The Last "Fun" Trip Before Our Change In Plans

Posted from Mountain Home, ID

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Kodachrome Basin Campground
Angel's Palace Trail
Grand Parade Trail
Panorama Trail
Shakespeare Arch/Sentinel Trail

After leaving Hurricane, UT we traveled to Kodachrome Basin State Park for 5 nights. This Utah SP is located about 23 miles east and south of the entrance to Bryce Canyon NP. If you can find Cannonville on the map, then it's about 9 miles south of there.  This stay was way too short and proved to be a great find.  There are two campgrounds in the park. The first named Bryce View is small and has primitive camping sites.  Some can be reserved.  We stayed in the larger campground named Basin Campground. This campground has 13 FHU reserveable sites.  The sites are long and there is plenty of room between each site.

This campground has paved sites. Again, plenty long and the views in all directions are magnificent.

Each site also has a picnic table and grill.  It was evident that one of the camp hosts actually clean the grills out on a regular basis.  Although I didn't get a picture of the bathhouses, these were some of the most modern and clean of any state park we've visited.


We originally had intended to hike some of the trails in the park (there are 5) and head over to Bryce NP. Five nights is not enough time, however, so we saved Bryce NP for another trip and concentrated on the trails inside the park.  (Just an FYI: There is NO cell service inside the park).  This worked out well for us as it was nice to get away from the internet for awhile.

None of the trails are long or that strenuous, so we usually did a couple each day.  The first, Angel's Palace Trail, was just a short jaunt from our rig.  The trail rose in elevation about 200 feet and allowed you to look down on the entire campground.  That's our rig in the distance.

Here's Karen on the end of a formation looking down into the valley.

Nice panoramic viewing was possible from many locations along this trail.

Another trail we hiked on the same day was named Grand Parade Trail. Unlike the previous trail, Grand Parade kept you along the floor of the formations. Two box canyons were the attractions highlighted along this trail.

One of the reasons we love visiting parks and attractions in Utah is because of the beautiful multi-colored rocks. A geology student must go crazy here.

For all of you "Three Amigo" fans of the blog, here's a picture of them goofing off in one of the sandstone formations.









The longest trail we hiked during our stay was named Panorama Trail. You had a choice of either a 3 or 6-mile hike. We took the 3 mile loop, but with the side excursions it wound up being about 4.3 miles total.

The trail took us beside many rock formations such as "Hat Shop"....

.....and "Ballerina Spire"......

.....and "Indian Cave".

The highlight of the hike, however, was the climb up to Panorama Point to view the formations and mountains in all directions.

Come on Karen, it wasn't that tough of a climb!  She's just clowning around (I think).

The last hike we took on our last day was named Shakespeare Arch/Sentinel Trail. The trail was only about 2 miles in length, but once past Shakespeare Arch, was also the most strenuous. This arch formation is the only large natural arch formation in the park.  Not large by Utah park standards, but still interesting to look at.

Bryce Canyon NP is in the far distance of this picture.

This trail is farther away from the campground, so not as many folks venture out this way.  We were the only two on the entire trail.

After getting past the farthest point on the trail, there is an option to take the Slickrock Cutoff back to the trailhead. I thought this might be fun until I saw the initial climb to get up there.  (It was much steeper and taller than this photo depicts.)

After finishing this trail we drove a short distance to a feature named Chimney Rock.  Very unusual formation standing in the open all by itself.

Had to get a shot of our Honda Fit in a blog. We love this little car, although it's not much for off-roading.





This concludes our time in Kodachrome Basin State Park. If ever in the area, we would highly recommend a visit to this somewhat secluded location. You can really get away from it all!  That's a good thing every now and then!

Stay tuned for our next blog.  A change in our summer plans! (Just a teaser to get you to look).


As always, thanks for stopping by to take a look!

A bit of Zion NP and a bit of Cedar Breaks National Monument

Posted from Mountain Home, ID

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If you would like to view additional photos not included in this blog, click on the links below.

Many Pools Trail
Clear Creek Trail
Angel's Landing Trail
Cedar Breaks National Monument


Since we visited Zion National Park in 2017, we only went into the park on two occasions this visit. On one trip in we decided to explore two trails listed on the Alltrails.com site.  These trails are not listed on the NPS Zion official site, but were fun nonetheless.

The Many Pools and Clear Creek trails are located on the east side of the tunnel along Rt. 9. Many Pools is described as "Moderate". It was only 2.3 miles in length, but contained a lot of elevation change over slick rock.

You're basically climbing up the dry creek channel created when the waters carve into the rocks after the winter snows. The trail is so named because there are many pools which are created by the scooping out in the softer rock. This time of the year, however, not many pools can be viewed.

Some nice views of the surrounding mountains from the upper part of the trail.

Just down the road was the trailhead for the Clear Creek Trail. This trail is rated as Easy and basically follows the dry creek bed (this time of year).

We love slot canyons, and this hike included a short slot canyon.  I guess I love walking between the tall vertical walls on each side.

This was an out-and-back trail, so you get to see beautiful surrounding landscapes on each part of your hike.









We returned to Zion NP on a separate day to hike a trail that I wanted to do last year. Probably one of the most hiked trails in Zion NP is named Angel's Landing. This hike is rated as Hard, mainly due to the last 1/2 mile of the trail. The  trail is approximately 5.5 miles if you hike to the very top (which we didn't).

The first 1 1/2 miles is not all that difficult, just a steady climb. The elevation change from the trailhead to the very top of Angel's Landing is about 1400 feet.

