On The Burr Trail

Thursday 4th October
Next day we took the drive to the Waterpocket Fold, Sally was still unwell, but determined that having come this far we would do it! The Burr Trail is fortunately paved for about 30 miles, and we were camped 5 miles along it. It then turns to dirt road and then has a set of steep switchbacks to tak us down into the Waterpocket Fold. The Burr Trail then goes South along the fold, eventually getting to Bull Frog, a marina and Ferry on Lake Powell.
Our aim was only to go to the bottom of the Waterpocket Fold. We drove slowly along the Burr Trail, after about 5 miles is descended into a long, deep, narrow ravine, called Narrow Canyon. The layers of red sandstone towered on either side of us, the canyon had a small stream running through it, with huge boulders strewn across the floor. This canyon was about 6 miles long, we came out the other end to find that the entrance to the canyon at this end was part of a plateau, about 600 feet above the valley floor below, straight down. Fortunately there was a reasonable road to take us onward. We then travelled about 10 miles across scrubby high desert, until we hit the end of the paved road. Now we were travelling on dirt road and approaching more rocks, like huge jagged teeth across the landscape. The road twisted carefully between cliffs and there below us was the Waterpocket Fold, a single valley 60 miles long, with steep cliffs either side and something under a mile wide. The whole landscape had been formed when the land to the East had been forced up several thousand feet by a fault deep underground, the surface rocks were bent upwards, so that the rock strata was left at an angel of about 60 degrees Later differential erosion left the harder rocks standing out and the softer rock became valleys, the waterpocket fold valley is the softer bit. From the top of the fold the view was amazing; you could see right across to the Henry Mountains, it was wonderful.

The only way to access the valley floor is down the mile long switchback of the Burr Trail, so having reached the top the only was down, so off we set, slowly grinding down the cliff face, twisting and turning, always driving on the side of the road that was against the rock face, hoping nothing would come the other way, fortunately only one car did and we were able to find a place to pass each other. After the switchbacks the road wound down to the valley floor through a ravine, once on the valley floor we drove a short way and would have had lunch, but there was no shade, so we came back again into the shade of the ravine had lunch, I had a quick explore while Sally had a quick sleep and then we came back up again, driving back along the Burr Trail to our trailer under the Lone Ponderosa Pine. It was a wonderful day and I can only thank Sally for managing to take the trip even though she was still feeling unwell.

On the Trail of The Lonesome Pine

Wednesday 3rd October
The problem with being out of Internet range is that you forget where you are with the blog!. We have now been out of range for over a week, so I am not sure where I should pick up from.

Sally has not been too well, having had a throat infection, which was cured by the doctor in Escalante on Monday with a shot in the bum (antibiotics). This left her feeling pretty exhausted, so we rested at the Petrified Forest State Park until Wednesday. We left Escalante to tackle what I feel is the central challenge of our trip this Fall – Capitol Reef, particularly a feature called the Waterpocket Fold.

This is one of the most remote parts of Utah, which is in itself one of the most remote parts of the USA, so it is pretty remote. Mostly accessible via dirt roads which, although we are able to ride on because of our high clearance, are pretty uncomfortable for two reasons: potholes (self-explanatory) and washboarding. Washboarding is a cruel trick of road maintenance and loose sand/dust on the road. Every so often a road scraper will pass over dirt roads levelling them out; unfortunately they leave a sort of ripple effect on the road surface, which repeated scrapings makes worse. These ripples are like the little waves that form on a sand beach, except they are between 6 inches and a foot in wavelength and anything up to 2 inches high. There are two ways to tackle them – either at 5 mph, carefully traversing each ripple, which is safe but bumpy, or at a speed between 30 and 40 mph, when you go so fast the suspension lets you just glide over them, a process I have now named ‘Washboard Surfing’, which is OK until you either meet a corner, a downhill or a pothole. Braking on washboarding is an invitation to dig the wheels into the washboarding and you wipeout in a terrifying cacophony of every panel of the van banging away and everything loose inside bouncing around and threatening to perform short bursts of freefall acrobatics. Navigating washboarding has the feeling of trying to land a space shuttle, you know where you want to go, but you are trusting to luck to get there in one piece, because you have very little control of what is happening. Hitting a pothole is self explanatory. Trouble is when you have dirt roads that may be fifty miles long the 5mph option is not really an option. So you drive on a knife-edge with the spectre of wipeout with every approaching hazard.

