Jackson Hole, Tetons, To Yellowstone are next

On our way north we went through some mountain passes to get back on I15 North and then through Salt Lake City. They have The Great Salt Lake there. Which also had dunes around it, very much like an ocean environment. North of there it was very Green farmland. The temps were in the 50's and still very windy. Idaho was also farmland until we had to turn east toward the Mountains on our way to Wyoming. We got to cross the Oregon trail. The Rocks are Black Lava now and we saw lots of cows and horses. We drove into Jackson Hole looking for a place to eat. It's a tourist town with lots of saloons and shops so their were lots of people. We had to go slow because the stage coach was in front of us. We watched it snow as we were eating our lunch and drinking our sarsaparilla.

Pulling out of Jackson hole we went into the Teton National Park. Even though it was May there was a lot of snow on the peaks. We stayed in a campground between the Park and Yellowstone.

We dropped the trailer at Fishing Bridge campground in Yellowstone and drove the park. Parts of the park were at 7988 ft elevation. There are many areas of this park as it takes up 3468 sq miles. What we did was take all the loops except the one out the east gate. We got to see the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone with its waterfalls, and the mudd flats and potholes, Sulfur Caldron, Old Faithful and Yellowstone Lake which was iced over. We saw lots of herds of buffalo with babies, elk and we even saw a wolf. There were an assortment of birds; hawks, eagles and ravens. They had closed the park last week because of snow and it was threatening today.

Old Faithful went off only minutes after we arrived. It lasted about 5 minutes. It was sad that the park was still recovering from a bad fire in 1988. We managed to see all we wanted to that day and were ready the next morning to head east...

Utah explodes in color

As we left the campground the land was rolling hills and plateaus. It was a long distance to the beginning of Canyonlands, about 60 miles. By all appearances the land stretched out in front of us. Soon we stopped and peared over the edge. Wow, for miles we could see canyon walls of bright red with spirals that had white tops. The area had 3 parts, the Island in the sky, the Needles, and the Maze with the Colorado and Green rivers meandering through this desert area. We saw Mesa's and Buttes of rich colors with many shades of Red. Down in the canyon we could see a tiny line stretching across the canyon floor toward the town of Moab. The elevation was 7000 ft.

The Needles area was off in the distance to the South and was filled with red and white banded pinnacles as well as canyons, potholes and a number of arches. The Maze to the west of the Rivers is the least accessable area of the park. The Island in the Sky that we visited was on the North side of a level Mesa and had many overlooks from the White Rim. This was probably our favorite park so far.

We were told by the ranger that since we had a four wheel drive we could get back to Moab by taking the road down the canyon wall. The overall mileage was 16 miles once we got down the wall...

It was a great adventure. We took the hairpin turns down the wall at about 3 miles per hour. There was a pickup a ways ahead of us and we passed a couple cars coming up the wall. As we reached the canyon floor we journeyed across the tiny road we had seeen from the top rim. We discovered another canyon within the canyon we were traveling. We had seen deep blue water from the Rim off in the distance and now we came upon the blue water. It was a salt plant. Several pools of water with white salt around the edges. On down the road we saw a potash plant. The road heading into Moab had tall solid rock walls on each side of the road.

Moab was a western town that had hosted many Movie crews. We ate at an old brewry before we went on our way to the Arches..

It was about 4:30 pm when we arrived in Arches Park. Due to the late hour we took the first loop of the park and viewed several Arches. They were scattered out all over the 119 mile park. The Arches sets atop a Salt bed. Over time the salt liquified and pushed up dome's of rock. Time again eroded the rock and the wind carried away the loose particles forming the arches. They had names like twin Windows, Double O, Delicate, and Skyline.

We spent the next day taking it easy in Green River if you can call a wind storm taking it easy...

Utah's got Rocks

I believe I am slightly slow in getting back to this blog..If you'll bear with me I'll get back to the story..

Zion National Park was very shapely. It had rounded formations and vivid colors. We shuttled around the park and saw the different canyons and cliffs with large boulders balanced on the tops or just lying on the ground.

Before we reached Bryce Canyon we went through an area known as Red Canyon. The Canyon walls were extremely tall with very dark red dirt. Our approach to Bryce Canyon was at 7777 ft. After parking the trailer in the parking lot along with many others we boarded a shuttle and began our journey. We were able to get on and off whenever we wanted. I'd say that what we saw was like looking at a beach of sand castles only with vivid reds and oranges, creams and whites. Most of the time we were standing above looking down or across. At times there were single peaks and other times there were hundreds of them. It was noon so we didn't get much shadow effect on our pictures.

We headed north on Hwy 89 passing Big Rock Candy Mountain then through a very green valley. That was the way it went, mountains then valleys. We saw Ostrichs and cows. Going up I70 to Green River it was extremely windy. This whole trip had wind it seems. John did a great job of handling the trailer through all that wind. We stopped at Green River Utah for our two day stay so we could go to Canyon Lands, Moab and Arches.....