Final Images From The “Rim” – Flaming Gorge, UT

Evening colors from the rim

I spent my last evening at Flaming Gorge watching a kaleidoscope of color move across the canyon for sunset. It was just me, pooch and the vast, beautiful emptiness of space. As the earth stretched to the horizon and the shadows followed it I got that wonderful feeling of  being at one with the world. These are the kind of moments I live for.

A last glimpse of the sun

But we’ve had more than one good sunset here on the “rim”. It’s been a wonderful week of play, hike and view. The weather has been perfectly cool, the afternoons wild and stormy, and the evenings smooth and peaceful ends to the day. And to put the icing on the cake I fulfilled one of my life-long dreams. I finally got to see the Ovis canadensis!  

Beautiful Big Horn!

Seeing these wonderful animals has been something that’s been on my “bucket list” for…well…forever. We’ve tried (and missed) multiple times, but knew we’d get another chance here in Flaming Gorge. Bighorn Sheep, or rather (specifically to this area) the Rocky Mountain Bighorn, were practically hunted to extermination in the 1900′s. Thanks to dedicated conservation efforts they were reintroduced to Flaming Gorge 1983 and have flourished since. There are several large herds in the area and because they’re so laid-back here (seemingly uncaring of both cars and people), it’s one of the easiest places in the country to see them.

Afternoon storms at Canyon Rim

We took our chances at Sheep Creek which is a well-known sighting spot. It’s a fascinating geological area where the Continental Plates have pushed rocks into towering layers, giving the impression of a driving through a massive red rock puff pastry. The large, craggy terrain is perfect for Bighorn and we scored the highlight of our trip with a herd hanging out on the rocks ~100 feet up from the road. We didn’t get to see the big beautiful males (the rams live separate most of the year), and the gals were only just peeking over the edge, but it was a sighting nonetheless and I was truly awed! 

Adieu sweet site!

So with that image in mind I leave you with a parting sunset and a cozy fire to end the day. This was our last “long” stop before we hit the coast for our RV date in Oregon, so it’s alas somewhat sad to say goodbye. The next weeks we’ll be doing longer drives and shorter stops, but hopefully we’ll still hit some sweet beauty.

Adieu beautiful Flaming Gorge and hello to our rush West.

You Can Never Have Too Much Hose

Polly wonders what all the fuss is about.

We take a quick break from our scheduled programming to provide you with a practical story. For those who’ve been following the stock market craziness this week (as we have, of course) this will serve both as an intermission and diversion as well as an investing and life moral (as all good stories should). So let us start.

Tho’ we be out on the “rim” and away from the things of man it means noth that we are adventureless. Indeed despite our isolation and happy frolicking we are constantly looking to push the limits of excellence….and it all begins with hose.

Allow me to explain…

A man in action...

They say a man who’s proud of his hose is a fine man indeed. Paul then must be a particularly strapping man given that he’s got over 200 feet of the stuff and still wonders whether he’s got enough. I’m talking of course about water hoses (not that your mind was in the gutter, but I felt it important to point that out), and we put the whole bunch to work at our lovely forest site this week.

For Paul it was a day of splendid tubular vindication and he was particularly happy to point out (multiple times) how prescient he’d been in buying all that hose. As they say in RVing (and certain aspects of life), you can never have too much hose….

That would be 200-feet of hose from the water spigot to the RV.

Which brings us back to the original moral of the story. For all travellers buying ahead, being prepared and having the essentials on hand is a very comforting thing indeed. Add to that the fundamental mantra of DON’T PANIC (from that most excellent guidebook, Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) and you have the perfect combo. In our RV life we have our hose. In investing our cash and our solid dividend stocks. You can never have too many of either and if you follow the Hitchhiker’s advise you will indeed always be OK.

Post Edit: Just in case you want the nitty-gritty details of how we’re handling the market craziness, hubby wrote an excellent post with our strategy on his blog today. Check it out HERE.

Simply Spectacular – Flaming Gorge, UT

Morning view from Canyon Rim

All I can say is simply SPEC-TAC-U-LAR. Spectacular views, spectacular trails, spectacular peace. Today we’re the ONLY RV in a what I would consider a primo campground with views that I’ve rarely seen rivalled anywhere on our travels. Why isn’t this place mobbed? How can this be?

Before my amazement gets the better of me, I guess I should step back a few days and tell you how we got here. Last year I was following some RV friends (Marilyn, Jim and lovely pooch Chester) on their travels through a spot that looked simply too good to miss. The place went immediately on my list of “must sees” and we planned our summer trip this year specifically to hit both the very-same spot and campground they had stayed at.

