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2020-09-22 01:01
in Hiking, Ntrips, Trips
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After being cooped up at home for too long and wanting to escape the fires and smoke in California, stars aligned for us to go with Arturo on a tour of NPs in Nevada And Utah:
turns out we filled up Arturo's small SUV
2775 miles and 11 days:
Day 01: Silicon Valley to Lamoille Canyon, NV
Long drive the first day, 9H+ of driving.
First stop in Truckee:
first stop in Truckee
and then back on Hwy 80:
Reno went by quickly
We took a small detour to see a patch of land filled with warehouses, datacenters, and even the Tesla gigafactory:
would have been nice if we could have gone in
And we resumed a long drive at night to Lamoille canyon where we barely found a camp:
Day 02: Lamoille Canyon, Wendover Airport, Salt Lake City, to Moab
We got up did a nice hike around Lamoille canyon:
Then, back for a long drive to Moab, with a few stops:
burning man art
At the Nevada-Utah border, we stopped at Historic Wendover Airfield (see the page for it)
Eventually arrived at Salt Lake, picked up some food and got a very quick tour:
unfortunately got there 20mn too late to be able to visit the SLC Google office
Then, we had a long drive to Moab with a quick stop by the Google Fibre office in Provo:
Day 03: Moab's Canyonlands
After arriving late at night in Canyonlands, we barely got a spot at a dry campsite and went to Canyonlands the next day:
Day 04: Moab's Arches National Park
The next morning, we got up early to go to Arches NP before all the crowds (the park entrance actually closes at a certain point if enough cars are inside).
just in time for sunrise
Then, lots of nice arches and view we hit from our car:
sheep rock?
We then went on foot for a 9 mile loop ending up on primitive trail to see more arches:
landscape the most impressive arch for me
chipmunks were everywhere, this one wanted our lunch
double arch was pretty cool
first arch I got to be on top, of
not much holding the arch
yes, I know
last picture before sunset
After a pretty long day, we went back to our camp for some rest
Day 05: Moab's Canyonland 4WD Backroads with a Jeep
sunrise
We rented an expensive $300/day jeep rubikon and went on fun roads:
interesting road to take down
we were hoping it would hold for a bit longer
colorado river
salt ponds
we got some feet cleaning fish for free :)
After some 4WD fun all day, we went back to camp for sunset:
Day 06: Goblins Valley and Little White Horse Slot Canyon towards Bryce/Zyon
It was time to leave Moab and go towards South Western Utah (Bryce/Zyon). On the way, we stopped at Goblins Valley. Very cool formations:
we found an interesting and challenging path inside the goblins. We were hoping we'd get out eventually
after a challenging path, we did get out eventually
After a good drive, we got to Little Wild Horse. It wasn't as breathtaking as the more famous Antelope Canyon but it was almost empty, free, and a definitely worth the 2 mile walk in and then out:
some rocks had bits of iron and looked like chickenpox
We got a bonus stop on the way, Hickman Bridge:
After that, we drove to a hotel. nice to have a shower and clean bed:
Day 07: Petrified Forest, Bryce Canyon, and Zion's Kolob Canyons
Escalante Petrified Forest SP was nearby and worth the 1H hike we did around to see the petrified trees from the Jurassic Period:
We did a quick stop by a moss cave just before Bryce. The rocks and ground were already a beautiful red:
moss cave
Then, we had a nice lunch by the beautiful inspiration point:
Next, we went to Kolob Canyon, North Zyon, which we could drive into instead of the rest of Zyon which required riding shuttles in the middle of covid, and that limited entry:
And it was then time to drive to Minersville Lake where we had a campsite.
Arturo made good use of the facilities :)
Day 08-09: Nevada's Great Basin and Wheeler Peak
That was it for our time in Utah, we drove back to the Nevada border (close enough that our cell phones would routinely connect to a UT cell site and change timezone back and forth). We did a hike around the pretty dry lakes and the Wheeler Peak glacier:
we got a nice campsite
chicken-bird
pretty dry
Dinner:
it was quite cold at night
The next morning, we had a nice breakfast and went for the summit (13,000ft):
then 2h20 more to get back down
Back to camp, we had a nice grosbeak that kept us company and enjoyed a bit of our food:
I always bring seeds
Day 10: Across Nevada's US-50: America's Loniest Road
By then, it was time to head back. We headed for Minden, just east of Tahoe and took US-50, across a few very small towns and long stretches of lonely road. We did have a few stops on the way, one of them was Ward Charcoal Ovens, an interesting remnant of history:
Our first stop after the ovens was the train museum in Ely (see this page for more):
After that, it was back on the road:
We did a quick stop at a petroglyphs site, but it was really a waste of time. A few carvings in the rock from pony express passengers:
Next, was a town that had a small "castle", Stokes Castle:
Just to show that we were scraping the bottom of the barrel, the shoe tree was a stop not to miss ;)
And finally, we arrived at Middlegate, for our monster burger challenge. By then it was 15:00, so we were hungry, but the monster burger was almost too much food for the 3 of us:
saw a coyote
poor kitten was scared, and for good reason
our monster burger took over 20mn to make
1.3lbs of meat, good luck
After the big burger, back on the road:
we thought about riding those dunes, but there was no one to rent any equipment
And finally got to Carson City, checked out the capitol:
Day 11: Day Hike at Kirkwood
After a night in Minden, we stopped by kirkwood on our drive home for a nice hike to Thunder Mountain (click for the full page):
We started the day with a blood moon before sunset:
After kirkwood, it was an easy 3H back towards smoky california:
And that was it for 11 days away from California fires and bad air. Definitely worth the trip, thank you Arturo for being our guide. |
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