Monday,10/8/07: Our annual trip to St. George Utah (for Dave to compete in a national senior volleyball tournament) provides an excuse for exploring interesting areas along the way. This year, we decided to spend several days exploring portions of the San Rafael Swell. We've driven across the Swell on I-70 several times before, but haven't explored it beyond the immediate surroundings of the rest areas along the highway. Here's a description found on the Internet at http://www.americansouthwest.net/utah/san_rafael_swell/index.html
"Eighteen miles west of Green River, UT, Interstate 70 cuts across one of the emptiest and least developed regions of Utah - a wide plateau crossed by two entrenched river systems and surrounded by a ring of upturned strata. This is the San Rafael Swell - arid, little vegetated yet often very scenic, with mesas, cliffs, buttes, springs and especially canyons; these are sometimes wide with stepped sides but often narrow and slot-like. Most is owned by the BLM and could well be a future national monument; for now though the land is open and access is unrestricted. The Swell is an oval shaped uplifted area of layered rocks - geologically termed an anticline - about 75 x 40 miles in extent, most of which has been eroded away forming the mostly flat central plateau, while the strata at the edges are left exposed and angled near vertically (the San Rafael Reef); here are found most of the spectacular canyons, especially in the southeast section."
Our preparations for the trip went very slowly, and we didn't get underway until 1:30 P.M. The familiar drive west along I-70 was uneventful. All the tunnels are open today, although it's still one lane each direction in the long tunnels in Glenwood Canyon - apparently they are still working on the crack in the ceiling in the Eastbound bore and must occasionally divert all traffic from there into a lane of the westbound tunnel. Traffic through that area was light and the lane closures didn't create any delay. We stopped briefly at a rest area in Glenwood Canyon - a scenic spot along the river. Wild dogwood was covered with white berries and the leaves had turned red. Some small native maples also had orange/red leaves. We made good time until we were slowed to a crawl for many miles through the Vail area, where construction had narrowed the highway to one lane and local Vail traffic was heavy.
After worrying for several weeks about where to camp near the San Rafael Swell, I received an EMail the morning we left, from someone who had just stayed at Goblin Valley State Park and said that some of the sites would accommodate big rigs. So that became our tentative destination.
With our late start, we obviously weren't going to get to Goblin Valley until long after dark, so we stopped at Green River State Park, in Green River, UT. Since we hadn't planned to stay there, we had no directions to the park - our map showed it in the middle of a large empty area, with no indication of which of the surrounding roads had the entrance drive. A local gas station attendant gave us directions. We had driven right past the entrance a couple of miles back, but the sign is small and unlighted. This park has quite a few long sites that will accommodate large rigs. It even has some pull-through sites, although we couldn't figure out how to get into them without going the wrong way on a narrow one-way road. It was after dark, and rather than wander around with a flashlight trying to figure it out, we unhooked the toad and pulled into a large attractive back-in site near the entrance. There are no hookups, and $15/night seems rather steep for dry camping.
This park is old but nice. It is tucked into the side of a golf course, has lots of mature trees (some of them very close to the narrow twisty drive - big rigs need to be driven very carefully), and is far enough from the Interstate to be fairly quiet. The train track is close, however, and trains run fairly often. The town of Green River (population 949, median household income $26,500, both down a few percent since the 2000 census) hasn't improved since were here last, and still looks rather depressed. There are a couple of truck stops and a few large modern motels on the outskirts near the Interstate, but the town itself has many vacant buildings and generally looks run down. This is a popular starting and ending point for canoe/kayak trips on the Green and Yampa Rivers, which provides business for the motels, perhaps keeps the small grocery store alive, but apparently isn't much help for the other businesses.
Tuesday, 10/9/07: We continued on to Goblin Valley - about an hour and a half of driving - turning south on SR-24 about 12 miles west of Green River. The turn onto the side road to Goblin Valley is marked only by one relatively small sign and it would be easy to miss. The campground was about half full when we arrived in mid-morning. It appeared that every site was reserved for the weekend, but we found several large sites open for the two nights we would be here. By evening, every site was full (on a Tuesday night in October!) We chose site 2 - quite large and with a nice view out our front window of the interestingly eroded cliffs of Wild Horse Butte, at the edge of the campground. Again, it's $15 per night for no hookups. The park elevation is 5000 ft.
