Tour of S Utah Day 7: The day of two hikes (Calf Creek and Surprise Canyon)

We had several days off the grid, and then we went to Cortez, Colorado for a mountain bike race where were too busy to post and didn’t have Wi-Fi anyway.  So I’ll pick up where I left off last week.
On Tuesday we had fueled up, charged up, bought groceries, and had our last hot shower of the week. Wednesday morning we said goodbye to creature comforts (with one last espresso and cinnamon roll in Escalante) and headed off the grid for some days of hiking and wide open spaces.
Well, not so fast. First we hiked Lower Calf Creek Falls, a super popular 6 mile hike that neither of us had ever hiked. Even on a Wednesday morning with rain clouds threatening, the trail was quite busy.  It was still enjoyable though and the falls are spectacular.

Lower Calf Creek Falls

This area is rich in archaeological ruins and artifacts.  The Fremont Indians inhabited this canyon sometime between 500 AD and 1300 AD.

They left these and more pictographs and numerous granaries for us to see and appreciate.  Drew thought he could easily live in this canyon if he could hang out at the air conditioned Calf Creek Falls every hot day.

The canyon walls are art in and of themselves.

I haven’t shown many pictures of the flowers but I’ve seen more desert wildflowers and trees and shrubs blooming than ever before.

I forgot to introduce Drew’s little mascot to the blog, Captain Pete, or Cap'n Petey as we like to call him.  He's a mouthy (i.e. he makes a sound when squeezed) light-hearted parrot dressed up in pirate gear.  So far this trip, Capt'n Petey has tried to make friends with Jean Luc Picard, but their leadership styles are very different.  Cap’n Petey is a bit of a joker and I am afraid Captain Picard likes to run the Dewey-mobile by the book. It’s best we keep them in separate packs.

We finished the hike and pushed on.  Scenic Highway 12 lives up to its name.

The view looking back onto Calf Creek Canyon from Hwy 12.  We hiked up the lower part of the canyon,the part that looks dark in the picture above. The falls are almost center of the picture where the canyon seems to disappear.

Toward more new roads and trails: The Burr Trail

There wasn’t a lot of pre-planning for this trip. My friend Ken said the road going east from Boulder was pretty.  I asked about it at the Visitor Center in Escalante.  It is paved for 34 miles and then plummets down the Waterpocket Fold monocline at the Burr Trail Switchbacks and that part is gravel. The visitor center lady said if there is rain it could be impassable for our 2WD fun mobile. There was rain, but that’s all part of the adventure. We turned off the highway at Boulder onto the Burr Trail.  It was, indeed, a beautiful drive.

Cool giant boulder of sandstone protecting more easily eroded Chinle Formation shale and siltstone below it.

Click the image above to enlarge this panoramic view at the edge of the monocline.

More cool rocks and clouds.

And then the switchbacks.

The Burr Trail Switchbacks. Note three visible switchbacks.  The road was in great shape. No problems going down in the van at all.  Coming up might have been more difficult because it was steeeep.

Panorama of the Burr Trail Switchbacks. Click to enlarge.

It kind of just doesn't seem like a road should go here.

The trail was originally built by John Atlantic Burr as a way to get cattle from the high ground of the Aquarius Plateau to the Colorado River. It was widened into the road in the 1940s for mineral exploration.  It is one of only three roads through the 100+ mile long Waterpocket Fold. The pictures above show the high angle of dip on the rocks in this monocline (one sided fold) in relation to the near-horizontal strata in the background. 

Block diagram of a monocline.

If you can’t picture it, just wait, I’ve got more pictures coming up in later in this post and I’ll talk more geology in tomorrow’s post.
For now, it was getting late in the day, there were still storm clouds to the north, and we wanted to get down the switchbacks before nightfall and possible rain.
Down we went.

 

Do we have time for a Surprise?

