Southern Utah

Our next stop was the scenic little town of Cedar City, Utah, which sits close to both Zion and Cedar Breaks National Parks. Plan was to do a lot of hiking in both places, but Rita sprained her ankle our last day in Great Basin so we shifted to Plan B which was to exercise the Outback on several scenic drives in the area. I did a couple of solo hikes in the Kolob Canyons section of Zion - starting at dawn so as to beat most of the heat of the day. 

Kolob Canyon is sort of the "back door" of Zion, and is located about 45 minutes from the main entrance to the park...but only 15 minutes from Cedar City. Most people tend to overlook it since it's a bit out of the way, but it's a terrific destination in its own right. My first solo excursion was early one morning - an attempt to make it to a remote feature called Kolob Arch about 7 miles into the back country. Didn't quite make it - had to turn around when the route became impassable due to a lot of debris washed down and blocking the trail thanks to a rain storm the night before, but I did find a nice place to have lunch and take a short snooze in the shade before turning around and heading back up the canyon. 

As I approached this spot on the return leg I looked over and saw a bushy black tail paralleling my route - just on the other side of the log on the left. All I could see was a tail sticking straight up in the air - couldn't see the creature it was attached to. It took a few seconds for my fatigued brain to register exactly what it was, but I finally noticed that the bushy black tail had a white stripe running down its length - Skunk! Since our paths looked like they might converge a little further along I quickly decided that the prudent course of action would be for me to retreat and give the little guy plenty of room to maneuver - didn't want to startle him and get sprayed for my trouble. So...I backed off about 10 paces and just watched him for a few seconds, at which time he reversed his course and started walking back down the trail...ie directly at me. At that point every newspaper clipping I'd ever read about rabid skunks returned from deep within my subconscious, and my concern shifted from getting sprayed to getting bit. I was imagining the article in the Salt Lake newspaper - "Rabid Skunk Bites Hiker in Zion: after doctors refused treatment because of the smell the man, aged 66 (but whom nurses all agreed looked at least 20 years younger) dies a horrible, lingering death."  Just as I was debating whether to retire back up the trail at a much quicker pace than I'd just been coming down it, the skunk finally saw me and crawled into the hollow log on the right to hide...much to my relief. After waiting a few seconds to make sure he was well inside (and wasn't about to re-emerge) I hustled on by and put as much distance between us as I could. Such was my critter encounter of the week.

Rita's ankle was still pretty swollen after a couple of days, but she was feeling well enough for a short excursion along the back roads and scenic byways of Southern Utah - of which there are plenty.

Our first stop was at Cedar Breaks National Park, located at an elevation of 10,000 ft and sort of a "mini Bryce Canyon", with colorful formations and hoodoos spread along the amphitheater below.

We continued along the scenic loop to Brian Head - a well known ski area in winter and a very pretty place to stretch our legs and have lunch.

The locals were out to meet us - several fat little marmots living in the rocks nearby.

The shelter was apparently built by the CCC back in the 1930's. The temperature on the plain below was 90+, but up here at 11,000 ft it was pretty brisk - especially with a fresh breeze blowing.


We continued the loop and returned to Cedar City via Zion - coming thru it from east to west for the first time after previously doing the drive in the other direction. Don't know if it was just our imagination but it seemed to us that the views were even more spectacular coming this way. We thought about stopping near the main entrance but the crowds were just too immense - couldn't even find a place to park - so we continued up the road a piece.

Next day we headed over to Escalante, which really is in the middle of nowhere except that it sits near the entrance of Grand Staircase National Park and Utah scenic route 12, both of which turned out to be terrific. The scenic route in particular was worth exploring at length, which we tried to do as best we could during the couple of days we were there. They had a gravel road off the main route called "Hell's Backbone" that of course we had to try with the Outback. Turned out to be not quite as bad as the name suggests. It wound about 45 miles thru some high mountain forests before re-emerging onto the paved surface of rte. 12. Had it all to ourselves. One of it's attractions was a cantilevered bridge at the top that spans the chasm between two peaks. Wanted to stop for a photo but Rita would have none of it.

Along the way to Escalante we stopped off in Bryce Canyon again (had been there last year) just to marvel at the beauty of the park drive. Surprisingly few cars on the road - guess it was still too early for the main horde of tourists. On one of our drives near Excalante we spotted the first Badger we've ever seen in the wild.

This was one of the scenic spurs off of route 12. The road snakes its way about 45 miles along this series of back-country canyons. The formations rivaled anything we've seen in Zion or Bryce but with about 1/100th of the traffic - a nice excursion on a sunny day.

Noticed on the map that there was an unpaved road cutting thru the middle of the park which looked like it might save about 60 miles of travel as a shortcut. Asked the lady in the visitor center about it and she assured me that was "usually passable" except when it was wet. Actually thought about giving it a try until I previewed it one day on one of our excursions. Looked like something out of the Aussie Outback and, since it had been raining the day before, we decided to save it for another time and take the long way (paved) around.

One of our last side trips was to Kodachrome Basin State Park, which is notable for all of the "Sand Pipes" littering the valley floor. Must have been 25 or 30 of these things, in various shapes and sizes, within the small area. For some reason Rita insisted on having her picture taken in front of all of them. Said this was her favorite. Not sure what the big deal was, but she really liked it here.

After exploring Southern Utah for a week we're headed for the Grand Canyon. Will be staying in Tusayan, AZ just outside the south entrance for a few days.