utah national parks

Jan.22
We’ll spend a few days in Las Vegas at “Las Vegas International RV Park.” It’s not on the strip, in fact it’s several miles from the strip and downtown, in Henderson, Nev. We decide to go to a show Saturday night – Forever Plaid, a 50’s era musical playing at the Gold Coast. Little do we know – the show is sold out, even though it’s been playing forever. The only seats available for Sunday night are in the back of the room at the bar. No thanks . . . Discouraged, we discuss alternatives for the evening, and decide to just have a nice dinner and call it a night. Too tired to drive around, we select the Italian restaurant at the Gold Coast and it turns out to be a good choice – excellent food, nice décor and reasonably priced. After dinner, I tell Steve that I want to play blackjack – which I’ve never done in a casino before – and after 2 hours, I’ve parlayed my $40 stake into - $40. But I’m happy - I had 2 hours of entertainment at no cost . . . not a bad deal, especially in Las Vegas, where money flows freely from consumer wallets to casino treasuries.
We spend 4 days in Las Vegas, see one show – American Superstars, a celebrity lookalike review that’s okay for what we paid for it - $18 each; we got our tickets at the half-price tickets booth on the strip. And while we were there, we were enticed by a timeshare salesperson to listen to a 90 minute presentation the next day for a $75 cash payment. We agree, knowing we won’t succumb to sales pressure – we already own a timeshare in Sedona that we don’t use.
Next day, after the sales pitch (which is surprisingly low-key) we meet my sister Carolyn and her husband, Fred, for lunch and a visit to the classic car museum at the Imperial Palace. Or rather, Steve and Fred spend a few hours at the museum; Carolyn and I make a quick tour in 20 minutes and then leave, arranging to meet the guys later.

Jan.26
We leave Las Vegas for Hurricane, Utah, 30 minutes from Zion National Park. On the way, I have another short stint of driving practice – I drive the RV for about 30 minutes until we come to a stretch that goes through a steep and winding mountain pass and I turn over the wheel. But this time I was much more comfortable at the wheel – perhaps because the road is 2 lanes, wide and straight!
We arrive after dark at the RV park. When we call in the afternoon for reservations, we are instructed to simply select a spot when we arrive and register in the morning. Darkness – and rain – make visibility limited, and getting the RV into the slot requires several tries. My directions are no help to Steve (and I get no sympathy from him for the fact that I’m standing out in the wind, cold and rain trying to direct him onto concrete slab (cracked and broken and not at all level) in line with the water, sewer and electrical connections and avoiding the trees which will limit our satellite TV access. (Yes, this is an important criteria!) But we finally get lined up and connected and settled in. It’s chilly nights like this that I wish our motorhome had a fireplace!
Hurricane, and all of the surrounding area, is beautiful country. This is truly red rock country, a land of ever-changing terrain and hues that range from ochre to bright red-orange, with calming tones of green, grey, blue and black layered in between the brilliance. Rugged cliffs alternate with mountains that look as though someone toppled them over; the strata lie diagonal to the earth. This area offers constant examples of the earth’s prehistoric upheaval – hills of huge boulders, mountains neatly edged with giant rectangular rocks that look as they they were placed by a massive artistic hand.
St. George, 30 miles away, is a small sprawling town set amidst the breathtaking red cliffs and bluffs. It appears to be undergoing rapid growth – the eastern portion is all new homes, fast food and chain restaurants and retail shops, pristine asphalt parking lots.
January 28
Zion National Park. This place is truly breathtaking – a canyon of sheer red and burnt umber cliffs, spires, buttes and ridges. . . an incredible example of the power of wind and water. I feel as though I’m walking through history, knowing that this magnificent landscape took millions of years to create – and at the same time, it is history in process. We visit Zion several times, trying to take it all in. The first day, we start hiking late in the afternoon planning only to go a short distance. We end up hiking for several hours but the destination is well worth it – a slot canyon through which water slices far below the trail, and then eventually crosses the trail, ending our trek. The canyon, like everything we’ve seen at Zion, is awe-inspiring.
On Sunday, Jan. 30, we go to Bryce Canyon, several hours drive from Hurricane and higher in elevation. It has snowed for the past several days and many of the roads and viewpoints at Bryce are closed. And it is COLD . . . 21 degrees. We visit the viewpoints that are open, eyeing the 4-5 feet of snow on either side of the paths that are cleared at the viewpoints. It’s too frigid to enjoy the view – and the hoodoos (wind-carved spires and pinnacles deep in the canyon) are snow-covered so it’s difficult to see much anyway. What we can see is impressive – but preferably viewed in milder temperatures.
We have the same experience a few days later when we go skiing at Brianhead. The snow is deep and powdery, the runs are perfect, the lifts are fast and the crowds are limited (it’s a Tuesday, and even the $10 lift tickets have not encouraged huge numbers to come out.). But the temperature is, as one lift operator describes it aptly, “stinkin’ cold.” At 16 degrees, that’s about 30 degrees colder than we prefer. We quit at 2:45, even though the lifts don’t shut down till 4:30. It’s just too damn cold!
Feb. 1
We are in Moab, Utah, a small community of 6,000 or so – most of whom seem to be rock-climbers, hikers and mountain-bikers. Once again, the scenery all around is stunning – it seems that all of southern Utah is red rock country. I mention to the man who staffs the Visitor Center that Utah is not doing a very good job of promoting its assets – especially the amazing landscape – and he says wryly, “Oh, here in southern Utah we don’t really consider ourselves part of Utah. All the money flows north; they seem to forget we’re here.”
For the next few days, we visit Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. The terrain changes continually, from pancake layers of rocks tinted deep red by oxidized iron to vertically and horizontally sliced cliffs that look like huge red-iced wedding cakes. The scenery is so awesome and continuous that the eye tires of looking; we are saturated with it.
Feb. 5 - Dead Horse Point State Park
The air is so quiet it is palpable. Every sound is like a knife cutting through the silence. . . the breeze blowing through the brush, the skitter of a leaf across the rocky ground, the persistent and surprising buzz of a fly, the crunch of my shoes on the sandstone crust . . .
On the trail in Canyonlands, along the rim of Grandview point . . . we pass a tumble of boulders bigger than cars alongside the trail. The sandstone rock is pockmarked in places; elsewhere the sheer sides of cliffs are carved in bas relief, creating mini-landscapes of mountains and clouds in the rock.
Everywhere, the Utah juniper grows, with its silvery blue berries and twisted, gnarled trunk and stems. When it dies, its contorted skeleton remains, a dramatic piece of desert art.
. . . It surprises me how many people stop at the viewpoints, look, then get back in their cars without walking even a short distance on the trail – even the easy trails. Yet it’s hiking on foot that gives you the best view and appreciation. You see up close the ridges, cracks and movement of time in the rocks. You can touch the leaves of the pinion pine and mormon tea, feel the surface of the slickrock, and really hear the pervasive silence.