Late afternoon blues

The secret area is called the Flaming Gorge. Renowned for its geological beauty and fiery red rocks, it’s a 3,788,900 acre (4,674 cubic meter) reservoir tucked at an elevation of ~6,000 feet in the northern boundary of Utah and Wyoming. The big draw here is the water and the fishing. In fact the chilly clear deep blue produce world-record-breaking fish (50lb (23kg) lake trout, anyone?), and if you make the trip down to dip in the waters (oh yes we did) you’ll find that’s where most folks are hanging out. Down by the river you can even score a white-water rafting trip and a free tour of the dam (pretty cool!).

Posing with Polly on the edge

But take a trip 8 miles up the hill and you’ll get a totally different view, and a totally different feel. At Canyon Rim you can gawk at 1,400 foot sheer drops that frame the snaking deep-blue reservoir to the horizon. Mountain weather adds to the allure with a constantly changing panorama of color and texture giving the view of a living Van Gough painting. Only a few day-trippers seem to take the trip, mainly to take a snapshot, and almost no-one stays here (!).

Want even more remoteness? Take the trip out of the Flaming Gorge and into the Ashely National Forest, a 1,287,909 acre natural playground which is one of the least-visited and undiscovered forests in the area (the Dows have a great description on their forest camping website).

Green Lake by Red Canyon Lodge

So, why isn’t this place mobbed? Well, if you’re coming directly from CO it’s one tough drive to get here. The 139 from Fruita, CO to Rangely, UT is not for the faint of heart. With my usual bravado yours truly decided to take the wheel that day, blissfully unaware of the sharp drop-offs and narrow curves to come. I’m fine with steep grades, but there was (get this) a spot where the road had broken off into the ravine and one turn where not much but the RV could fit. In my mind this was worse than the Million Dollar Highway, and our trusty Mountain Directory book did *not* make that clear. 

Sunset at the campground

Nonetheless it was a beautiful drive, despite the hair-raising bits and I’d have pictures except that hubby was too busy clenching the sides of his chair to do the job. There are other ways to get here, (probably the routes I’d recommend for the less adventurous) but they’re longer drives and not major freeways.

The drive, and the fact that most people come for the water explains why we’re all alone by the rim. We’ll be spending several days romping around in the mountain glory up here, going for a few long hikes, basking in near-perfect temperatures, hopefully spotting some Big Horn and getting happily drunk on the simply SPEC-TAC-U-LAR views.

Gone for a dip at Sunny Cove

Walking to the Dam viewpoint

This view is literally steps from our campground

A Meander Down Hwy 12 (Utah)

The night before we rode down Hwy 12 in the monster Paul didn’t sleep. I, on the other hand, snoozed like a petrified log mostly because Paul hadn’t told me why he wasn’t sleeping. And, I started the day naive and happy like a newborn baby. It wasn’t until part of the way into the drive that I started to have an inkling of the reason behind Paul’s red eyes and nervous tics. By the time we passed Bolder Mountain summit I understood, and when we were finally safely parked at Singletree Campground the devious man showed me the “Mountain Directory” so I could read for myself. 

You see, Hwy 12 is quite the drive. It has outstanding scenery, highly varied landscape and stunning viewpoints sprinkled with super-narrow roads, large, steep grades and warnings that trucks should not, unless in dire need, drive along here. All this, my lovely hubby had hidden from me. The “mountain book” is sprinkled with descriptions like “steep”, “10-12% grades”, and “long descents” which Paul had spent the entire evening stressing about. 

In the end it wasn’t quite as bad as it seemed, and I must admit Paul did an outstanding job which was superbly supported by our fabulous Cummings 420 engine and exhaust breaks. But, it’s not for the faint of heart and may not be the first road you’d want to take your 40-foot RV (with tow) on. As for me, I’d do it again in a heartbeat, and I’ll still sleep like a baby….provided Paul’s driving, of course. 

Here’s a visual snapshot (taken from the passenger seat) through our RV window on the drive. 

Scenery just east of Bryce Canyon

 

Twisted, grey-rock sections between Tropic and Escalante

 

Lower section near Calf Creek Falls

 

Hogsback...a ridgeline section of Hwy 12 where cliffs drop-off steeply to either side of the road

 

Wooded section going into Boulder Mountain area

 

View near top of Boulder Mountain dropping down towards Singletree and Torrey

Murphy’s Law of Indicator Lights

They say there are only a few things certain in life…death, taxes and such…but I think Murphy’s Law of Indicator Lights can be added to that list. For the purpose of illustration and story-line, let’s take the random example of our RV.

