Utah Basin To The Lonliest Highway in Nevada

If you ever, I say EVER, feel the need to get away from it all for awhile, please drive from Bryce Canyon, through the Utah Basin and on into Ely, Nevada, the first stop on what Time Magazine dubbed "The Loneliest Highway", US RT 50, which more or less follows the former route of the Pony Express. We were so alone for most of this trip that we actually felt excited if we saw another vehicle coming at us from the other direction! That, after all, suggested that we actually WERE going somewhere. I sometimes find reason to take exception to declarations made by Time Magazine, but they sure nailed this one! I tell ya it made you want to sing Mr. Lonely all day long. Now the scenery mind you, was pretty terrific, which is what makes it all worthwhile, but you need to see the scenery and not photograph that scenery because it isn't very often that there is anywhere to pull off for that photo-op. It was so bad (and so lonely) that at one point I just stopped dead in my lane of the road to walk back and use the bathroom...and that did NOT create any road hazard because at that point you could see a good "20 minutes" in either direction, and weren't nobody comin'.

There were some sections of the road posted to watch for wildlife but we saw absolutely nothing...and it certainly was not because of humans encroaching on wildlife habitat. There were none of them either! There was a short time of hyper-excitement, as we climbed the far side of the basin to climb out of the bowl we had been driving in, I about ran out of gears to get us up and over the top- I climbed the last 1/4 mile in first gear, and that was touch and go.

Tonight we are nestled into a small KOA at the outskirts of Ely (pronounced Eel-ee), Nevada. The first picture of the post is our unencumbered view out the front window of the coach. It looks like a western line Hallmark Card and while there is not much out there either, it is quite lovely to look at. True, the wind is gusting to 50, but that doesn't block the view, now does it?



For the record, we are now still in The Great Basin- a portion of the country that does not drain into any ocean. I have come to think of it as a gigantic stone bowl. From the bottom of the bowl the mountains are magnificent. From the ridge of the bowl, the valleys are spectacular in the distances below. From the downside of the bowl, you better hope the engine break keeps working and that you don't need the run-away-truck-ramp that is sure to be provided because it is necessary at times. And on the up-the-side of the bowl, well, be glad you have a first gear and hope the engine doesn't stall out. I guess I've come to think of it as the real "sport of bowling."

We visited the Chamber of Commerce in Ely this afternoon. Yes, they have one; it is a nice little town which we will explore along with its surroundings this week. We picked up a registration card of sorts- you get it stamped here and at each of the other five small towns along The Loneliest Road and then the state sends you a certificate for having survived the challenge of learning about the history of The Loneliest Road. We hope to earn one as we continue on our way after our stay here.

On this next image, you can see our walking sticks, which we made from Diamond Willow, harvested courtesy of Chicken Gold Camp, Chicken, Alaska, strapped to the front of the ATV. It never ceases to amaze me how many comments we get when we are using them- mostly from admirers who want to know what they are and where we got them. Linda Duke, showed me how to strip it, age it, and finish it- a process that takes the better part of a year. Light. Strong. Aged to perfection!

Here's a look at Tropic Reservoir- out in the boonies and located by an ATV ride from Ruby's back at Bryce Canyon. Water features like this are always a pleasant surprise in such an arid area.

On the way to Tropic Reservoir we passed a flat area known to be the location of a prairie dog village. We love visiting their little communities.

Ruby's! Don't Take Your Love To Town.

So this is not much more than a simple photo essay on what there is to do at Ruby's Inn and RV Resort- and Ruby's "justabouteverythingelseyoucouldwantorneed," besides visiting Bryce Canyon on your own. One tip to ATVers: Ruby's gives out free with every stay some excellent DeLorme Trail Riding Maps with all kinds of nice trails and various skill levels available. Tomorrow , weather permitting, we'll be out on the trails.

Bryce! Nice!

Last week while we were exploring Zion National Park, we talked to quite a few people who had already visited Bryce Canyon and we asked them to compare and contrast. The typical response was, "Well, they're so different, it's like comparing apples to oranges." But yesterday while we were exploring Bryce, and discussing which of the two parks we liked the best, Marilyn remarked that it was more a matter of comparing "golf balls to kangaroos" than apples to oranges. I liked that image enough to want to repeat it here.

