I had been hearing about Utah for quite a while now... from my niece and nephew that went there not long ago to other friends that have been over the years. I finally made it to the land of high elevation, red rocks and desert. In my trusted old Subaru, I packed up the bags and made a diagonal B-line through Washington, Oregon and Idaho to my first destination, Moab. A two day drive of about 10 hours a day. In addition to a road trip with a lot of hiking, I wanted to paint plein air with oil and acrylic paints on wooden boards.
I got my self a campground on the outskirts of town for three days, checked out their Main Street full of shops, restaurants and galleries, then got ready for a few days of consecutive early morning departures (5:30 am) to Arches National Park, a nearby five miles away. The bonus of course by leaving early is that you arrive to the park's famous features and hiking trails before the crowds and you are there for the magical hours of sunrise. Unfortunately, like in many places these last few years of post pandemic and instagram world, there has been an explosion of visitors. Arches now requires that between the hours of 7am until 4 pm, you must register online the night before for a 1/2 hour time slot to enter by car. Leaving earlier however, you can just drive through.
Arches National Park has over 2000 arches, in different layers of sandstone, caused be erosion, rain, ice and wind over thousands if not millions of years (minutes in geologic time). They break down into "fins" as seen in the photo below, then eventually a crack here, falling rock there and holes (arches) are formed which, in turn, will eventually collapse as well in an ever changing landscape in time.
Devil's Garden
Excellent panels explaining the evolution of erosion.
After hiking a couple of hours at sunrise on well trodden paths, I saw on a posted sign showing a circular "primitive trail" that looped back to the main area. I decided to go there. I somehow ended up in a narrow canyon where I had to scale up many rocks and down again to go around several pools of water, some probably as deep as I am tall. I kept seeing footprints, so I thought... "ok, this must be it"... and "it sure in hell is primitive"! I finally made it out of the canyon onto a vast area of whitish rock and corse sand interspersed with twisted juniper trees, sage and small cactus.
I have a good sense of direction so, although I could not see the red rocks I where I had started (they were way over the hill of my current rocky region), I thought I could figure it out. I didn't really want to backtrack through the canyon. It was around 10 am, I had no reception on my phone, one bottle of water and a sandwich. The wind was howling (I later found out at about 60 mph all day). After an hour of walking, I was very relieved to finally see the blue dot on google maps, where I was located, and the pin of the parking lot where I had started. Luckily I saw it because I was off by probably 5-10 degrees the direction I had started to walk out of the canyon. Still, it took me another three hours to navigate massive crevasses in the rocks and make my way back, windblown, and a swollen big toe on my right foot. Quite the first day.
The sky that afternoon was hazy from all the sand and dust blown in the air. I stopped at a few more spots on the drive back out of the park. Later, at an outdoor store in town, I saw on a detailed map where I had gone. It was not the trail indicated on that sign but indeed a canyon going off in the different direction of the aforementioned loop. The person I spoke to said footprints can be deceiving because some people are "canyoneering" for days and camping... so not on the regular trails of the park. A week later, I had also met a couple of hikers that also got lost in the same area thinking they were on that not-well-marked primitive trail. They had a Garmin GPS though , a smart thing to have.
The Delicate Arch, the most iconic arch of the park, of Utah and probably the world.
'Double Arch'
'Three Gossips' part of a series of tall rocks resembling skyscrapers (and just as tall) called 'Park Avenue'
'Tower of Babel'
It was in Park Avenue, where I hiked a ways, that I tried my first plein air oil painting. Gusts of wind made me hang on to the easel every 10 minutes or so, and at one point, it snowed.
After a few days of exploring Arches, I left Moab at 5am to drive the twenty plus miles to Canyonlands National Park. High on a plateau of mesa mountains, I arrived for sunrise at the 'Island in the Sky' section of this massive park. The plateau drops to a miles-wide canyon below and once again, drops to where the meandering Green river eventually joins the Colorado River a few miles south. It is remarkable how different Canyonlands is to Arches, yet they are so close to each other. The former is a lot more like the Grand Canyon. I stopped at all the look out points before parking my car and doing a five mile roundtrip hike, again to the edge of the plateau. One can spend weeks hiking there, even 4 wheel driving down below in the canyon. However, all that access requires permits, which must be applied for months in advance during the peak season. I lucked out and got a campsite in the park (first come first serve) in the late afternoon after the hike and tried my hand at another plein air painting.
the Green River
I was impressed by all the information posted in the US National and State Parks. There was geological, historical explanations and anectdotes, even poetic passages.
Before it became a National Park in the early 60s, there was uranium mining in the area. This road was built back then and it makes it accessible the bottom of the canyon today.
I had not worn my old Bolivian poncho in years... no better place to wear it than here, on this chilly desert morning.
