Kolob Canyons in Zion National Park

Can a person ever get tired of hiking next to babbling brooks, through canyons filled with towering multi-hued rock formations that change colors with the coming and going of the sun, through stands of trees in most colors of the rainbow? I don't think so!

I do believe fall has become my new favorite season. The trees are in full flaming show-off mode, the streams are low enough they don't impede progress up the canyons, the summer crowds have diminished to a trickle, and the cooler temps are so much more comfortable for hiking.

Kolob Canyons, also known as the finger canyons, is the Northern section of Zion National Park and it's only a few miles South of Kanarraville, where we are camped. Being a National Park there were certainly more folks on the trails than when we hiked Spring Creek Canyon yesterday, but nothing like the crowds you'd find during the summer months.

We hiked the one mile Timber Creek Trail and the 5 mile Middle Fork of Taylor Creek trail. Afternoon and evening are supposed to be the best times for photographs but we were there in the morning, oh well!

Moving on to Springdale, UT next where we will camp adjacent to the main Zion entrance.

Viewed from Timber Creek Overlook the Kolob Plateau rises dramatically up from the valley floor

Middle Fork of Taylor Creek trail takes you down among the "fingers".

We enter a canyon shaded by two giant fingers.

The trail meanders along and crossing (many times) Taylor Creek for the entire hike.
Luckily the creek is very low at this time of year!

Canyon walls are lit up by the sun reflecting off the opposite wall.

The turn around point comes at Double Arch Alcove, a giant natural amphitheater.

You can see another arch forming above the amphitheater in this photo.

It's Windy Outside!

Besides getting out in nature, reading and cooking make me a happy girl! Thought I'd share a few things that have brightened our days recently as we sit snug in our cozy little home on wheels this morning and the wind blows mightily outside. As a lifelong resident of mild San Diego, CA I am really enjoying the variety of weather we are experiencing on the road!

We like to browse used book stores while we travel and Hans has picked up a couple of really interesting titles recently:

Another Day in the Frontal Lobe is the autobiography of a female neurosurgeon. It details her experiences leading up to and during medical school, describes in layman's terms how the brain functions and the differences between different brain-focused specialties, anecdotes about various cases she and others have experienced and her view of the possible future of neurosurgery. I found it easy to read and engrossing.

Escape is the autobiography of a woman who escaped the fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (fLDS). fLDS broke off from the original Mormon church primarily in order to maintain plural marriage. It is a fascinating and horrifying look at polygamy from the inside and the direction the fLDS took under Warren Jeffs. It was especially interesting to read this book while traveling a part of the country where Mormonism is most prevalent.

I mentioned how good this Cheesey Quinoa dish was a couple of weeks ago. I made it again with broccoli and have decided to share my adaptation of the recipe. It has been cut down to a more manageable size for two people with a little RV oven. Here is the recipe for Cheesey Quinoa and Broccoli. You could probably make this vegetarian by using a "flax egg", though I have not tried this method.

Thanks for reading!

Spring Creek Canyon: Our First Slot Canyon of the Year

We moved a whopping 15 miles South! We're staying at a tiny private campground (Red Ledge) in a tiny town (Kanarraville) with no services that is just minutes from slot canyon hiking and the Kolob Canyon entrance to Zion National Park. Kanarraville is about 5 miles off of I-15 so it is very quiet, a nice transition from busy Cedar City.

There are two slot canyon hikes (that we know of) within a mile of our campground and we chose Spring Creek Canyon because it did not include wading through water or a parking fee.

This was a spectacular hike on a partly cloudy, breezy, perfect day and the colors everywhere were out of this world. Words cannot describe how lovely and peaceful this hike was...and our camera can hardly do it justice either!

This has been my first year ever to really experience the fall foliage show and we seem to be following the seasonal change in the right direction along with the temperature change. It is a feast for the eyes! As always, you can click on any picture to enlarge it. Enjoy!

Parked at the trail head. Tiny Kanarraville is just a mile behind us.

Just beyond the trail head.

About a mile or so in we see our first sight of the slot entrance ahead...

As we approach the slot canyon, the trees and rocks become more vibrant.

Color explosion!

The trail followed the creek bed into slots and then into open sections where other slots meandered away.

Sometimes the passage way got very narrow

Sometimes we walked on a carpet of leaves.