Let's start with a simple truth. Bryce is beautiful. Unusual. Different. Worth seeing. Nice! But having seen Zion first and only a week back, it seems natural to continue with the comparison. As we discussed this issue over the last couple days, we reached the conclusion that while we liked Bryce very well, we measurably prefer Zion. And the basic difference, other than structural, is that you look DOWN into the canyon to view Bryce, but you look UP from the canyon bottom to view Zion. There is something, for us anyhow, in the perspective that matters. We are more impressed lifting our eyes to the top of the mountains and toward the heavens than we are standing above and looking down. Bryce, if you will, is more like the Grand Canyon, and Zion has more the feel of the Rocky Mountains or glacial Alaska for example. Zion is also a much bigger space to explore and has much more in the way of modest and challenging hiking trails that lend themselves to making your visit there considerably more personal.

Now if you come this way, you should definitely see both. But if you even think you may feel similar to the way we feel about these landscapes, then by all means, come to Bryce first. You will be awed without the somewhat of a letdown we experienced having seen the massive impressiveness of Zion first. Marilyn's son Dick had told us quite a while back that Zion was THE most beautiful place. Pretty sure he nailed that call! He is a rock climber, too, so his opinion comes with a perspective of its own. Zion is "climbable" in may places. Bryce is not climbable as the brochure advises the soft sandstones of the eroded pillars in the canyon wouldn't support anything more than the weight of a chipmunk on the climbing ropes. And your eye will confirm that the minute you pull over at the first scenic lookout.

There is much more to see in this area, so that will be the mission for the rest of our scehuled week here.

 

 

The Long Way To Bryce

There was a shorter road from Zion to Bryce Canyon, but a switchback road and a tunnel that wasn't suitable for us forced us to take the longer road- 135 miles. It seemed as though that was too bad to run the extra miles but it turned out to be our good fortune as after entering the Dixie National Forest land we passed through  a five mile stretch called Red Canyon. THAT was a blessing. We pulled over where and when we had the opportunity with the coach, but once we landed and set up camp we beat feet back there in the van to get a few more pictures. It was that beautiful and different from anything we'd ever seen.

Base camp for our Bryce and area visit is Ruby's Inn and RV Park. It's a big campground, plenty roomy, not as polished as the Zion River Resort but cell phone and mifi works good here and that's a huge plus in this type of terrain. Ruby has a corner on everything here- Inn, campground, general store, tourist attractions, shuttle parking lot, state store, fuel (at reasonable prices) and more. You can rent both horses and ATV's very close to camp, take guided tours of the area, and there is also a small airport here in case you want to get up in the air while you are here. Pretty much everything you could want is right here- no need to head into town which is quite a ways off anyhow. As Kenny Rogers used to say, or was it just the guy in his song, "At Ruby's don't take your love to town...." or something like that!

Wrapping Up Zion

As the holiday weekend crowd started to thin out, we headed back into Zion National to sample some more of this wonderful place. The first mission was to drive ourselves through the park on Utah Rt 9 which travels the high, higher, highest parts of the canyon wall and then ducks though a light-less tunnel of 1.25 miles. There are some "windows" in the tunnel but even with those, with the absence of any electrical lighting, it is very dark in there- headlights and all. The switchback route to it climbs very quickly and if you are a fan of guard rails, well, there are only a few and if you get careless they are not going to help all that much. Not my favorite road safety wise, but again the scenery was great. The tunnel itself permits traffic first on one direction, then shuts down while the other direction funnels through. We had the good fortune to stop before going through in a spot where we could watch a couple of kamikaze climbers defy gravity and shuffle up a rock cliff that looked unclimbable to the likes of me. I want you to know these pics were taken with my telephoto lens...and those guys still look way up there and tiny.

 
 
When you finally come out of the tunnel that tops the canyon, it is as though you have entered a completely different world. The hard sandstone of the canyon gives way to curvacious and soft sandstone that in many places seems like it would be moon-like landscape. The vegetation changes at this point as well. It is like two national parks for the price of one. And now that we claim "seniorhood" we get in all national parks for 10 bucks each- one pass covers ALL national parks. There are some captions on the slide show so that you will know where the shot was taken, but I think you'll figure it out on your own.

Then after out trip through the park on rt 9 we followed signs to Coral Pink Sands State Park only a short ride beyond Zion. It wasn't a large park but the sights were impressive and while I'm not sure I would have named it "pink" park, it is a shade of reddish rose and I guess that's close enough. Those pictures will be evident as well.