After setting up camp, and eating lunch, we stopped briefly at the office to pay and to ask a few questions about the slot canyon hikes, and then set off to explore and hike. Helen couldn't handle a long hike, so on the advice of the ranger, we drove to Little Wild Horse Canyon, where a relatively short approach hike (about a mile) would get us into the interesting part of the canyon. Although generally easy walking on a smooth gravel dry wash, this approach hike did have one difficult spot that almost stopped Helen - a six foot vertical dry waterfall. After some searching and experimentation, we finally found a way up it that she could negotiate. Shortly after that, the trail branches left for Bell Canyon and right for Little Wild Horse Canyon. Many people do a loop hike up Bell, then across the mesa to descend Little Wild Horse Canyon. We didn't expect to be able to do the whole thing, and chose to hike up Little Wild Horse until we ran out of time and then come back down the same way.
The canyon quickly became interesting - a deep and
narrow cut through red sandstone, intricately carved by the water.
In some places, the canyon was barely wide enough for our hips and
shoulders. Occasional vertical waterfalls (which have water only
during the rare rainstorm) were difficult obstacles to climb over.
After about two hours of slow hiking, stopping often for
photographs, we finally reached an obstacle that Helen couldn't
negotiate, so she headed back down. Dave continued on up at a
faster pace for another 45 minutes, to where the canyon widened out
and became less interesting near the top, then descended rapidly,
catching up with Helen just before the end. This canyon, and
several other slot canyons, are well described at various websites.
See for example On the drive back to the campground, we checked out several
potential boondocking sites, accessed by jeep tracks branching off
the "main road". A couple of these would be accessible to the
motorhome and had nice views down the valley. We recorded the
locations for future use. At dusk, we drove to the Goblin Valley overlook - about a mile
from the campground. We got there just before sunset - a good time
for photographing these interesting formations. An entire valley is
filled with fantastic shapes eroded out of reddish sandstone. We
spent quite a while looking and photographing from an overlook at
the parking area, then hiked down through the valley to enjoy these
objects from close up. Wednesday, 10/10/07: Today, we took a long drive
through the center of the San Rafael Swell. We started from Temple
Mountain Road, about 7 miles north of Goblin State Park. This road
climbed steeply from about 5200 feet elevation on the flat desert
floor up through the "reef" past Temple Mountain (not as impressive
as it sounds), continued west for a couple of miles, and then
leveled out at about 6200 feet and turned North, leveling climbing
gently to 6700 ft. We crossed Interstate 70 at exit 129. North of
I-70, it becomes Buckhorn Draw Road, CR-332. There are several good
boondocking sites here, some close to the Interstate. Our
preference would be to go about a mile northeast on CR-332. At this
point, the road has diverged almost half a mile from the Interstate
and is at least partially shielded from the Interstate noise by
trees and terrain. Jeep trails wander through a sparse forest of
small juniper and piñon trees, with numerous level places to
park a big RV. Beyond this point, the road turns east and again
approaches I-70, before turning straight north. We continued north descending gradually to 5000 ft. at the San
Rafael River bridge, where BLM has a small primitive campground -
about eight sites, perhaps half of them suitable for big rigs, with
tables and vault toilets. I didn't check the fee. We continued
north beyond the bridge for another few miles, stopping at a site
where numerous ancient pictographs are visible on the sandstone
cliff along the road. Although this site is easily accessible along
a good gravel road, and has interpretive signs, it seems to be less
well known than several other similar sites on the San Rafael
Swell. See http://www.climb-utah.com/SRS/srra.htm for additional
information about some of these pictographs and petroglyph sites
in the area. Backtracking to the river, we then followed a jeep
trail west along the south edge of the river. The river actually
had substantial pools of water here and there, and some continuing
flow, supporting a green bosque up to 100 yards wide in places
where the valley is wide. We found several nice boondocking spots,
one right on the river bank, near a horse corral and trailhead
which is apparently used as a starting point for horse-supported
pack trips to more remote points. This is a very scenic spot, and
we'll be tempted to bring the motorhome here on some future
trip. Between here and I-70 there were only a couple of
spots where the road had small washouts that would require care to
negotiate with a large motorhome. We saw a large tour bus stopped
at the pictograph site, suggesting that the road which continues to
the northwest is also suitable for large vehicles. With the sun threatening to disappear behind the buttes to the
west, we decided to call it a day, taking the shortest and fastest
route back to our campsite, backtracking to I-70, then east to
SR-24. The day's wandering covered about 135 road miles, nearly all
of it on narrow gravel roads, most of which had received a little
maintenance and could be traveled in nearly any vehicle. Thursday, 10/11/07: We needed to be in St. George by late
afternoon, so Dave could register for the tournament and attend an
evening team practice. So we got underway fairly early and took the
fastest route - north to I-70, then west to I-15 and south to St.
