Colorado / Utah / Arizona - August 18-24, 2011

This year's annual trip to the cabin in Colorado with a bunch of friends has come around again and we figured it was the 20th anniversary this time. I used the occaision to do a bit of sightseeing afterwards, just as I did last year.

The weather was good with only a little rain in the evenings. We were treated to an impressive lightning show as we sat on the porch one night. There was the usual hiking, fishing, tubing on the Platte river, and a big steak dinner. This year we had two sub groups of guys but the schedules let us overlap for a couple of days - we had eight of us at one time which is the record.

All eight of us - we're getting a bit long in the tooth.




After leaving the cabin (which is west of Woodland Park and East of Buena Vista), I headed toward US 285 and then south to Poncha Springs. There I picked up US 50 West over Monarch pass (11,312 feet) and then on to Gunnison. Since this was a Sunday, I saw numerous small caravans of vintage cars, corvettes, motorcycles, etc. who were out on a Sunday scenic drive.

As I got closer to Montrose, I hit the road to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. The canyon was carved by the Gunnison River and is up to 2.772 feet deep and is quite narrow, down to only 1300 feet across at one place. The river drops down very rapidly at an average of 34 feet per mile (The Colorado River through the Grand Canyon only drops at 7.5 feet per mile). The river itself is rated at Class V to unnavigable for kayakers, so only the most expert ones have a chance (and they have to portage around some spots).


It is hard to get a good concept of the scale of things - I need a wide angle lens for my camera, I guess.







The following morning I headed north a bit toward Grand Junction. Near the town is the Colorado National Monument which is an area of spectactular canyons with sandstone and granite cliffs. It became a National Monument in 1911 and has a nice loop road through the area.

As I was arriving at the entrance gate I saw a sign that read 'Tunnels ahead - low clearance - 10'6"' which was pretty worrisome. My camper is just under 12' tall. I asked the ranger if the sign was correct and she showed me a picture of the tunnels and said I should be OK. The tunnels are carved in an arch profile and the low clearance is on the very edge of the roadway. If I stuck to the middle of the road the clearance was more like 14 feet. Fortunately the tunnels were short and there wasn't much traffic so I made it through with no issues.

Colorado National Monument






Afterwards, I took I-70 west for a ways into Utah and then headed south toward the Capital Reefs National Park. This park sits on the Waterpocket Fold, which is a 100 mile long wrinkle in the earth's crust. There are lots of canyons, ridges, buttes, and monliths. There is one area with a line of Navajo Sandstone domes which are white in color and remind people of the U.S. Capial dome which is where the park gets its name. I ran into a nice thunderstorm while I was there but managed to get a few pictures anyway. After stopping at the visitor's center, I headed on to Richfield, Utah where I camped for the night.

Capital Reefs National Park. Rain clouds made the pictures a bit dark.




The main visitor's center at the park.



The next stop was Zion National Park which is close to the southern border of Utah off of I-15. The main area is Zion Canyon, which is 15 miles long and up to half a mile deep, cut through the reddish and tan-colored Navajo Sandstone by the North Fork of the Virgin River. There is a road through the park but to use it I had to pay an extra $15 access fee because of the tunnel that cuts through the mountains. This is another arch shaped tunnel where the clearance on the sides is quite low. In this case, though, there is lots of traffic and the tunnel itself (built in 1931) is 1.1 miles long. They have to use flagmen at each side to stop traffic for RVs to go through while driving right down the center stripe. There were a lot of RVs so I wasn't the only one they had to handle specially. This park was by far the busiest one I visited on this trip.

Heading into Zion National Park.


Near the visitor's center at Zion.


Also near the visitor's center.


This is the line of cars waiting for our turn to go through the tunnel that leads straight through that rock wall ahead of us.



Emerging from the east side of Zion, I headed north again and a little east to arrive at Bryce Canyon National Park. Guess what? More spectacular scenery. This park is higher in elevation than the others - between 8000 and 9000 feet. It is basically a huge amphitheatre formed by erosion of the edge of the Paunsaugunt Plateau. There are lots of formations known as Hoodoos. The road through the park has numerous stops for panoramic views of the valley. I camped that night in a remote KOA that sits between Zion and Bryce Canyon.

Bryce Canyon National Park. Examples of hoodoos.








Heading home the next day, I took a road south through Kanab, Utah and into northern Arizona. I saw the turnoff for the north rim of the Grand Canyon but I didn't go there this trip. The road headed toward Page, Arizona but I turned south before I got that far. Along the way the road traveled along the Vermillion Cliffs National Monument. There isn't a visitor center for this place so I just took a few pictures along the way. It is a long stretch of cliffs, really an escarpment of the Colorado Plateau.


Part of the escarpment of the Vermillion Cliffs National Monument.




Just a bit north of Flagstaff are two more National Monuments - Sunset Crater Volcano and Wupatki. Sunset Crater is a relatively young cinder cone from about 1000 years ago. There are quite a few lava flows and areas of cinders that look like they are brand new. The same loop road through Sunset Crater leads through Wupatki which is the home of several ruins of the Wupatki Pueblo from about 800 years ago. This used to be the largest pueblo in the area.