And then finally we used our last day to go back into the deep canyon to shoot a few images and mountains we had not had a chance to get. At Dripping Springs we happened upon a young buck mule deer grazing just below the spring on the side of the cliffs. We stopped and had our snack/lunch and watched as the deer munched on tender leaves. Nice.

 

Tomorrow it is off to Bryce Canyon for us- a week in that spot. Looking forward to what should be a very different experience there.

Oh heck, one more shot:

 

Trailriding Outside of Zion

While the holiday crowd packed the National Park, we packed up the ATV and headed out of camp in the opposite direction with the idea of getting far from the madding crowd. It worked. Only two miles down the road from camp, we turned off the main road and crossed the Virgin River and headed out onto the series of trails called the Hurricane Cliffs Trail System. Had a wonderful ride, took in the trail sites and venues that held some interest beyond the beautiful scenery and when we eventually came back out onto the highway we stopped for some buffalo burgers and some cactus flavored ice cream which we sat and ate under a grape arbor with a bunch of bikers. We had the only 4-wheeler in the lot!

Zion

Some time back on our 6 year trip back and forth North America I ran across a guy who told me he was just "sick to death of scenery." He wanted to go "home" and have an end to all the landscape he had to look at non- stop on all his travels. I don't appreciate his concept so much as I understand what he was saying. This country has non-stop scenery to offer and the second you think you have seen it all or even a fraction of it- it changes yet again. It's not terribly different from the guy who wrote a piece while traveling in Alaska that he was sick of "all the damn green;" he longed for the brown of Arizona, and had to go home. We get used to different things in this country. We forget how big, how vast, how expansive our geographical universe is and we tend to think we have a handle on what it is we really have in this country. We never do. Those who put down "roots" and stay attached to them have an in depth understanding of the soil they have grown attached to. But nothing more. The politics and the sentiment and the likes and dislikes of this country change as frequently as the geography does- every couple of miles. You can't know your own country until you fit yourself into it, drown yourself in what others deal with every day, see it for yourselves. The more I see of this, the harder it is to piece together the forces that try every day and every way to tear the country apart. The same force that erodes the mountains and the valleys and the rivers and the plains. We all think we know what is going on. We don't!

With that in mind we went to see Zion National Park in Utah. If you've had enough scenery- please- don't spend the dime to come here- it's everywhere. The way in. The way out. In town. Out of town. In the park. Out of the park. Nonstop. Bigger than you've ever scene unless you've been to Alaska. Bigger than you dreamed possible. Bigger than you have an understanding of. Bigger than your universe has previously been exposed to. Bigger than your mind has been able to comprehend before you've seen all this. I write. I photograph. But Ansel Adams I'm not. And so no way will I do this place justice unless I pair it with a few words or phrases that help you understand this is bigger than me, bigger than you, more of a gift than our petty contrivances can ever be. We all pale in comparison to what God has created here. Don't believe in God? Come here. Look up, then tell me that!

Here's some images from our first couple days here. Some stuff we never expected to see here. Some stuff we saw to a much greater extent than we expected to see here. Some stuff that's hard to believe when you're looking right at it. And a few things that are thrown into the mix just for fun- which for sure is what we are having here at Zion national park- Utah.

Before I ever got to the park, I ran across these guys. Didn't expect that!

   

My new tow vehicle I found at a gallery in town...

 

Scenery even before we reached the park ...

Rock everywhere...

He offered to pay the fine himself for a piece of granola energy bar...

as much beauty in the small stuff as there is in the grandiose....

 

The next show comes in three parts rolled together- what we saw on the way in, what we saw inside, what we saw in town and around town. Man, what a place!

Slide show- here it comes:



You're gonna see a few typos in the captions if you're paying attention. Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. It took me hours and hours to get this post up at all what with the NEW blogger format and the camp wifi. Apologies in advance.  I've had enough fun for one day! Blogger, technology in general, changes almost daily. I do my level best to keep up but it's an ongoing battle. I shutter to think what would happen if I stopped writing this blog even for a short period of time. You can get lost in this universe if not engaged daily. That is too fast for us all. No time for digestion. No wonder we begin and end each day with an upset stomach of sorts!