George. We've traveled this route several times and commented on it
in previous chapters. Friday, 10/12/07 - Tuesday, 10/16/07: Dave played volleyball for four
days with the Colorado Highlanders, his Denver team in the over-70
division. The team didn't play consistently, occasionally playing
well against top competition, but then losing matches we should
have won against weaker teams. There were no matches scheduled on
Sunday, and we had originally planned to go up to Zion National
Park and do some hiking. But we felt lazy, and stayed around home
all day. Tuesday, 10/16/07: Jim & Rosalie Bole arrived in St George
and an excellent dinner with them at Scaldoni's was a nice time to
catch up and plan the next few days. Jim and Dave play on the same
volleyball team in Denver, but are playing on different teams in
St. George. Wednesday, 10/17/07: - Saturday, 10/20: Dave played in the over-65
division with a new team called "From All Over", with players from
various parts of the country. The team organizer and one or two of
the other players are from the Minneapolis area. Again, we played
erratically, initially struggling to play effectively as a team
with people we had just met. We used a 6-2 offense for the early
matches, and then tried a 4-2 in the last few matches. No medals
this year! Helen and Rosalie headed out to Kayenta and
Snow Canyon State Park, 10 miles northwest of St George, traveling
through the historic town of Santa Clara, past the Brigham Young
Winter Residence and into the dramatic countryside. Kayenta is a housing development/artist colony that backs to a
huge rock formation. Strict rules prevent grass lawns and
traditional landscaping on the expansive lots, and also limit the
houses to one story in subdued colors. The effect was nice-looking
houses scattered about often just visible above the sage brush. A
few of the patios that we could see had plantings of the sculptural
large dessert succulents that showed above the adobe-looking walls
surrounding them. We stumbled across a new trail that led through the dessert
studded with large sculptures by artists in the colony. Many were
interesting enough to warrant pausing and photographing. Some were
for sale, others not. The small section of five or so buildings of art galleries and
museums around a courtyard was a delightful roam. I remember
interesting photographs of western scenes and details, iridescent
pottery, oil paintings, oddball jewelry, huge metal sculptures that
whirled in the wind, and a hushed museum of colorful paintings and
smaller sculpture. The grounds are a delight for gardeners as
dessert plants, thoughtfully placed and grown to specimen size and
shape, are nearly all labeled. Sandwiches and salad at the coffee shop rested the weary feet
and delighted the senses with an eclectic collection of
western-themed do-dads displayed on every surface. Snow Canyon is dramatic, with eroded bare expanses of
cross-bedded sandstone, covered in places with seemingly fresh
black chunky crusty lava, all backed by orange cliffs and white
limestone mountains. You can enjoy it from a five mile drive, but
we also hiked several of the half-mile trails, read all the
interpretive signs and soaked up the fantastic ambience. On the way home, we stopped briefly at Tuacahn, an outdoor
performing arts venue. The stage is set between high rock
formations that must make the sound wonderful. Rosalie found a big
hairy spider in the gift shop, just the thing for a family
gathering at Halloween. Thursday, 10/18/07: Dave and Jim had a free morning so we four drove back
to Snow Canyon and enjoyed another hike across the sandstone. The
gate attendant at the park handed us a leaflet entitled "What
should I do if I see a tortoise in the road?" with detailed
instructions: "Slowly approach the tortoise, noting the direction
of travel. Carry it carefully across the road in the same
direction, taking it no more than 100 feet from the roadway. Be
sure to hold the tortoise upright, in its normal walking position,
using both hands". Now we know. Unfortunately, we didn't see a
tortoise. Rosalie and Helen dropped the men off in time for
their afternoon game and we went to an almost empty The Painted
Pony restaurant for lunch. (It usually has a long wait for seating
at dinner time.) The Painted Pony is in Ancestor Square, an
historic corner in downtown now filed with interesting artsy shops
and restaurants. We counted ourselves lucky to get away without any
major expenditure, as almost any 'souvenir' would have cost big
bucks. Delightful to look at, but not enough to force open the
pocket book. We decided to explore the town on foot to work off dessert, and
headed for the gleaming white spire of the LDS Temple 10 blocks
away. Our route passed the Tabernacle, through a diverse selection
of shops, western antique and modern junk, and on to a pleasant
residential area. There was a formal event in the Temple and we
paused briefly to watch men in white tuxedos and women in gowns
emerge from gleaming limos and enter a posh reception room. Around the corner, the tourist entrance to the temple Visitors
Center was pleasantly welcoming. The museum had explanations and
photos of the construction of the temple and lots of paintings of
officials of the early LDS Church. A discrete sign welcomed people
who were there for genealogical research. We were encouraged to
take a tour of a set of vignettes about the values and practices of
the church. Each vignette appeared dramatically out of quiet
darkness and depicted an almost cloying homey family scene
emphasizing family values, even into the hereafter. That evening,