I digress. To reach the inner parts of the Waterpocket Fold we needed a base camp, the only suitable place, that we could plan, is a small pull off about 5 miles down the Burr Trail Road. A place marked by a large lone Ponderosa Pine (as described by the Forest Ranger at the visitor center in Escalante). We set out from Escalante on Wednesday 3rd October. We drove up route 12. Another spectacular section of road taking us through more ravines. We turned off route 12 at Boulder, onto the Burr Trail and surprise, surprise, found the pull off with its Lone Ponderosa Pine, just about lunch time. Here we camped, alone, in the middle of the desert, in the dark, where there might be bears, or robbers, or scorpions. We enjoyed the solitude and the warm weather, Sally continued to be exhausted, but recovering, so we sat for the rest of the day here just enjoying the peace.

Couldn't not include this very unlikely hit in the UK in 1975, it would have reached number 1, but for Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody:

Grand Staircase National Monument Escalante

Monday October 1st
Having dashed across Nevada in two days we are taking time to get through Utah. Cathedral Canyon to Duck Creek is only 89 miles, Duck Creek to Bryce is only 50 miles, when we moved on it was only another 50 miles to Petrified Forest State Park in Escalante. where there is a reservoir and a petrified Forest, though we have not seen that yet. We are following route 12, which is a scenic Byway of America and joins many of the amazing land forms of this area.This whole region of Utah is called the Grand Staircase National Monument, because it is a landscape made up from a whole series of cliffs and plateau which start in the south with The Grand Canyon and rise in a series of steps to Powell Point. As you travel through you are continually confronted with vertical cliffs that soar above and deep ravines below, where water and ice have ripped away the rocks as the Colorado Plateau was slowly pushed up as two continental plates collided. The geology is amazing and I don't pretend to follow all of it - there just isn't time to find out about it. But the visual effect is staggering.

Our onward progress has been halted temporarily as Sally has been unwell with a throat infection, which required a visit to the local clinic, so we will stay at Escalante Petrified Forest State Park for three nights instead of one, before we move 30 miles up the road to Boulder and The Burr Trail, which will give us access to the Water Pocket Fold, the main feature of Capitol reef National Park, although on Sunday we did have a meal out at the local restaurant, called the Pioneer Restaurant, we shared a Beef Pot Roast, which was very nice.

Bryce Canyon

Saturday 29th SeptWhat can you say about Bryce Canyon? We first saw it in 2003 and promised that we would one day return (just like June Lake in 1997), well here we are back again and it is still just as beautiful as we remembered it. We strolled up to the rim to look down on those red, cream and white pillars. We just wandererd the rim for a couple of hours noticing how the changing sunlight altered the view (there was partial cloud). In the afternoon we joined a ranger led Rim Walk to hear about the geology of the park, then sat and watched the changing rocks as the sun went down. I returned at about 9.30 in the evening as there was a full moon and it was very easy to see the rock formations, I took a couple of photos, but they did not do justice to the moonlight. The camera I have is able to take panorama photos in 3D, so I took several 3D shots, even though we don't have a 3D TV, I am sure that we will one day.

Cathedral Canyon State Park

Thursday Sept 27thWe pulled in to a place called Cathedral State Park. A small and charming state Park, near to Panaca, with a lovely campground, where we were able to get a great spot in the shade, as we are still regularly getting temperatures in the 80's, though it gets cold at night.