Some of the lava flows from the volcano.


The cinder cone of Sunset Volcano.


One of the ruins from Wupatki pueblo.



Following lunch in Flagstaff I made it home that evening. The only excitement was a big thunderstorm just east of Grants which caused a lot of water to flow over I-40. The west bound lanes where actually closed but the eastbound ones weren't as bad so I drove through the runoff without problems.

Total miles driven - 1887
Average MPG - 10.4

States Visited - New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Arizona.

Black Hills - June 10-19, 2011

It was time to get the camper out for the first trip of the year. I was eager to find out if I had gotten it winterized correctly last fall and if it had survived the very cold weather we had in January. I got a bit worried when the electrical system wouldn't work after I had re-installed the batteries but then I remembered there was a battery cutoff switch that I hadn't reset. After that, everything was fine. I drained the antifreeze from the water lines and filled up the freshwater tanks. I couldn't find any leaks so everything seemed good to go.

It is recommended that I wash and wax the camper to protect it from the sun so I did that. It took a long time since there is quite a bit of surface area on the thing. Then I loaded up my gear and headed out.

The first stop was only a few hours away. I was planning to meet my brother for lunch in Colorado Springs the next day so I only went about halfway up at first and boondocked north of Tres Piedras near San Antonio mountain. The elevation is over 8000 feet up there so it was quite chilly that night. I set up my generator to run the microwave and cooked up a hot meal.

The view of San Antonio Mountain from my campsite.


The next morning I headed up through Alamosa and then east to Walsenburg to I-25. I met up for lunch and then took I-25 through Denver to I-76 and made it up to Sterling, Colorado where I stayed at a campground. That made for a decently long day's drive.

At Sterling, Colorado.


Next was the western part of Nebraska where there were two stops to be made. First was the Scott's Bluff National Monument. This spot was an important point on the Oregon Trail - the wagon trains had been traveling through a featureless expanse of grasslands for many weeks and these bluffs were the first landmarks they came across. There was a nice museum there and I learned an interesting fact. After the first couple of years of the wagon trains, there was a recommendation that new immigrants not bring anything like tools or heavy items with them. They could collect all the things they needed along the trail from the items that previous wagon trains had left behind. A lot of people also died from disease along the way, there was an estimated 4 graves per mile along the trail.








The second stop in Nebraska was the Agate Fossil Beds National Monument. The site is best known for the large number of well-preserved Miocene fossils, many of which were found at dig sites on Carnegie and University Hills. There was a severe drought which brought lots of animals to a few waterholes where many died and left hundreds of fossilized bones behind. There wasn't a lot to see at this site other than the small museum.

Agate Fossil Beds National Monument - headquarters.




Leaving Nebraska behind, I made it up to the southern part of the Black Hills of South Dakota. The first stop was Wind Cave National Park. I got there in time to take a guided tour of the cave that lasted about an hour. Wind Cave is currently listed as the fourth longest cave system in the world with more than 135 miles of passages mapped. It is a very complicated system with all of those miles encompassed in an area of about 1 mile square. It would not be a good place to get lost in. The cave got its name because there is only one entrance, a hole about 15 inches across. The sound of the wind whistling in or out depending on atmospheric pressure is what led to its discovery.

The main claim to fame in this cave is a type of cave formation called Boxwork. This is formed when water flows into cracks in the base limestone and deposits Calcite in them. Later, the limestone is dissolved away as a cave is formed but the Calcite remains. The formation is pretty rare and Wind Cave has 95% of the known Boxwork formations in the world.

That evening I stayed at a campground there in Wind Cave National Park. I had to wait for about 30 minutes to register due to a strong thunderstorm that rolled through.

Boxwork formations - not the easiest thing to see since they're pretty small.


My campsite in Wind Cave National Park.



The first stop the next morning was another cave - Jewel Cave National Monument. Jewel Cave is listed as the second longest in the world at 150 miles. I took another guided tour, this one a bit more strenuous with more than 750 stairs to climb up and down. There was several areas where the Calcite crystals had formed on the surfaces and left a nice sparkly finish. Overall, the formations here (and in Wind Cave) weren't as impressive as those in Carlsbad Caverns.

Near the end of the tour, the guide told about how exploration was continuing. They had an advance camp set up deep inside but to get to it you had to go through an area called the Miseries on your hands and knees for about 1100 feet. Then you went through the Mini Miseries on your belly for another 700 feet. Finally, you had to make it through the area known as the Calorie Counter where the passage is only 7.5 inches high. The ranger asked for volunteers to help with the exploring, but, strangely, nobody raised their hand.







Heading north, I stopped next at the Crazy Horse Memorial. This statue is being carved out of the mountainside similar to Mount Rushmore. It has been under construction since 1948 but stagnated for quite a while. Work has picked up again now and they've finished the face and are working on the horses head. Once completed, it will be the largest statue in the world. Funding for the work comes mostly from the tourism it generates and there were quite a lot of people there to spend their money.