It was another awesome day!

Campground Review: Best Western Town & Country, Cedar City, UT

In the vicinity of Cedar City, UT there are many national Forest camping options. But they are all at higher elevations and many are closed by this time of year, and have no hookups. We are not really ready to dry camp, especially as the nights get colder.

We decided to stay in Cedar City (as opposed to other small towns in the area) due to its proximity to Cedar Breaks National Monument. There are three RV park options in town: Country Aire which does not have a website and whose reviews were just fair, KOA which wanted $49.50 per night, and the Best Western Town & Country at $31.50 per night (Good Sam rate, normally about $35/night).

Yes, Best Western Town & Country is the hotel chain! We discovered, from RV Park Reviews, that this particular hotel has 10 pull through RV sites with full hook ups. The RV sites are not listed on their web site. This hotel actually has two separate locations directly across the street from each other. The RV sites are behind the North hotel, adjacent to the post office.

Turns out all three of the RV parks listed above are right on the main drag through town and none of them had any kind of fence separating their RV sites from the street. We chose BW because of price and location; it is walking distance to a park and local bike path, city library, a grocery store and the cute little old downtown area.

The RV sites are situated between the busy main drag, a quieter side street, the hotel and the post office. We found it to be very quiet at night; Cedar City is not a late night town and the post office has predictable hours! With only one other RV in place when we arrived, we were able to choose a site closer to the quiet side street. 

Included in the price of admission is access to the hotel's amenities: indoor pool/hot tub at the South hotel, outdoor pool/hot tub at the North hotel (closed at this time of year), laundry, wifi. Laundry was expensive at $2/load, even for the dryers. We did not use the hotel's wifi but instead used our own blazing fast 4G...the best internet speeds we have seen so far! Verizon cell service was fine as well.

Sites are gravel with utilities shared between two sites and a couple of trees separating most sites. There are a few picnic tables shared between sites.

For a "city" RV park, this location worked out well for us. Though the ambiance was just "fair" the neighbors were nice and the convenience to local services was perfect. At this quiet time of year it was just fine and at the right price!

Our site, #352, with the post office behind us.

Looking down the row of sites towards the quiet side street, hotel in the background.

Close up of our site, facing the post office.

Close up of our site, facing the hotel.

Navajo Lake Loop Trail: One Wild Ride!

It was time to mix things up a bit and hit the trail with our mountain bikes. We rode the Navajo Lake Loop Trail described here, which includes a section of the 32 mile Virgin River Rim Trail. This trail was described as a novice trail in most of the descriptions we read with very little elevation gain (200 feet)...but we knew that riding at about 9,000 feet elevation might make it feel more like an intermediate level trail!

Navajo Lake sits at about 9100 feet elevation 25 miles East of Cedar City, UT just off Hwy 14. The lake is about 5 miles long, running East/West, making most of the trail on long stretches of North and South facing hillsides. This is relevant because with the recent snowfall, the trails on the North facing hillside had snow!

This is what we were greeted with early on, on the trail!

We encountered a few obstacles along the way:

Spruce beetles killed a lot of trees in the 90's and now they are falling over.

A view of the lake from the Virgin River Rim Trail section:

A view of Navajo Lake from the South end during a dry patch of trail.

After about 3 miles of a mixture of hard packed mud, snow and some soft mud we came to a section where no one had passed before us since the snowfall and the going became rougher:

Unbroken snow in front of us!

Nice, hard-packed mud here...that was not the norm in this  section!

After a couple of miles of mostly snow and squishy mud, we finally had enough and found a way down to the road. Traveling up the road we missed our trail turn off and added an extra mile to our ride!

At the East end of the lake the trail crosses a lava flow:

About to cross the lava flow!

Hans' bike is actually pretty clean after riding on a dirt road for about a mile!

By the time we reached the lava we were getting pretty tired due to the elevation and the hard work of going through snow and mud for miles. We were happy to see some of the most beautiful, slightly rolling single-track we've ever encountered:

Lightly rolling single track along the North side of the lake.

Through stands of Aspen whose leaves were long gone for the season.

We were eagerly anticipating reaching the truck when "disaster" struck about a mile or so from the end:

Broken chain!

Hans spent a good 15 minutes trying to fix it while I held the bike up and took in the calm, beautiful scene around us and soaked up the sunshine.

Hard at work!

South end of Navajo Lake. The water is very low at this time of year.

He got the chain back together but it only lasted about a quarter of a mile. Oh well...at least we were only about a mile from the truck. And, luckily, we were almost to the point where the trail met a dirt road. Hans rode my bike to get the truck and I pushed his bike to the road and waited for him to come along with the truck.

The last surprise of the day was sheep being driven down the Navajo Lake Road:

It was an awesome and exhausting day on some fabulous single track in beautiful country! I'd enjoy riding this again...just minus the snow and mud!

Cedar Breaks National Monument

We've transitioned to Cedar City, UT just ahead of some cold and wind.

You don't see this number very often...not that we travel at that speed hauling the trailer  ;-)
Notice the big truck flying past us!

Last weekend a storm dumped rain across the entire NW leaving snow on any mountain at about 9,000 feet or higher. Today we got to enjoy it at Cedar Breaks National Monument, where they got about 10 inches.

All Monument services are closed for the season, but the road is open until the snows take over sometime next month. We hiked half of the two mile Ramparts Trail which overlooks the main amphitheater...the trail was just too dangerous given the snow and ice to complete the whole thing. We also hiked the two mile Alpine Pond Trail. This was gorgeous in the snow and had less than 100 feet of altitude change...considering we started the trail at 10,460 feet that was a really good thing!

It was sunny, cold (37 degrees) and windy when we first arrived but the wind died down and it was a comfortable 44 degrees for hiking as the day wore on. Our little point and shoot camera simply can't do justice to the amazing, expansive views we witnessed.

Spectra Point at Cedar Breaks. South facing mountains are clear of snow.

Spectra Point...North facing mountains are vibrant with sun lighting up the new snow.

The angles and shadows were mesmerizing!

The Ramparts trail from the Visitor Center was slippery in places...with a scary drop to the West!

Hoodoo's!

Alpine Pond

Alpine Pond, the water was crystal clear.

:-)

Following deer tracks through the snow!

Campground Review: Oasis Campground, Yuba State Park, UT

Just 110 miles South of Salt Lake City is lovely Yuba State Park. It's an oasis in this high desert country so we stayed in the aptly named Oasis Campground. (Click on any picture to enlarge.)

Oasis Campground is set in the trees on the shore of Yuba Lake. Snow
capped mountains in the distance, dump station and fish cleaning station
are in the foreground across the road from the campground.

It has 28 sites, 11 have water and electric hookups. Here is a map and legend detailing each site. Sites 2 and 4 are fabulous view sites overlooking the lake but without hookups. There is a dump station just outside the campground. Half of the sites have some degree of slope to them and there are trees and rocks that can make some sites difficult to navigate and some blocks could be required to level.

Our site, #13, had a tree that had been chopped back to accommodate large rigs,
and rocks delineating the parking area. Utilities were on the wrong side, but
were reachable. That's our sitting area on the left.

Sites with hookups are $20/night, $16 without hookups. There is also day use parking for $7. One can even stay in the host site if there is no host for $25. There are two small cabins overlooking the water for rent.

This campground is mostly frequented by boaters, fishermen and ATV riders. In the middle of summer we heard it is booked solid, but surprisingly it is lightly used on the shoulder seasons. There were probably 10 sites full on Sunday night and only 6 on Monday night. The weather was gorgeous we were very happy to be in a beautiful and quiet setting after the hustle and bustle of SLC.

Even though the weather was perfect for ATV riding, there were very few here making it peaceful and allowing us to use the ATV trails for hiking and mountain biking. There is a foot/bike only trail at the North end of the campground where we surprised dozens of pheasants and rabbits whenever we walked it!

Our Verizon and Millenicom 3G cell and internet service worked well here.

All sites, with the exception of the row near the boat launch, are arranged
around a central grassy area with nice separation between sites. Photo taken
from the trail at the North end of the campground, our rig is hidden in the trees
in the center of the picture.

Shower (free) and restroom facilities were clean and new looking. There are horseshoe pits and a sand volleyball court.

Nearby in the State Park there are boondocking sites along the shoreline, as well as boat-in camping and another campground on the East side of the lake that also can handle large rigs.