We decided to take an extra day here to explore the famous Cathedral Canyon formations. Soft clay beds which have been eroded into some pretty weird shapes. Most amazing are the little slot canyons that have formed, narrow passageways which are up to 40 high, but only a foot or so wide, with completely vertical sides. As you walked through them you were enveloped in a delicious, shady, coolness. Quite fascinating.

Friday saw us back on the road, moving on to Cedar City, the local centre, with the only Walmart for about 200 miles (except St George to the south). We stopped there to collect supplies and share a meal at Applebees. Then on through the Cedar Breaks National Park to stay at Duck Creek Campground. On Saturday we moved on to Bryce Canyon, hoping to get a site in the Sunset campground, having realised that Saturday would probably be busy. However our anxiety was ill founded, as we had no trouble getting a very pleasant pull through site, ready to revisit Bryce Canyon the next day

The Extraterrestrial Highway

Wednesday Sept 26th - On Thursday we set out to travel further East, we planned to take The Extraterrestial Highway. This is a road which skirts the Nellis Air Base, famous for being Area 51, where so many UFO's have been seen. The road runs straight (and I mean straight) across the desert, interspersed with many mountain ridges, right in the middle of this road is a small town called Rachel, famous for the Ale-inn. This is a place for UFO Uber Geeks to congregate. It was made even more famous when it featured in the film 'Paul 2011', very british comedy, set in the desert.

After stopping for a drink and some fries, and to admire the geeks, we drove on along 375, to stop and get a picture of the famous 'black Mailbox', another place so beloved by sky watchers. Of course the joke is that the mail box is now painted white, however it is still known as the Black Mailbox!!. Surprisingly we did not see any UFO's, or aliens, or even super secret weapons (both the Blackbird and the Stealth Bomber were developed and tested here), however we did watch Paul 2011 when we were camped in Cathedral Canyon State Park

We covered over two hundred miles today, partly helped by long straight roads and a 70 m.ph. speed limit, though our ave MPG went down to something just over 5MPG!! I kid you not.

We left June Lake this morning to drive into Nevada, man that place is empty!! We have set up camp in the car park of the local casino in Tonopah. The road as a good one (120, which also goes over Tioga Pass, so we made good time. Good enough that we could take a side trip to Goldfield, another ghost town, more modern than Bodie, but much bigger, more than 20,000 people moved there between 1904 and 1907, they were there for the gold, when the gold ran out, so did they, so it now has a population of 250. We drove round the streets, where man of the buildings have gone. The we visited the courthouse, which was a revelation. It was amazing to see whole blocks of streets with no houses, but loads of peoples trash (like cars) lying around the place. The courthouse, jail, school, hotels, council offices are all still there, big enough to run a large town, but almost deserted.  We parked the car and had a closer look at the County Court, as we wandered round we could see the offices of the Recorder, Sheriff, D.A., Justice of the Peace. We stopped in at this little office, with its official bench and chairs for defendent etc. while we were there a lady welcomed us and showed us round the room, then got out some really old books and records to show us a little of the history, talked about the fires and the goldmines and the railways, it was fascinating. As we were standing there we started to realise that this was indeed the Justice Of the Peace for the town. we had an interesting conversation about her job, as she has to stand for re-election in November, but only needs a couple of hundred votes to keep the job. She was a very pleasant and helpful lady, so go Judge Juanita Colvin, we hope you get re-elected.We drove back to Tonopah and had a quiet evening. Tomorrow we plan to drive the Extraterrestial Highway, through area 51 and by the Nellis airbase.

From Lake Tahoe to June Lake, Via Mono Lake!

