Category: Hiking

Hiking, epic walks

Canyonlands National Park, Part 2 – Needles

Our friend Kat, who works for the National Park Service, told us that she believes Squaw Flats Campground in the Needles District of Canyonlands NP is the most beautiful campground. Apparently, others think so too – it’s typically booked solid 6 months in advance. As non-planners, advance reservations don’t work too well for us, but we’re becoming skilled at snagging cancellations. We scored big! While waiting for our site to open up we got to explore an unplanned, interesting loop back from Capitol Reef – I called it the ‘space between‘ – then we were able to spend a weekend at Squaw Flats. And we agree with Kat – best campground views yet!

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Capitol Reef National Park

Along the Capitol Reef scenic drive

Capitol Reef National Park is the most remote of the Southern Utah parks. Unique geological movements created a 100-mile wrinkle in the earth’s surface the eventually eroded into an angled reef surrounded by various shapes, sizes and colors of crazy rock formations. The unique movements also enabled the Fremont River to run year-round, creating the basis for settlement. The soil, climate and isolation were perfect for fruit orchards. Fruita, the remains of the historical town within Capitol Reef, is literally and figuratively an oasis in the desert.

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Canyonlands National Park, Part 1 – Island in the Sky

Kat and Sue near Murphy’s Hogback

Canyonlands National Park is a vast and quiet place compared to Arches. It’s divided into 3 distinct districts: Island in the Sky, Needles, and the Maze. The latter can only be accessed by jeeps and off-road vehicles, so we won’t be visiting the Maze. We did visit Island in the Sky during our stay in Moab.

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Spring, friends, family

An interesting phenomenon happens when you drive from Warren, VT to Pittsburgh, PA in 3 days – spring gets compressed. We left home with snow on the ground, noticed budding blossoms upstate NY and found color exploding – Bang! Screaming yellow forsythia! – over every hill crest and around every bend throughout north central PA. By the time we got to OH, the colorful part of spring was behind us, and farmers were busy readying their fields.

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The plan

Ha! You were thinking we might have one!

We really enjoyed our approach to adventure planning (others might call it non-planning), well honed on last year’s adventure. We set an intention to explore one or two areas of the country, then connect them up. As we go along.

Neither one of us has ever been to the Southern UT/Northern AZ canyons, so we’ve set aside the month of May – after the snows, before the heat and crowds – to hike, bike and generally check out this gorgeous and unique terrain that is so unlike New England.  We’ll know when we’re done, and at that point, we’ll likely head north as the temps turn into summer. We’d like to see Glacier National Park. Then, we’ll likely head to the left coast, visiting friends and family, looking for music jams and enjoying fun places until it’s time to come back to New England.

Unlike last year, this adventure will require some ‘re-positioning.’ We most enjoy poking around slowly, following the wind and sound of blues. For the first few weeks this year, we’ll travel slightly longer days in a more or less direct line to Moab, threatening to visit any friends and family that may be along that line.

Of course, we’ll adapt as we go along…

Land Between the Lakes

It was time for a different kind of adventure for us – chill. In the past month alone, we’d been awed and inspired by the beauty of Roosevelt, Badlands and Rocky Mountain National Parks as well as the Black Hills of SD and high peaks area of CO. We’re still giggling about our serendipitous and crazy visits to Carhenge and The  City Museum in St Louis. We thoroughly enjoyed visits with old and new friends and family in SD, CO and MO. We were thrilled to join two jam sessions in CO. And we were acutely aware that a major, 3-day jam in Memphis was just 2 weeks away. We needed to take a short break from adventuring and take some practice time.

Drawing a line on the (virtual) map from St Louis to Nashville, where we planned to visit Doug’s cousins, we saw a major splotch of green – the Land Between the Lakes (LBL) National Recreation Area. Sounds nice. And the old man (Doug) gets a senior discount! We laid a course.

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Rocky Mountain National Park

Based on a limited sample of 5, our impression is that our National Parks are located in gorgeous places worthy of a visit, well operated and maintained, and extremely popular. As we approached Rocky Mountain National Park (known by locals as Rocky Park) after the kiddos had gone back to school, we expected diminished crowds and lots of options. Ha! A few days before we expected to arrive, we checked the on-line reservation system and found that of the 3 campgrounds remaining open in September, there was exactly 1 site available, at Moraine Park. We booked it, not expecting much. Turns out… it may have been the most beautiful campsite in the park!

The last available campsite...
The last available campsite…

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