I returned one last time during the day to Moab, to get food and a few supplies, before heading out, this time along the Colorado River where I set up at another campground along its shore. I got my feet wet, the water was cold and silty, I could not see my toes in six inches of water. In town, there were cars and "rigs" (decked out Sprinter vans and trucks with campers in the back) from all over the States and some from Canada. I noticed that Jeeps were very popular with 'Utahns' as locals are called. Along the road following the Colorado River, there were massive cliff walls and a few had petroglyphs, dating back from five hundred to two thousand years. Impressive. Near the campground there was another popular hike of a few miles to Corona Arch.
A cool motel from the 50s where John Wayne and other Hollywood stars stayed while filming Westerns in the area.
'Corona Arch'
I left the Moab area after five days and drove a hundred miles toward the town of Hanksville. I stopped at Goblins State Park and walked around these odd looking hoodoos that were formed over a million years ago when the area had a receding inland sea. There were these huge 'buttes' as they are called, large table top mountains, in the area as well as a slot canyon (small, very narrow, as in barely able to squeeze through) that I stumbled upon after meeting a few locals at Goblins. I was able to park my car alongside some red mountains, and spend the night there camping for free, as many people do, on what they call BLM land (Bureau of Land Management, government land, the American equivalent of our Crown Land) I had brought my tent, which I used a few times in campgrounds however, I was also set up to sleep in the back of my Subaru. It was often easier to do just that, especially since it was quite windy until the wee hours of the night.
pronghorns
Little Wild Horse slot canyon. Signs tell you to check the weather, if there is recent rain, even a hundred miles away, one must use caution or not go at all as these canyons can flash flood and fill up with water.
Carved by water. A skull.
Gnarly old trees in the wash.
I had not done much research before my trip but I was often getting valuable intel from other people that I met, either locals or people doing the same thing as me, driving around these incredible varied Utah landscapes. The next chapter brought me up a 20 mile 4x4 road to the top of Capital Reef National Park to a remote section called Cathedral Valley. The end of the road had a small sandy parking lot with a sign that said no tents allowed. There were two other camper vans, one of which were two Canadian guys that were into Astro-photography. They had tripods, full on cameras and lens and told me that the Milky Way only appears from 3 til 5 am. So I woke up early and indeed, the night sky was stunning, helped by the fact that it was a new moon, and no light pollution anywhere around for hundreds of miles. The spot where I was had these two massive, sculpted towers of sandstone poetically called Temple of the Sun and Temple of the Moon.
'Temple of the Sun'
'Temple of the Moon'
It's almost difficult to even take photos of these formations when it's not the golden hours of sunrise or sunset.
I ended up taking a motel in Hanksville, as I needed to have a shower after almost a week of tent/car camping. It turned out that I was in the area for four days as there were so many lesser known sites to see. One of them, also by luck for me, was called Moonscape Overlook. I had pulled over into a gravel road off the main highway to take a photo of 'Factory Butte' this massive mesa on the desert horizon. There was a pullover with a sign, explaining the butte. Another car pulled over to read it, we got talking and the couple, in a rental from another state, told me they were going to this apparently awesome overlook, 15 minutes away according to their GPS. So I followed them. The last few miles were on a seriously bumpy pot holed dirt road. When we arrived, out of nowhere obvious from before, the plateau dropped a hundred plus metres to an eery landscape of grey, green and black, exactly like its name suggested.
The following morning, a short drive from my motel, brought me to yet another imposing site called the Spire. The late afternoon before, I had put its name into google maps and it sent me a 45 minute drive north, down a dirt road. As the sun was quickly setting, I could not find what I was looking for. I asked a few locals, they did not know, then another out of State car said that google maps was "wonky" in this area. Back in Hanksville I asked an employee at a burger joint and the local said "Oh yeah, we call it Long John Silver around here." Google maps had that direction and it was only a 10 minute drive out of town. It actually worked out as the light of the sunrise is much better with the background than that of a sunset. Another wild landscape right out of Lord of the Ring's Mordor.
'Factory Butte'
'Moonscape Overlook'
the Spire
This area was mostly grey black sand and stone. The snow covered Henry mountains on the horizon.
As opposed to the other four paintings I did, I actually almost finished this one as the wind was not blowing much.
Hanksville
I left Hanksville going southwest through Glen Canyon (more huge red rocks and valleys) crossing the Colorado river and headed toward the famous Monument Valley and the land of the Navajo nation in Arizona. Coming down an incredibly high plateau, where there was still snow in the shade of small trees, the road became gravel and twisted down hill at a steep 10 degrees, several signs warning no RVs or trailers allowed. I had circled a spot on my map recommended by someone called the Valley of Gods, a 17 mile loop of dirt and sand road, going through yet again, spectacular mesa mountains. I decided to spend the night there. I had time to kill before sunset hour and cooking up dinner so I set up the easel and tried to paint again only to be foiled once more by the strong wind gusts. I have taken photos to finish these paintings back in my studio at some point in the future. Another free car camping spot on BLM land. There must have been twenty or so other motorists spending the night as well, but none that close to each other.
After a week of blue skies it was nice to see clouds.
windy!