Crazy Horse Memorial showing the finished face.


This is what it will look like if they ever get it finished.


Not far from there is Mount Rushmore. It is certainly an impressive sight and a lot of people were here, as well. I listened to a park ranger give a talk on the history of the memorial. The original plan was for each of the presidents to be depicted from head to waist but the original sculptor (Gutzon Borglum) died and in 1941, with World War II looming, the project was declared complete with just the heads completed.





The day was getting long so I drove on up to Deadwood and found a campground to stay in. The next day, I headed north and west into Wyoming to see Devil's Tower. The National Monument headquarters is right at the base of the mountain and had spectacular views. It was raining, though, so I didn't take the walking tour around the base. I had been hoping to see the alien landing strip but had no luck with that. (From Close Encounters of the Third Kind for those pop-culture impaired folks.)

My campsite in Deadwood.






From there I decide to visit the Theodore Roosevelt Nation Park up in North Dakota. I probably wouldn't ever be any closer to it than now so I took an extra day to drive up there. I stayed at a campground in Medora, North Dakota, which is right on the southern border of the park. Roosevelt had built a ranch in the area and spent some time there before he became president. He solidified his love of the outdoors and conservation while in the area.

I toured the museum there and learned something new. I hadn't realized that Teddy Roosevelt had been shot - he was getting ready for a campaign speech when a saloonkeeper shot him in the chest. Roosevelt didn't think it was too serious so he insisted on giving his speech, anyway, with blood dripping down his shirt front.

There was a nice scenic loop drive through the park which I took. I saw some wildlife; buffalo, several large prairie dog towns, deer, and some wild horses.

There was a lot of beautiful, rugged country in the park.




I couldn't get a good picture of the wild horses before they ran off.


This guy wasn't looking too friendly.


The rest of the day was spent driving back south to Rapid City where I stayed the night. In the morning, I drove east and south to stop at the Badlands National Park. This is an area with a lot of eroded bluffs, pinnacles, and spires. It has some spectacular scenery. I learned that this area was the first to be called a 'badlands'; since then other spots around the world have used that name as well.

Badlands National Park




Another long drive along I-90 east got me to Sioux Falls where I spent the night. The following morning I drove down to Sioux City, Iowa and had breakfast. I saw some of the flooding problems they are having along the Missouri river - I had to take a detour because I-29 had several spots that were under water. Then, I headed south back into Nebraska - the eastern part of the state this time. In the southeastern part, south of Lincoln, is the Homestead National Monument.

This area celebrates the homesteaders that took advantage of the Homestead Act of 1862 and the free land it provided. Their museum showed the difficulties the settlers faced trying to get a start in unsettled country. It was hot and humid outside, but I walked down to take a look at a restored homesteaders house, anyways. Afterwards, I headed farther south to Salina, Kansas for the night.

Homestead National Monument Visitor's Center


Restored homesteader's house. This was home to a man, his wife, and his 10 children.


There was some excitement that evening in Salina. I had the stereo on in the camper and they interrupted the music to give a severe thunderstorm warning for McPherson county. I looked at the atlas to see where that was and saw it about 20 miles south of where I was staying. A couple of minutes later, they came back on and said the storm had turned north and was headed up I-35. My campsite was a few hundred yards off of I-35 so I started getting worried.

The radio station also had a web site where they had some real-time videos going of the storm as it came into Salina. The reporters were talking about quarter-sized to ping-pong ball sized hail as it went through town. I was just north of town and was getting a bit nervous. The rain started, and then I could hear hail - probably only marble sized from the sound of it. A minute later and I heard (and felt) some larger hailstones banging against the roof. I was watching the skylight over the bed area to see it was going to be broken open or not. Fortunately, the big hail quit after about a minute and there was only heavy rain for a while.

In the morning, I inspected for damage but didn't see any. I was partially sheltered under a tree which might have helped some. Nobody else in the campground seemed to have any damage, either, so we missed the worst of it. In any case, I headed south on I-35 to Oklahoma City.

My original plan was to stop in Oklahoma City and visit their zoo to break up the long drive. Once there, though, my truck's thermometer was reading 101 degrees at about 12:30 in the afternoon. There was a nice science museum right next to the zoo so I elected to visit that, along with their air conditioning, instead. It was quite a large museum and since it was Saturday, there were a lot of families there. There were quite a lot of hands-on exhibits, as well.



I drove on a little further before stopping near Elk City to camp. The last day of the trip was spent fighting a strong headwind all the way back to Albuquerque which really sapped my gas mileage. Over all, though, it was a fun trip.

Total miles driven: 3241
Average Gas mileage: 9.3 (It was over 11 at Deadwood, SD, and then I got into more windy weather.)

Places crossed off my list:
3 National Parks
5 National Monuments
1 National Memorial

States visited: New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, North Dakota, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas.