.
 |
| Arches National Monument |
I liked Moab.
The town is clearly focused on tourism, but it hasn’t sold out completely. It
is big enough to have a real supermarket, one barber shop, two hardware stores,
a few interesting shops and several reasonable places to eat. If you go, be
sure to take in the free music on Wednesday night and the free magic shows
Thursday thru Saturday nights. We saw a group called Sand Soup, four “mature”
guys who really enjoyed playing together, and they were very good, too.
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| The dynamic duo |
Moab is
the hub for visiting three of the really spectacular sites in Utah:
Arches National
Monument, Canyonlands
National Park and Dead Horse Point State Park.
It is hard to imagine what several million years of wind, rain and freezing
will do to rock until you see it for yourself. The many wonders that people
have created over a few centuries simply pale when looking 2,000 feet down into
the canyon of the Colorado river from Dead Horse Point or Canyon Lands.
We spent a day at each of these sites and only skimmed the surfaces.
 |
| Canyonlands: roughly 2,000' down to the Colorado River |
 |
Dead Horse Point. What some people will
do to be in a picture: that's a sheer drop |
It is a relatively short drive from Moab to Torrey and the road, Rt 24, passes right
through Capital Reef National Monument.
What a great way to arrive in town! I have stayed at the Chuck Wagon Motel and
General Store in Torrey on three bike trips and enjoyed it every time. It is
the only store in town, and it also has a great bakery and pool. This time we
stayed a week in site 32 at Thousand Lakes RV Park, a couple of miles west of
town. The sites were pretty close together, but aside from that we enjoyed
staying there.
 |
| She liked Capital Reef |
As noted, Capital
Reef National
Monument is just outside of town. Capital Reef
doesn’t have the “wow” factor of the sites in Moab, but is much more accessible. We
spent a couple of days just touring around, looking at the rocks and taking
short hikes to see some of them up close. The historic town of Fruita is also worth a
look.
A short segue for the riders and drivers in the audience: We
took the short route from Moab
to Torrey: north on US 191 back to I70 west, then south on Rt 24 through
Hanksville. Rt 24 is scenic but fairly boring until you pass Hanksville. The
section from Hanksville to Torrey through Capital Reef is visually terrific and
a fun drive, too. The longer and much more interesting route from Moab is to take
191 south to Blanding, then Rt 95 west to meet Rt 24 in Hanksville. Rt 95 is an
excellent road with lots of fast sweepers and elevation changes, and it has
lots to see, too, including Natural
Bridges National
Monument, with its many spectacular stone arches.
Torrey also is where Rt 12 starts, maybe one of the best roads I’ve ever
ridden.
 |
Double rainbow in Torrey. Some compensation
for all the rain |
As usual, we spent a lot of time during our stay in Torrey
exploring back roads, especially dirt roads. I am constantly impressed with how
well our Toyota Sienna minivan handles these roads. Scoff if you will, but it
has covered a few thousand miles of “unimproved roads” without any complaint.
Near Torrey we found some NFS roads in the Dixie
National Forest that took us way, way
back into the tall timber on the back way to Boulder, UT
via a very scenic route. Unfortunately, it started to rain and the road quickly
got pretty slippery so we yielded to discretion and turned back. If we had all
wheel drive we would have pressed on. The next day we discovered hundreds of
miles of county roads crisscrossing a high plateau near Bicknell, UT,
including one that would have eventually taken us all the way to Escalante. But
another thunder storm moved in, and when a bolt of lightening went right by the
car (yikes) we decided that we had better quit while we were ahead and turned
back again.
We were really looking forward to spending the next two
weeks with Christine and Ed Woznicki, but unfortunately they had to cancel due
to a business emergency.
We had no reservation for one night between leaving Torrey
and arriving at our next spot,
 |
| Ripley at Singletree NFS campground |
Panguitch Lake NFS campground. A couple of
months ago I had tried to get a reservation at Singletree Campground, one of
few in that part of the Dixie National Forest that could handle rigs our size,
but all the reservable sites were taken. We drove by Singletree when we were
exploring the area from Torrey, and decided to drop in and look around. We
discovered that a few large sites were not on the reservation system and were designated
as “first come, first served”. A few days later we pulled out of Thousand Lakes arrived at Singletree early enough
to get one of those sites, number 19. Singletree turned out to be one of our “A
List” campgrounds. No hookups, but water is readily available and there is a
dump station in the campground. The setting is just beautiful and as peaceful
as you could hope for. We want to return for a longer stay.