When the monster is parked in a major town with full and speedy access to a variety of RV specialists as well as a complete assortment of hardware stores, specialty supplies and handymen it hums along like a bee in summer lulling its owners into an entirely peaceful, albeit false, sense of mechanical bliss.

As said owners drive said vehicle out of town the engine practically purrs with responsiveness, all interior fittings are secure as Fort Knox and the gauges strum happily in their absolute best positions.

In is not in fact until the aforementioned suckers are well out in the “boonies” with a wide, open, very pretty, but let’s be honest…very empty expanse of land before them that Murphy shows up. Without warning pieces of wood spring from the wall, warning lights flicker and alarms go off. All of which, of course, randomly happened to us. Our first interior fitting fell off while boondocking in Quartzite. The first shrieking alarm went off ~100 miles out of Phoenix and as we passed the gorgeously deserted summit of Boulder Mountain in Utah one of our slew of indicator lights went berserk.

Sometimes these things resolve themselves, and sometimes we must be, as they say, Zen about the whole process. The interior fitting was easily fixed with some glue and nails, the alarm a small mechanical problem in our tow, whilst a quick reference of the manual for the indicator light revealed that it was simply an “auto-regeneration cycle of the diesel particulate filter” which clearly explained that…n’est pas?

So, none the cleverer we pave our way into the boonies with only the one sure piece of knowledge that at some point, something will go wrong.  Happy travelling everyone

And…to top it off…a couple of random camping shots:

Early sunrise from our bedroom window

Late afternoon filters through the trees at Singletree

Ancient History in Rock and Pine (Dixie Forest, UT)

Sometimes you can really sense the history of a place. I don’t mean by the buildings and such (although I’ve visited a great many gorgeous & historic spots in Europe), but I mean in the earth, in the mountains and in the rock itself.

It’s that sense of perspective you get when you look across a vast expanse of land and feel yourself transported back in time. Like a single ant in a vast colony you become just a very small part of a greater experience. Some people get out of sorts in a place like this while others slot in as if the space had always been waiting for them. 

I’m more of the slotting kind and for me this part of Utah is a little like that. I could spend all day gazing at the ancient rocks, or losing myself in the woods. The earth here has history dating back 270 million years. Capitol Reef (which I can glimpse from my campsite) is a waterpocket fold that juts up from the ground like a massive 100-mile long wrinkle in the earth’s surface. It contains over 10,000 feet of sedimentary strata and correspondingly millions of years of geological history. The surrounding Dixie National Forest stretches from the Grand Basin to the Colorado plateau encompassing an enormous two million acres of land. This is a place where land and space collide in the most awesome way. 

So, if you feel like slipping into a bit of real history, this may just be the spot for you. 

Pine trees snake up the old rock of Dixie Forest

 

The waterfall at Singletree hints a rainbow

 

View of Capitol Reef and the valley from our campsite

 

Gorgeous pine and blue skies

 

Young pinecone in growth

 

On the trail

 

National Forest – 12 paws better than the real thing

Most people in life want the original masterpiece, the real McCoy so to speak. I have to admit I’ve never been one of those people. Put it down to my naturally frugal nature, or just the fact that I’m a bit of an odd-ball, but I’ve always been more attracted to going off the beaten track and finding the hidden gem. As we’ve been travelling round in the RV this tendency has only grown stronger and it’s supported, in large part, by our doggie Polly.

Now I love our National Parks, don’t get me wrong. Many of them are stunning treasures and deserve all the preservation they get. But, and here’s the big black pen coming out, they’re all very unfriendly to man’s best friend. You can ride a horse into Bryce, take a donkey into the Grand Canyon, ATV in Capitol Reef or bike all around Moab, but for some asinine reason you can’t take your dog on a single trail (with very, very few exceptions). For those of us who are responsible dog owners and travel the road with our pooch’s this is a real negative. So, what’s a dog-gone-lover to do?

As it turns out there’s an excellent alternative that speaks directly to my inner nature. Bordering almost every one of the grand National Parks are areas of National Forest. They tend to be just as pretty, are practically unvisited with pristine trails and, here’s the kicker, they’re all completely dog-friendly. So, you can stay ~15 miles from the rim of the Grand Canyon in dog-friendly  Kaibab National Forest or ~10 miles from Bryce in pooch-happy Red Canyon. Then, while all the tourists sheep-herd to the popular trails you can go for a quiet 3-hour hike in your own little paradise, the whole family in tow. On top of this most of the campsites are awesome. For a mere $10-$15/night you’ll get plenty of space, a grill, fire pit, toilets and maybe even a shower. There won’t be any electrical hook-ups, but there’s plenty of space between sites and most places offer water and a dump area. Who needs the TV in a place like this anyway?

