Utah Trip 2018 – Ulen Adventures

Southern Utah – April 2018 Day 5

Chuck topping off the air in a slowly leaking tire. Near Dance Hall Rock

Made a quick trip (two days later) to get it fixed – broken rim, so only swappped for spare

Day 5 – April 7 2018. Still on Hole-in-the-rock Road. Had 10 miles of 4 wheel road and then 50 miles of washboard road to drive on out. Slow going, and we had to baby one of our tires…

Spent the night back in Escalante.

Southern Utah – April 2018

Day 4 – 6 April 2018.

Made it to the end of the Hole In The Rock Road – Got a little rocky towards the end – the Vanagon probably wouldn’t have made it.

Rugged Road – Hole in the wall

Caves along the Hole in the Wall Road

Cool Mountains along Hole in the Wall Road

This one called 50 mile mountain

Yep , big rocks along the road

This one looked like something out of Star Wars!

The hole in the rock is a break in the sand mountains to get to Lake Powell. Sometime in the 1880s, settlers used this passage to move 250 people, 85 full sized wagons and 100 livestock through this drop. It was too rugged for us to walk down (because we were still too sore from yesterday!). I can’t imagine full-sized wagons going down this!

There is the hole in the wall!

Peaking through the hole to Lake Powell

Lake Powell, far below

Can you imagine FULL-SIZE Wagons? With Horses!

Looking down hole in the wall

A nice guy (who was contemplating climbing down to the Lake) took our picture

A little history at the top

The we found a nice spot to camp for the night, a bit windy, but no one around

Southern Utah – April 2018

Day 3 – 5 April 2018.

Today we started on Hole in the Rock Road. Very wash-boardy, and it happens to be Spring Break Week for way too many families – but we are having a great time.

First stop was Devil’s Garden. Lots of Hoodoos here:

Devils Garden

Devils garden

Devils Garden

Devils garden

Devils Garden

Then we went on to two Slot Canyons, Peek-A-Boo and Spooky. (Up one, back the other) .Total hike was a little more than five miles, but there was also rock scrambling and rope work involved. We are getting a little old for this kind of adventure – because our muscles are sure tired afterwards.!

Hiking to the slot canyons

Chuck

The rope climb to start peek-a-boo. Quite a line up of spring break families!

You need to help each other up the slots

Then we drove on to our camping spot for the night — out in the middle of nowhere!

Camping – hole in the wall road – near mm 32.5

Nice shot of the XP!

Camping – Hole in the Wall Raod mm 32.5

Camping, night 3 – view out the window

Southern Utah – April 2018

April 4, Capitol Reef and Escalante.

Followed Highway 24 south through Capitol Reef – brought back memories of breaking my arm there not so many years ago. Scenery is still spectacular.

I’m going to keep track of how many of these optical observatories We run across…

Beautiful scenery coming into Capitol Reef

We then turned on Highway 12 and traveled through the Grand Staircase – if we have time, we’ll explore off-road here in a few days. We camped for the night in Escalante at the Petrified Forest State Park.

We ended the day at Escalante Petrified Forest State Park – love the colors in the Petrified trees!

On our hike we saw several petrified logs

View back to Escalante Petrified Forest State Park Lake

Our camping spot at Petrified Forest State Park

Southern Utah – April 2018

Day 1 – 4/3/18. Snowmobiles are put away for the winter, we are heading for a couple of weeks of adventure in Utah. Drove out on Interstate 70 – I love this road when there isn’t traffic!

Spent the night on BLM land near Goblin Valley State Park in Utah (the campground at the park was full, but plenty of BLM around there!)