Dave and Helen had a good meal at The Claim Jumper, just around the
corner from our RV Park. Friday, 10/19/07: The bright sun lured Helen and Rosalie out of
the city and into exploring. It is only about 10 miles or so to the
Arizona state line and we headed that direction toward an isolated
set of smoke stacks in the distance. After several miles the stacks
were no closer (the clear air makes judging distances impossible),
so we turned off the gravel road into an almost invisible dirt
track and covered a few more miles of very dry gravelly dessert. A
stop to breathe onto a creosote bush and inhale the distinctive
odor associated with rain in the desert pleased me. Later, a plant
nursery in the old Cotton Mill in the suburb of Washington enticed
us to stop and wander among the palm trees and winter annuals
waiting to be sold. The greenery was refreshing after a dry and
dusty desert. A cross-town trip to a pottery shop in Santa Clara
brought us to enormous clay pots, bubbling fountains, dusty iron
work, and old wagon wheel art. That night, Dave and Helen had dinner at Basila's Café,
near the Dixie State College campus. Hearty, but not memorable,
Mediterranean food, funky décor, slapdash diner-style
service at a moderate price. Saturday, 10/20/07: The final portion of the tournament was a
double-elimination event, where we played until we lost twice, then
went home. We had booked the RV Park through Saturday night, the
20th, since the final championship match wouldn't be played until
about 5 pm. But we were eliminated in a late morning match, and I
was back at the motorhome before noon. We both had things that
needed doing back in Denver, so we packed up quickly and got
underway. The usual exit from our portion of the RV Park was
blocked by a big rig using the dump station, so I exited through
another narrow passage and misjudged the spacing, scraping the
power pedestal in the adjacent campsite. The pedestal was bent and
the side of the motorhome scraped, with one compartment door
somewhat damaged. Talking to the RV Park management about the
damage to the pedestal slowed our departure a bit, so we weren't on
the highway until around 1:30 pm. The weather stations were reporting a major winter storm coming
through Salt Lake City from the northwest. We hoped to stay ahead
of it. But much of the I-15 stretch had strong gusty winds, and by
the time we turned off I-15 to Interstate 70 eastbound, we were
seeing a bank of dark clouds just north of us. As we climbed
steeply on I-70, it began to snow, the temperature dropped to
near-freezing, and the winds got stronger. At the highest points
along the route (the highest was 7900 ft. at Emigrant Gap), the
snow was accumulating on the highway. Fortunately, there was very
little traffic. As we dropped down off the San Rafael Swell, near
Green River, the temperature moderated and snow stopped, and we
hoped we had outrun the storm. But the improvement was temporary. By the time we
reached Fruita, just west of Grand Junction, and just after dark,
we could see dense black clouds in the Rockies (and even a few
lightning flashes) ahead of us. The weather reports indicated that
it was snowing heavily at the higher elevations, and that chain
restrictions had been imposed on all commercial vehicles for Vail
and Eisenhower passes. So we decided to spend the night at
relatively low elevation in Fruita and hope the storm had blown
through by morning. Colorado
River State Park, on the river at Fruita, was a convenient
stopping point with full hookups, so we pulled in and spent
a comfortable night. Saturday, 10/20/07: In the morning, the weather and highway
reports had not improved, and we were reluctant to tackle the steep passes
without chains, so we stayed in the campground and watched the Weather Channel
and the highway restrictions on the Colorado Department of Transportation web
site. At 4 pm, the sky was clearing and we got a little sunshine, and the CDOT
website indicated that chain restrictions had been lifted at the passes. So we
left immediately. The driving was good until we got through Glenwood Canyon, but
after that, it became obvious that the storm was still hanging over
the high peaks, apparently stalled by upslope winds on the Front
Range. By the time we got to Vail, chain restrictions were
again in effect. Just east of Vail, traffic slowed and ground to a
halt for almost an hour, as they cleared accidents ahead of us
along the steep climb to Vail Pass. When we finally got underway,
the highway had been freshly plowed and sanded but was still
slippery. We made it over Vail Pass slowly but without any
problems. Traffic continued moving slowly but steadily to the
Dillon Reservoir area, with the trucks grinding along slowly with
chains on all drive axles. Fortunately, traffic had thinned out
after we got past the Vail area. We decided to keep going. And almost immediately after we passed the last
Dillon/Silverthorne exit, we discovered that continuing on was a
mistake. There were no further opportunities to turn around, and no
way to get safely off the road, so we just kept going. I thought
about unhooking the jeep and driving it separately, but Helen was
unenthusiastic about driving it in these conditions, and its
"all-terrain tires" aren't very good on ice. Even in 4-wheel drive,
it can feel rather squirrelly on hard ice. There was no safe place
to leave it, and no way to get back to it anyway, so we just kept
pulling it. At the first steep section, we began to see big trucks
and a few cars stopped, partially obstructing the traffic lanes.