It's all lakes, mountains and deserts on this side of the Sierra Nevadas. Having spent two nights by Lake Tahoe, we pressed on to route 395, which runs North/South on the other side of the mountains. As soon as the mountains drop away you enter desert, which is broken only by a series of lakes, the most notable of which is Mono Lake. About 10 miles south is one of the most beautiful lakes in the world - June Lake. We first saw this in 1997 when we toured the West with the kids. We wanted to return, and now we have. We have found a nice campsite on the north end of the lake, with just a bit of a view of the lake. The Campground is called 'Oh! Ridge', we presume because as you drive up a desert incline you cannot see the lake, then over the ridge at the end of the lake, when you see the lake for the first time and it is difficult not to say 'Oh!' as the view is amazing. Its emerald green water is framed perfectly by pine covered slopes and high mountain peaks.
On Friday we had a wander round the lake side beach and then drove the 'June Lake Loop Road', a back road which goes past the lake and through some narrow valleys past another three lakes, before coming back out onto Route 395 and so back to June Lake.


Yesterday (Saturday) Mono Lake and Bodie.
Today we drove out for the day, back past Mono Lake, which is a large lake, maybe 10 miles wide, with no obvious way out for the water, although Los Angeles (300 miles away) has been extracting water from it since about 1964. It is a surreal landscape, the lake is surrounded by desert, with mountains all around. Beautiful, but stark. Hopeless to photograph as the scenery is far too subtle. We drove on to our goal, a ghost town, one of the most famous, called Bodie. In the 1880's it was still producing gold as many other goldfields were being worked out, thus attracting 10,000 gold workers and hangers on, the town lasted at that size for about 3 years and then declined and was abandoned by 1920. It is absolutely in the middle of nowhere, up a 13 mile dead end road. The summers are over 100 degrees, the winters get up to 20 ft of snow and 30-40 degrees below (who cares in both F and C that is cold). All wood and food had to be hauled in by mule train, so as soon as the gold ran out there was not a lot to keep people there, and since there was not means of transport they just left everything. Despite having been ravaged by fire and weather there ar still some 100 buildings still standing, complete with the bits and pieces that were left. It was a fascinating place, we really enjoyed wandering around and imagining what life must have been like in 1880 there. On the way back to the trailer we decided to eat out. A friend, called Randy Sheldon had recommended. It looks out over Mono Lake and is known as the Tioga Gas Mart, but called the Whoa Nellie Deli. It looks pretty much like a gas station, in fact it is a gas station, but the food is quite amazing, we settled for pork chop with apricot and cranberry sauce, but could have had Elk Chop, Buffalo Meatloaf or Lobster Taco. We just beat the rush, but by five-o-clock the place was packed. Great advice Randy.

Today, Sunday, Mammoth and The Devils Post Pile
We had a different venue on our menu. It was time to hit Mammoth! We wanted to visit The Devils Post Pile, i.e. a pile of posts. It is a volcanic formation which cooled very slowly underground and when the surrounding area was eroded away it left a basalt formation that was like a whole pile of wooden posts set vertically, each one roughly hexagonal in shape, very similar to the Giants Causeway in Ireland, only instead of seeing the top, you saw them from the side. As well as this outstanding formation there was also Soda Lake, where Carbon Dioxide bubbles out from the rock up through the stream, as it escapes under pressure some the Carbon Dioxide dissolves in the water, making a naturally sparkling water! We loved that.

Add into this the most amazing mountain vista of what is called the Minaret Peaks and we had quite a day.

Driving back through Mammoth we drove past the ski lifts which are currently in use for mountain bikers. this is where our son Andrew rented a bike and rode the Kamakazi Run when we were there in 1997. Now that brought back memories. After doing some shopping we again decided to eat out, this time in Roberto's, a well known Mexican cafe, where I succumbed to a Chimmychanga (a deep fried tortilla filled with meat and beans), Sally had a nice chicken salad with rice and beans. Trouble is that we could only eat half, so we have brought the rest home for dinner tomorrow.

