Overland Camping Roadtrip Blog
Travel Day 28:
Total km driven to date: 6006km
Total km walked to date: 230.78km
Escalante, UT – Hurricane, UT
353km drive
6.5km on foot
Loving the mountains of Utah, I was actually cold last night, it got down to 13* what a glorious change from the mid 30’s during the day. We packed up and planned on heading to Bryce Canyon to check it out and see the sights. It was about an hour drive from where we were camped, down out of the mountains into pasture land and then back up into the mountains. Its really amazing how you’ll be down in a hot and rugged canyon and the road will rise and next thing you know you’ll be driving along the plateau with nothing but grass and no desert to be seen. Every time is surprises me! We got to Bryce Canyon around 11am, $30 entrance fee, which we didn’t have to pay due to our annual park pass. If you are planning on doing a trip and seeing more than 3 national parks I highly recommend it. For some reason Arches and Canyonlands were only $10 but all the other parks I’ve been to are $30. I will tell you I’m glad I had that pass because you sure don’t get much excitement for your $30 at Bryce. It was much like Canyonlands just less impressive. Don’t get me wrong it was still very cool to see, but in comparison to some of the other places I’ve been it was not as great. The park is up on top of the plateau and the road is 18miles from start to the end of the line and you just wind along the canyon ridge with multiple pullouts to see the hoodoos and red rock formations. It is quite a bit different than Moab, less rock and more gravel almost, it was breathtaking to see but pretty much the same all along the drive. Take a look at the pics and you can decide for yourself. After Bryce I decided I really wanted to get to Cedar City and get some groceries and use some WiFi so we set off on the 2hr journey. Leaving Bryce is pretty cool because you pass through Red Canyon and the hwy actually goes through a few arches, unfortunately I did not get a picture because it happened so fast. After that it was through some more pasture and ranch land, listening to some extremely racist and bigoted conservative radio, blowing my mind America what some of you believe!
We turned onto Hwy 14 as the fastest route to Cedar City and ended up climbing to almost 10,000ft through Dixie National Forest (there is clearly more than one Dixie National Forest) got caught in a crazy hail storm near the top of the pass and thought my windshield was going to break it was coming down so hard. Then it was down down to Cedar City which is back in the desert like climate, not as preferable to me after spending some time up in the forests. I did some shopping and my buddy Josh (#murica) recommended I try Starbucks Wifi over McD’s and let me tell you, its waaay faster and also as a bonus the girls going into Starbucks are a lot better looking than the ones going into McD’s. The WiFi was so fast I finally decided to change the maps on ole Garminder since it really had no clue where I was half the time. That still took a really thrilling 2hrs in the parking lot at Starbucks but success, now I cant blame Garminder anymore for leading me astray. At this point it was 7:30 and I wanted to hightail it as close as I could to Zion National Park so I could get there early in the morning. It was just getting dark and I found a horrible spot exposed on this bluff with nothing larger growing around here than some tumbleweeds. The wind was whipping extremely hard and 34* and I got the extra surprise of opening my camper to find most of my groceries had fallen out of the door and all over the floor. Of course the only thing to spill was 3 pepsi, mmmm sticky. I cleaned that up and sat and watched a gnarly lightening storm batter Hurricane Utah down below me as I got rocked by the hot wind. Its now 10:30pm and still 33* and I’m thinking of going to bed with no dinner since its hot and I’m just not feeling like cooking. Here’s to hoping that Zion tomorrow is as exciting as everyone says it is! Oh and Happy Canada Day to all my Canadian friends, it was not a very celebratory day for me, but I have July 4th to look forward to.