As I mentioned, I have ridden Rt 12 on my motorcycle, and I
wasn’t going to take our 27 ton rig down that road if there was a reasonable
alternative. We could make it, but it wouldn’t be any fun for either of us. So,
the next day we headed back to Torrey to follow Rt 24 to Rt 62, to US 89 to
Panguitch. Panguitch Lake NFS Campground is about 16 miles west of town on Rt
143, which is the main road to Cedar Breaks National Monument,
again in the Dixie
National Forest.
 |
| Our "yard" at Panguitch Lake |
We had a reservation for site 48, but I could tell by the
looks we were getting as we passed the other campsites that we might be in
trouble. I didn’t even try to put the coach in that site. The reservation system
was way out of synch with the reality on the ground this time. We were very
lucky to get out of that part of the campground without hitting a tree or one
of the large rocks that seemed to be everywhere. We sought out the camp host
and he pointed us to another section that had a few larger first-come sites. I
was initially skeptical, but Kayeanne pointed out that we could pull in
headfirst because we didn’t have any utility hookups to worry about. That made
the docking procedure a piece of cake. Site 20 gave us a great view, a huge
yard and was really private. At over 8,000’ and heavily forested, the
campground was cool, even chilly at times. The rain that we brought from Moab to Torrey
also followed us to Panguitch, too.
 |
| One of hundreds of spectacular vistas at Bryce Canyon |
Besides wanting to see Ed and Christine, we were looking
forward Panguitch because of its
 |
| Near Fairyland |
proximity to Bryce
Canyon National
Park and Cedar
Breaks National
Monument. I have been to Bryce on one of my bike
jaunts, but Kayeanne had never seen it. We spent several hours driving from one
jaw-dropping overlook to the next. The sheer scale of the place is really
impressive, over 18 miles from the entrance to the end of the road and
something special to see every mile or two. I went a little nuts taking
pictures that don’t come close to seeing it in person. Kayeanne wanted to get
closer than the overlooks allow, so we came back the next day planning to hike
about 2.5 miles along the Rim Trail from Fairyland to Sunset Point. Again, the
pictures fall so short of seeing the actual terrain that it is really
frustrating. We planned to take the shuttle bus back to the car, but were told
that there was no service to Fairyland, despite a tram stop that we parked
across from. We decided to hike back rather than take the bus to the access
road and hike in from there. We had a great time seeing everything again, but
from the reverse perspective, but were certainly glad to reach the car.
Cedar
Breaks National
Monument sees about 5% of the traffic that goes
to Bryce, but has a
lot to offer on a quieter, more personable level. Cedar
Breaks is roughly 2,000’ higher that
 |
Overcast didn't dampen our
enthusiasm for Cedar Breaks |
Bryce and has a different climate and
topology. The cloud cover was down around our ears the day we went, making it
hard to get decent pictures, but imparted a slightly eerie, subdued ambiance. One
of the young rangers knocked herself out sharing her in depth knowledge of the place, her obvious enthusiasm was fun and made it even more interesting.
 |
| Marmots were everywhere at Cedar Breaks |
Again, we had a great time exploring the area around
Panguitch. Just down the road from our campground was a sign for Hatch Mountain.
We’d passed it several times, but this time we took the turn. Dirt roads are
the key to seeing some of the most beautiful countryside we find. After 30
miles or so, Hatch Mountain Road
eventually put us on US 89 just outside of Hatch where we discovered the Galaxy
Diner. The burgers and sandwiches were good, but the french fries and onion
rings were outstanding. We also found the only golf course between Page AZ and
St. George UT, a 9-hole course and RV park (golf is free to campers) in Hatch.
The rough certainly looked challenging.
After a week relying on our generator and the water in our
tank we were ready to move on to Kodachrome
Basin State
Park near Cannonville,
UT. The park is surrounded on
three sides by red rock cliffs, acres of slick-rock and groves of pinion pine
and cedar. The views surrounding the small campground were sensational, and
like the film
 |
| Just a glimpse of Kodachrome State Park |
the park was named after, they changed as the light changed. It’s
a really fascinating place to visit, and the hiking trails were some of the
best we’ve seen. The dogs were really happy because the park allowed them to
accompany us on hikes. Our section of the campground had full hookups and we
certainly needed the electricity because the temperatures were at least 20
degrees higher than we had seen since arriving in Moab.
Kodachrome State Park is surrounded on all sides by Grand Staircase-Escalante
National Monument. We
drove all over Escalante: to Boulder to visit the Anasazi Museum, to Boulder
again to check out the Kiva Koffeehouse, to the town of Escalante to shop and
to preview Wide Hollow Reservoir State Park campground. We headed out to see
Grosvenor Arch, the only double arch in the Monument, and of course we explored
several dirt roads, one of which took us within a few miles of the front side
of Bryce Canyon giving us a perspective few other
tourists see.
 |
| Grosvenor Arch |
Despite spending almost a month in southern Utah, we feel like we
just scratched the surface. We could easily spend 3 or 4 months and still not
see everything we had to pass up this time, especially if we had a four wheel
drive vehicle. Even without that, though, there are seemingly endless paved and
unpaved roads to explore and fantastic places like Bryce, Canyonlands, Arches,
Cedar Breaks, Escalante, Kodachrome and Capital Reef to revisit.
As I finish this, we are back the WillowWind RV Park in Hurricane,
UT, for Liesa’s 25th birthday. Unfortunately, Luis, her significant
other, is in northern California
fighting the big wild fires, so it’s just the three of us.
Happy Birthday, Sweetie.
More soon,
Bob
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