The entrance to Monument Valley from the north, still in Utah. This is the spot where Forest Gump stopped running, along with the crowd of runners behind him. There's even a sign on the highway, so of course, everyone stops to take a photo. It's not a busy highway as you can see.
After driving several hours in Arizona through Navajo country I arrived in Page, first stopping on the outskirts where the road sign said Antelope Canyon. This is a very famous slot canyon, on Navajo territory, so they run tours in it. The large parking lot with probably 200 cars in it already sort of turned me off, as did the 80$ dollar fee. I remember seeing photos of it, like 30 years ago in a National Geographic. I should have gone then. It's of course spectacular but I just didn't fell like going, instead opting for a craft brewery in town and having a cold one. It was much warmer during the day here than everywhere else I had been in Utah. There was a farmer's and craft market in town, selling lots of turquoise stones. I ended up buying a felt cowboy hat! I already had my Mexican straw one.. but I somehow liked the upward flare of this one. When in Arizona... I slept in the Subee on the outskirts of town then drove early after watching the sunrise back north east into Utah, taking a secondary dirt road into the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, a vast region of desert wilderness with smaller canyons and rivers.
the Paria river
There is cattle on the range everywhere in Utah (and most other Southwestern states). This was the only time I saw Texas longhorns though. When they saw me, a group of about twenty, they bolted.
'Grosvenor Arch'
Coming out of that valley brought me back to the main highway toward the town of Escalante. I stopped to have a pizza and beer at the one place where everyone I had met raved about. It was a really good wood fired pizza. Late afternoon, I headed to another long dirt /sand washboard road toward Hole in the Rock. There was another spot with hoodoos and another 'Devil's garden,' just like at Arches. I stopped there for an hour of exploring. A few more cool arches, red sand and great twisted dead trees. I pulled the car over for dinner, sunset and the night on 'Egypt road', halfway toward a hiking trail I was planning to do the next day.
Escalante
The following morning was spectacular. Sunrise with dark moody clouds all over and windy. It felt so remote and I saw no vehicles until I got to the parking lot of the trailhead to Golden Cathedral, way down below in a small canyon 6 miles away. This time, I made sure to download the map on All Trails app. The first section was all downhill on solid rock, with a few patches of sand. There were small cairns (what we would call inukshuks) all along. In this case, they were pretty much essential to show you the trail down and later back up. However, I have read and heard from rangers that too many people are making them, unnecessarily, for fun or some photos/hashtags on social media. Every rock moved and piled up eliminates possibility of moisture and actually has an effect on the landscape. At popular destinations like Yellowstone or Arches, people are hired to dismantle them. I knew that I had to cross a fast moving river so I packed my crocs, a lunch, and three bottles of water. It was such an amazing view looking way down to the unseen river and canyon below.
So many sculptures of dead twisted branches of juniper trees.
The meandering Escalante river that I had to cross five times before getting into the canyon.
'Golden Cathedral'
It took me about six hours to do the entire hike, longer on the return uphill of course just as the clouds dissipated with a bright shining sun. I got back to my car with about 10% left in my phone battery, after having taken a lot of photos and checks on the map. It was an exhilarating day and there were still several more hikes the area that would have been awesome. However, I had come to the realization that the end was near and that I had to start making my way back, giving myself a few days of driving.
I had decided to return through Nevada and Northern California and central Oregon instead of the quicker way that I had come down to Utah two weeks prior. I drove over another high mountain pass, still lots of snow and aspen trees with some great lookouts over the desert plains below. After sunset, I pulled over at another side road near a small town for the night. The following day was a long drive to and down highway 50, dubbed the "loneliest highway in America" starting in Utah, a straight line eastward across Nevada. Sure enough, I would see only one car or truck every 30 minutes or so, crossing huge valleys with only sporadic cattle, up and over a mountain range, then another valley, another mountain range... like about five times before eventually getting to Reno and Northern California. There were a few small towns with lots of character but, sadly, many of the old commercial buildings vacant and falling apart only to have a corporate gas station and junk food on the outskirts of town. Most of the bigger towns always had at least one Mexican restaurant or food truck, which was a welcome relief to either Burger King or Subway.
It was an amazing trip, just a taste really of the astonishing landscapes of red rocks and desert canyons that I will undoubtedly return to one day in the future.
"The wind will not stop. Gusts of sand swirl before me, stinging my face. But there is still too much to see and marvel at, the world very much alive in the bright light and wind, exultant with the fever of spring, the delight of morning. Strolling on, it seems to me that the strangeness and wonder of existence are emphasized here, in the desert, by the comparative sparsity of the flor and fauna: life not crowded upon life as in other places but scattered abroad in sparseness and simplicity, with a generous gift of space for each herb and bush and tree, each stem of grass, so that the living organism stands out bold and brave and vivid against the lifeless sand and barren rock. The extreme clarity of the desert light is equaled be the extreme individuation of dearest life forms."