Between 2 and 2 1/2 miles you encounter Walter's Wiggles. This is a switchback portion of the trail constructed by the park's first superintendent Walter Ruesch in 1926. Strangely enough, Mr. Ruesch had no engineering experience. There are approximately 21 levels in the switchbacks.

At this point, it's only a short distance to the area known as Scout's Lookout.  This is the point where a decision can be made to hike the final 1/2 mile to the very top of Angel's Landing or not.  We chose not!  (The sign indicates that six people have died falling from the final climb area since 2004.)

Much of the final section has climbing assistance chains along the trail. This is about as close as I got to making the final ascent.

We were able to get a few pictures of the final fin to the top from our nice and secure lunch location on Scout's Lookout.

Although the view from the very top must be truly magnificent, the view from a bit lower wasn't too shabby either. That's the Virgin River on the floor of the canyon below.

It's now the first week in June and the daily temperatures in the area have been in the mid-90s for a few days.  Time to seek a cooler spot to hike.  A great place to cool off is Cedar Breaks National Monument.  This park is located about 90 minutes north of Hurricane, UT. The nice thing is that the elevation is above 10,000 feet.

Several folks we spoke to think of Cedar Breaks NM as a mini Bryce Canyon.  I can certainly see why as you're viewing perspective is looking down into the monument as opposed to being at the base of the mountains as in Zion NP.

Cedar Breaks NM only has 4 listed trails. We decided to take the Spectra Point/RampartsTrail to view down into the monument. The trail was about 4 miles out-and-back. The hiking wasn't bad, except for the high elevation which we weren't quite acclimated to yet. Spectra Point can be seen toward the upper right portion of this picture.

On the way to Spectra Point a sign indicated that Bristlecone Pines are prevalent in this area. They are some of the oldest living trees in the world. The neat thing about them is that although most of a tree might appear dead, part of the tree diverts all of its' resources to a surviving branch or two. Some of the trees in this area are thought to be about 2000 years old.

Here's a view from Spectra Point looking into the monument area below.

The second half of the hike led us to Rampart Overlook. Most of this hike is spend descending from the Spectra Point area. We passed thru many trees and "green" areas to reach the Rampart Overlook.

This was a very enjoyable hike. While it was in the low 90s back in Hurricane today, the temperatures here were in the low 60s, and windy at times.

The highest point in the area is named Brian Head Peak.  It's not really a hike, but a gravel road takes you to the summit at 11,307 feet. By the time we reached this point and got out to walk around it was VERY windy.  We didn't spend a lot of time out of the car.

Here's a view from near the CCC-built structure you see in the previous picture looking down onto the town of Brian Head.






This blog will conclude our stay in Hurricane, UT. We move next to Kodachrome Basin State Park, just about 14 miles east of Bryce National Park. We'll be spending 5 nights at that location.

Goodbye from Cedar Breaks National Monument.

As always, thanks for stopping by to take a look!

Our Time in Hurricane, UT

Posted from near North Ogden, UT

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Snow Canyon State Park
Owens Loop Trail
Turtle Wall Trail


I seemed to have managed to get way behind in my blog posting again.  We just spent a week in Kodachrome Basin SP near Cannonville, UT. Beautiful place, but no cell signal whatsoever.

We spent an entire month in Hurricane, UT, staying at WillowWind RV Park. We stayed at this same park in May, 2017 because of its' location to Zion National Park and to St. George, UT. It's about 25  and 18 miles, respectively. Hurricane is a great small town and you can find just about anything you need in St. George.

As most of our readers know by now, we love to hike trails in new areas we travel.  This area is a hiker's paradise.  I'm not going to talk about "all" of our hikes, just a bunch of them.

On the north side of St. George is a beautiful Utah State Park named Snow Canyon. The single day entrance fee is $6/day/car.  None of the hikes in this park are that long or difficult, but the scenery is beautiful. One of the first trails we hiked was named Petrified Dunes. The dunes looked like sand, but were sandstone.

The landscape is this area is amazing.

Careful there Karen!

Our next hike (on the same day) was the Lava Flow Trail. Unfortunately, none of my photos do true justice to this area.  The entire dark area in this photo is an ancient lava flow field.

There are a couple of lava tubes to explore on this hike, also.

A very short hike was on a trail named Pioneer Names.  A short climb up some rock led to an area where pioneers from the 1880s and 1890s left their marks on the stone using axle grease.

Here's a closer look at some of their names.

A few days later we drove back to St. George to hike a trail named Owen's Loop which provided great views of St. George below. (This trail is not located in Snow Canyon SP). The trail provided a nice combination of rock scrambling, easy walking, interesting rock formations, and cliff views.

Here's a look down onto St. George near the beginning of the trail. Mormon Temple on the right side.

I thought this rock formation was interesting. It reminded me of a spaceship, but I'm thinking its' formation was not quite so exotic.

We always try and stop for a "lunch" break about midway on our hikes. Although it really wasn't that hot today, this formation provided a great rest stop.

The first couple of days in June we visited an area (again on the north side of St. George) named the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve.  This is a very large area, but we chose a hike named Turtle Wall. We finally got to a trailhead in the morning hours. Again, great landscapes.

This trail was a large loop trail. Karen is actually standing on the "turtle" back. As such, we got no good photo of the turtle rock formation.

Taking a break for a picture!



















I have intentionally limited the number of photos in this post to keep the blog manageable to read. Believe me, there are many, many more photos to view.  If you are interested, please click on one of the links at the beginning of this post.



Our next blog post will focus on our trip to Cedar Breaks National Monument and a hike or two in Zion National Park. (We visited Zion last year, so our blogging on the park will we kept to a minimum.)



Thanks for stopping by to take a look!