The road past Zion

We are camped at the confluence of the Dirty Devil and the Colorado rivers wondering why we are the only ones in America to have chosen this campground. Tens of thousands of people wandering around after the closure of the national parks yet nobody here. Perhaps its the fact that camping today is dominated by RVs and this campground doesn't have water or electricity or sewage hook-ups...just beautiful cliffs and canyons with the Dirty Devil river flowing around a horseshoe bend far below...

Our journey here was a continuing ramble. We spent two nights in Seattle, touched the Pacific Ocean on Bainbridge Island (the location for the book Snow Falling on Cedars) and decided the cold rainy weather was not us....we are sun seeking hedonists! A major storm was predicted and our plans for camping on the Oregon coast evaporated. 

We drove south towards Portland and then back across Oregon. The cold at night was making camping a little uncomfortable so we hatched a plan to flee to southern Utah, an area we had visited 30 years ago and loved. After camping stops near Pendleton, OR, Twin Falls, ID and Ely, NV we landed in Great Basin national park. We had never heard of this park and decided to go in and hike. Turns out there is a grove of Bristlecone pine trees located at 10,400 feet. I have always been intrigued by these ancient trees. So, we drove to the end of the road at 9,600 feet (what a view!) and hiked in a couple of miles (yes, another cheater hike!) to see them. Some were more than 3,000 years old!!

We drove on to Cedar City, UT and spent the night in a motel there so that we could get to Zion national park early the next morning.  We were lucky to get an excellent site...

Took an amazing bike ride up Zion canyon...no cars are allowed, just shuttle buses. The ride back down was like a dream.  

The next day we wanted to hike the canyon narrows but the rangers told us the park is closing, the trails are closed and we had to leave by 11 am. Of course this was upsetting...we thought about chaining ourselves to the fire grate but instead we packed up and left.

Since then we have been wandering about in the desert, staying on land owned by America's largest landowner, a somewhat suspicious organization known as the Bureau of Land Management. They allow camping on their land as long as you are at least 50 feet off the road and they prefer you camp in places already despoiled by previous campers. So, we headed in on the Skatumpah road late one day and found an area that met their requirements...and ours too.

Here is our site the next night...thats Gina playing her guitar again...this is in the Grand Staircase of the Escalante national monument...

Just a short bike ride away we found a beautiful slot canyon and decided we needed to find more slot canyons in the neighborhood.

Here we are in the slot canyon known as Spooky...

This one got so tight you had to walk sideways for several hundred yards!

A cold snap, with lows around 30 degrees was predicted so we booked into the Boulder Mountain Guest Ranch for two nights. We took an amazing hike down into another set of slot canyons...

 There was no trail...the owner of the lodge told us to go to the road leading to the dump, park and head over the cliff and down into the canyon. Gina and I parked there, looked down into the canyon and I could see doubt creeping in. Fortunately, Sara showed up with her 11 year old daughter Sasha and her friend Olivia. We had met them at the lodge. Turns out Sara is an experienced rock climber and she led us down into the canyon...unforgettable!

Well, that brings us to today, camped all by our lonesome down here...dawn looked like this...