Although we still had enough traction to keep moving, the most
heavily loaded trucks and the cars with summer tires obviously
didn't. And as we climbed higher, it got worse. The shoulders
weren't plowed, the traffic lanes were partly blocked, trucks and
cars were very slowly slipping and sliding, and we felt like we
were running a slalom course, trying to keep our speed and momentum
up while dodging back and forth across the lanes avoiding
obstacles. The road seemed to have a solid layer of hard-packed
snow or ice, beaten down by the truck tires. At 20 degrees, the
salt wasn't having any noticeable effect, and any sand had vanished
under a layer of new snow. The only saving grace was that the
trucker's chains had been cutting into the ice enough to slightly
roughen the surface. At one point, we were slowly passing a Greyhound bus, when it
lost traction in spite of its chains and started drifting sideways
towards us. Then we passed a car while it slid very slowly
backwards downhill, drifted left, and caromed off the barrier at
the left side of the road. Somehow I kept moving, keeping the tires
in the least slippery part of the lanes, gently feeding as much
torque to the wheels as they would take without slipping, and
watching the tachometer intently for incipient breakaway. The climb
from the outskirts of Dillon/Silverthorne, at about 9000 feet, to
the west entrance of the Eisenhower Tunnel at 11,116 feet (the
highest vehicle highway tunnel in the world) is 6.8 highway miles,
for an *average* grade of 6%. It's a remarkably uniform grade, with
the steepest sections only about 7%. But 7% feels quite steep when
it's icy. This 6.8 mile stretch felt like it took forever, and I was so
concentrated on the driving that it was a surprise when we suddenly
saw the lights at the tunnel entrance looming through the blizzard.
The tunnel itself was a relaxing respite - 1.7 miles of clear
smooth pavement with no snow or wind. They just finished
re-surfacing the highway through the tunnel this past September.
The paving job, inside a tunnel at this elevation, was a challenge.
Here's an interesting description, from the viewpoint of the
contractor: http://www.damouth.org/Trip/Eisenhower_Tunnel_Repaving.htm The downhill drive on the eastern slope was another interesting
challenge. Not quite as steep, (the steepest sections are 6%), but
the same road conditions. Fortunately, the trucks seemed to be
doing better on the downhill, with all 18 wheels contributing to
the braking. And the truck drivers who had made it this far seemed
experienced and competent. Our jeep has good automatic braking,
smoothly proportional to the motorhome braking, so I wasn't too
worried about it causing problems going down. The Greyhound that we
had passed on the way up passed us part way down, going much faster
than I was willing to attempt. I learned quite a bit about manually downshifting the 6-speed
Allison automatic transmission, and about engaging and disengaging
the engine exhaust brake smoothly enough to avoid skidding the
drive wheels. Although I grew up in Michigan driving in an
aggressive teen-age style on poorly maintained snowy roads, it was
a brand new experience to try it in a 21,000 pound 33' motorhome,
towing a 4000 pound jeep. But I had no problems at all coming down,
and never felt in danger of losing control. I am very impressed
with the performance of the Michelin XRV tires, which held traction
very well up and down, in spite of being summer highway tires which
were never intended for this kind of use. Below Georgetown, there
was less snow, more salt, and somewhat warmer temperatures and we
started to see occasional patches of bare pavement. But then at
Idaho Springs, we ran into more snow from the upslope wind flow on
the Front Range, and it was somewhat slippery from there all the
way down to the outskirts of Denver. We pulled into our driveway rather tired at around 12:30 AM -
having spent 9 hours on a drive that we usually do in 4 hours. We
just parked it, leaving the furnace running, and headed for bed,
leaving unpacking and winterizing for another day.