National forests are fast becoming a favorite of ours and I can see us frequenting them even more as we travel. So, if you fancy a trip off the beaten track, and you love your pets as much as we do, skip the real thing and stay in the forest.

View from one of the isolated trails in Red Canyon National Forest

Paul relaxes at our gorgeous $15/night campground in Red Canyon

Hoodoos and Stargazing

Hoodoo, Hoodly-dum, hookey, hokus
I think I see a doodledum in the nokus

The word hoodoo seems like it would come from a very silly rhyme in a Dr.Zeuss book. In fact the origin of the word is West African and can mean both a form of magic, nonsense or hokum, or a large, oddly-shaped formation of rock. All of these seem to make sense when you enter the Red Canyon area. Like stepping into a fairytale you find yourself surrounded by bulbous towers of rock, sprinkled by pine trees and bathed in the most un-natural red-orange color. It all seems quite unreal and it certainly is unique. Unlike most canyons, this area is sculpted mainly by ice and thawing rather than moving water. A process called “frost-wedging” (unrelated to the playground version, mind you) cracks the various layers and makes holes and bulbs creating unusual towers of rock in a never-ending process of destruction.

All this happens above 6,000 ft moving up to 9,000 ft which gives this area it’s second unique characteristic and that’s stargazing. The thin air and the fact that it’s pretty much “out there” means you can see 7,500 stars with the naked eye (compared to ~2,500 in a typical small town) which creates quite the visual nighttime masterpiece.

So, if you’re feeling a bit light-headed and somewhat in awe it may just be the magic of Red Canyon drawing you in. Go with it and let your rhyming tongue fly within.

View along a ridge section of the Buckthorn trail in Red Canyon...awesome shot from Paul!

White flowers and red rock

Red trails and fairytales

View of Red Canyon valley

Paul and Polly pose in front of "The Golden Wall"

Heading into deep Utah

Having spent several enjoyable days in moderate civilization, Paul and I have decided to head to the boonies again. So, as of tomorrow morning we’re lifting our jacks and heading North into deep Utah. It’s dry country up there so we’ve fortified our cellar with 24 bottles of wine, 3 bottles of rum and an assortment of other liquors. With a bit of luck we’ll be able to get by without rationing. We’ve also got an ample supply of cheese, so we should be properly nourished and ready for any circumstance.

 Given that we may, or may not have cellphone or internet access for the next week or so, we thought we’d leave you with a few parting shots of our fabulous time in Kanab. It’s been a wagging good time, and I could definitely see us coming back to spend more time volunteering and enjoying the red rocks and country atmosphere. If you don’t hear from us for a while, you’ll know what we’re drinking.

Gorgeous red mesa rock

View of Angel Canyon from Best Friends Sanctuary

Horse Haven at Best Friends

A very happy Nina w/ puppies at the Rescue

Sandstone, nature's art

$2 Westerns and a touch of Hollywood (Kanab, UT)

“I always heard there were three kinds of suns in Kansas, sunshine, sunflowers, and sons-of-bitches.” Josey Wales 

I have to admit I’m a sucker for old Westerns. There’s something about ruggedly handsome men sporting well-worn stubble galloping across the desert  in cowboy hats to save the day. These things speak to the hapless maiden in me. So, you can imagine my bliss when we discovered the hidden gem of Kanab. 

Set in the red mesa terraces of southern Utah, it’s a small town with a long history of good ‘ol Western Movies. Seems like many of the classics came through here from Deadwood Coach in 1924 to Gunmoke in 1955 and the fabulous Outlaw Josey Wales in 1976. The cherry on the pudding is that they kept many of the original sets and you can visit them for free in “Little Hollywood“. It’s a small sign at the side of the road so if you’ve travelled the 5 mins through town and missed it, turn back and drive the main drag again. In the back-yard of the unassuming front hides the gems of many of a good movie.  

So, you can walk the path of Clint Eastwood , peruse the set of Frank Sinatra and top the day by catching a $2 Western at the local Cinema in the PM. If you’re thoroughly in the mood you can even buy a cowboy hat at the Western store and explore the desert mesa in traditional getup. 

So, what d’ya reckon, you ready for the ride? 

Part of the Homestead set for Outlaw Josey Wales

 

Old town set at Little Hollywood

 

Good 'ol Western Props

 

Paul poses in front of the jail-set

$2 Westerns at the Local Crescent Moon Theatre