It was about 5 PM and we were now in the southern arm of Capitol Reef National Park. With our earlier 6 mile hike, we certainly could have just found a camp spot and called it a day, but there were too many trail head symbols on the map to ignore and the lighting and mild temperature begged us to explore.  The trail that sounded the most enticing was Surprise Canyon. We didn’t know what kind of hike it would be, but then of course, that would be part of the surprise.

Entering Surprise Canyon

.

The hike takes you through the rock layers of the Waterpocket Fold.  This white sand is from the Navajo Formation just up canyon (but down section) from this outcrop of red sandstone in the Carmel Formation. I love the contrast.

Happy hikers

Thrilled to view the beautiful texture on the walls of sandstone.

The narrowest part of surprise canyon.

Can’t get over that texture!

And here is the surprise!  We think. In the alcove we thought we could see what looks like a granary, likely from the Fremont people?

We turned around about a mile into the hike where the canyon narrowed and became a scramble. Then returned the way we came.

Coming back out, a nice exposure of eroded Morrison Formation capped by Dakota Sandstone on other side of the valley was beautifully lit by the evening sun.

With two good hikes under our belts, it was time to find a resting spot.  We jumped back in the van and motored up the other side of the valley, out of hte national park, onto Big Thomson Mesa.

On Big Thompson Mesa looking to the Henry Mountains. The cliffs in the foreground are the lower part of the Cretaceous Mancos Shale capped by the Ferron Sandstone member. Click to enlarge.

Our map showed a road out to Hall’s Creek Overlook. It wasn’t a great road, but Dewey was a trooper and got us to this, the most spectacular campsite of the trip!

Our campsite near Halls Creek Overlook at the edge of Capitol Reef National Park. Little Rocky Mountains in the background.

The fire pit was really elaborate!

From the overlook you can see a loooong way up and down Waterpocket Fold.

Waterpocket Fold strike valley looking north from Halls Creek Overlook, Capitol Reef National Park.

Waterpocket Fold looking south from Halls Creek Overlook, Capitol Reef NP.

And finally, we ended a fabulous day of hiking and exploring with an inspiring sky over the fold.

Today included seeing new places, exploring the unknown, jaw dropping scenery and geology everywhere, exercise in the fresh air; this day was the best day of vacation so far!

Tour of Utah Day 6: Bryce hike wow

Today’s new adventure was to hike in Bryce Canyon National Park.  We had both been to the park before, but never laid tread to the trail. Showers were in the forecast for the afternoon so we tried to get on the trail early today.

The hike we planned was about a 6 mile lollipop down Navajo trail, around the Peekaboo loop before going back up Navajo. We tried to hike quickly, but I had to stop to take so many pictures!!  The scenery is absolutely breathtaking. Hiking at this elevation is a little breathtaking too.
We were nervous about the weather, but the forecast plus being a Monday in early May helped to keep the crowds away.  Now I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Navajo trail took us right by Thor’s Hammer, which was cool for me to see since Thor’s Hammer is the icon on the Utah Geological Survey logo.

The switchbacks down Navajo trail. Hikers and large trees below for scale.

The rain clouds mostly just threatened and made for interesting pictures until about a mile from the end of our hike, at which time we experienced tiny hail and then a shower. We made this into a chilly lunch break under an overhang …

before gearing up and pushing through to the end.

Thor’s Hammer again in the rain.

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves even though we were not on our bikes all day Maybe we should do more hiking?
Onward to find espresso in Tropic and do some business in Escalante before bedding down at a crowded but otherwise wonderful Canyons of Escalante RV park in Escalante. Hot clean showers and camping gourmet dinner! 

The wine in the redneck stemware was hard to come by.  The only state liquor “store” for probably 50 miles is a padlocked closet inside an outdoor gear store. You have to pay with cash.  The beer selection consisted of 4 bottles of a Salt Lake microbrew. Not kidding!  This is why Utah gets a bad rap on the liquor story.