Lake Tahoe

Wednesday 19th September We want to look at the lake today, without too much rushing around, so we are planning to drive a little way up the lake to Tahoe City, for a coffee and then come back and visit house/mansion that is in the grounds of the Sugar Pine S.P. Ou plan started well, we drove gently northwards along the lake shore towards Tahoe City, stopping to admire the lake, which is beautiful. However things changed a little when we pulled in to a lakeside cafe. On parking we noticed a number of people acting in an animated sort of a way. It is a pattern of behaviour we have seen before. People stopping and looking, yet remaining animated, not sure whether to approach or retire. That said "Bears!" loud and clear. Anyway we joined the group and inquired and sure enough, down on the edge of the lake a large Black Bear (but brown in colour) was enjoying a morning dip in the lake. For our protection a local sheriff was watching over the event, so we felt safe to approach closer and take some good pictures. By now about a dozen people were standing watching the bear, mostly tourists like us, as loclas are used to this. After a while a second officer came along and explained to us that the bear had to be moved from the public beach to a local woodland area. Their sophisticated game plan was to use a rifle with rubber bullets to drive the bear along the beach to a road that lead to the woods. So having fired at it the bear just swam along the beach and disappeared back to the woods, leaving us to go and hove our cup of coffee in peace and safety. The officer suggested that bears are in fact not dangerous (unless hungry, trapped or you are between them and their cubs) and behave like big pussies, which I was willing to believe completely, all the time the officer was there. I did however learn a slight improvement on the strategy of how to avoid being caught by a bear, the standard being to make sure that you can run faster than at least one other person. The new strategy is more subtle. Always make sure that you are in a position to be able to trip someone up at the vital moment, before making your exit at a more leisurely pace. Following that excitement we were then able to go back to Syds Cafe for our quiet morning coffee sat overlooking the lake. We drove back along the lake hsore to the Sugar Pine S.P. and turned towards the lake and the mansion that was in the grounds of the State Park, in fact the grounds of the mansion is the State Park, about 2000 acres of garden and woods and lakefront. The Sugar Pine Mansion was a turn of the century summer retreat (they had several) of the found of the Wells Fargo Bank, so cash was not in short supply. We took the tour of the mansion, a large wooden construction with eight bedrooms and seven bathrooms, when it was built the access was from the lake, so it was wonderfully secluded, with great views and nicely tended gardens sweeping down to the lake. After our tour we sat by the boathouse and had our lunch, inevitably talking to some other visitors, one couple were especially nice, and they were our next door neighbours in campground, so a short lunch break turned into an pleasant afternoon chatting. We are very impressed with Lake Tahoe, which is very big and very beautiful. It comes a close third behind Crater Lake and our next stop - June Lake.

Wagons Ho - Back On The Trail

Wednesday 19^th

We had figured that 96 miles to Lake Tahoe would be a fairly gentle drive, what didn’t figure on was that I had chosen a bendy road, also that it was uphill all the way, we climbed from 4000ft to over 8000ft. Consequently our drive time was more than four hours and around fifteen gallons of gas.

We left Plymouth and cut East on a county road that took us through Fiddletown and eventually joined up with route 88, part of which is built on the old wagon train route opened in 1844 and gave access to Sacramento and the Gold Country, along with such names as Tragedy Valley gave us some idea of the hardship and difficulties of travel in those days – they would take days to travel the distance we thought tedious in a couple of hours. We stopped on the shores of Caple Lake to have our picnic, which was very pleasant However our first sight of Lake Tahoe did not disappoint, it is a beautiful location, with deep blue water surrounded by tree covered mountains. We had decided to approach from the South and head to the West Shore, as there are several State and Forestry campgrounds, but after stopping at a visitor center we discovered that there were only two options available – Kaspian and Sugar Pine, so we settled on Sugar Pine, where we found a nice campsite in amongst the Sugar Pine trees, after following the road round the lake for about 12 miles. We set up in the almost empty campground in a very nice site.

So today we will set out to see some of the sights of Lake Tahoe.