Oh well, a box of wine is easier to transport anyway. 
This might be my last post for a few days because we are going to try to go down the Burr Trail, through Capitol Reef National Park, and over to Natural Bridges National Monument. Both areas have primitive camping and few towns. Wi-Fi is unlikely. Not to worry, we have a full tank of gas, a full tank of water, escape bikes, and almost a box of wine left. Adventure awaits.

Van Camping

Here a quick tour of the joy of van camping.
We woke up on Day 6 of our Southern Utah tour to mostly sunny skies and a beautiful Stellar’s jay in our campsite. 


Like I said in the last post, we try to utilize the outdoor spaces for cooking and relaxing.

The inside of the van with two people gets a bit crowded and messy.

Sink and toilet (under the blue platform at the rear of the van) on the starboard side. Fridge, microwave and closet on the port side. Obsessively cleaning husband at the rear window.

Here is looking forward.  Both driver’s and passenger’s captains chairs swivel, but we don’t bother unless we will be anchored for more than one night.

That’s van livin’.

Tour of S Utah Day 5.5: Auto tour of Bryce

After our little late lunch – early supper post Thunder Mountain ride, we carried on to Bryce National Park.  We rolled into Sunset Campground of only two auto friendly campgrounds in the park at around 5 PM on a Monday. Out of around 100 campsites, there were exactly 4 left.  Lucky us. We staked our claim and motored out to drive the 15 mile paved road to the southern end of the park.  Rain showers came and went, but mostly came.  By the time we reached the end of the road, the skies had cleared a bit to allow gazing at utter spectacularness. 

We strolled a little 1-mile nature trail that had interpretive signs about the ecology and wildlife, one noting that Peregrine falcons can often be spotted soaring off the cliffs in this area. 

Just minutes after reading an interpretive sign about Peregrine falcons, we spotted this raptor cruising overhead. We think it was a Peregrine.

Another sign informed about the Bristlecone pines.  I love these gnarly, old trees. In this area, there were old ones and young ones.  I hugged this little tree for good luck.

The rim of Bryce is all above about 8000 feet, and normal nighttime temps in May are in the mid 30s.  It was no surprise then that snow patches persisted.

As we completed our little hike, the rain came back again so we hopped into Dewey and headed back.  We made a super quick stop though at this amazing natural arch.


Camp life in Dewey is a mix of dancing around each other inside the van and utilizing the outdoors as much as possible. 

Since rain was likely, we set up the awning.

But we didn’t need it all the time.  After snacks and drinks, we turned in for the chilly night ahead of us. Good times.

Tour of S Utah Day 5: Thunder on Thunder Mountain

RV parks have their advantages. Hot showers, electricity to charge devices, Wi-Fi to blog, a place to dump the poo tank, and laundry facilities.  We took advantage of all the Hitch n Post had to offer Sunday night.

Another advantage is that is was within walking distance to a breakfast restaurant, so we filled our bellies to prepare for Thunder Mountain.
Thunder Mountain was new to both of us and highly recommended by friends.  We chose to do it as a loop from the Red Canyon visitor center, which meant we climbed for about 3 miles up a paved trail, then a couple more on gravel toward the 60% chance of rain clouds.

But once we started the ride, it was all smiles and panoramic views.




The trail runs along the ridge line for a few miles

and then you drop quickly down through the stunning hoodoos.

The phantasmal colors and shapes are created by weathering and oxidizing iron and manganese in the sedimentary rock of the 60 million year old Claron Formation, which was deposited in a large freshwater lake. 

We were greeted by an alien head hoodoo when we got down into the hoodoo section. See the alien behind Drew?

See, it really does look like an alien.

Drew took GoPro video of our descent, but slow Wi-Fi and a need to edit the slow parts precludes me from including here today. I’ll update later.  Suffice to say it was surreal to swoop down through the landscape of hoodoos all around.  The video will be cool.
We are stopped right now for hot soup and coffee because although we miraculously dodged the rain, we were a little chilly.  We are off to find a pretty parking spot and snuggle up in our happy van for the evening.