Grand Staircase (Off) Road Trip - Escalante Day 2

The Burr Trail and Wolverine Loop  

Tuesday, October 19, 2021

After going to bed with heavy clouds and rain showers outside, we woke up to a beautiful day with clear blue skies, a good omen for the day ahead.  We were up early (for us) as we had a long day ahead of us.  After breakfast, we packed our lunch and were on the road before 9:30.  Today we are driving the Burr Trail that starts in the town of Boulder.

The Burr Trail is marked in red while the Wolverine Loop is blue.

Boulder is about 30 miles north of Escalante and the drive from Escalante to Boulder on SB12 is spectacular.  You go down into canyons and up into high plateaus with incredible scenery all along the way.  You even go through a stretch where you are on the backbone with deep canyons on both sides.

We arrived in Boulder, made the right hand turn onto the Burr Trail and we were on our way.  The Burr Trail is named after John Burr, an early rancher in the area in the mid 1800's who needed a way to get his cattle from the high country down to a lower altitude for the winter.  It’s hard to believe how he found a way through this desolate and rugged landscape, but he did and now we have a beautiful scenic drive to enjoy.

The Burr Trail is 66 miles long and is paved for the first 31 miles until you reach the boundary of Capitol Reef National Park.  The main part of Capitol Reef is further north, but the Burr Trail cuts through the southern and lesser traveled part of it.

The first part of the drive was lined with cottonwood trees with their beautiful fall colors.  After driving through one short canyon we drove through Long Canyon that is one of the highlights of the Burr Trail.  It is about 10 miles long with towering red cliffs on both sides with cottonwood trees at the base of the cliffs.

Fall colors in the Cottonwoods.

Long Canyon

Driving into Long Canyon.

I had read in a photo guide about a slot canyon with easy access along the road.  It is not named and not marked on most maps, but is pretty well known and is called Singing Canyon by the locals because of the acoustics inside the canyon (I have also seen it called Long Canyon Slot on some topo maps).  There are no signs on the road, but we knew about where it was so we started our search.  We stopped at spot we thought it was, but after hiking around a bit we couldn’t find it.  

I had the book that I read about it in and checked again and saw he had mentioned it was 0.8 miles past a bridge over The Gulch.  Val and I just looked at each other and laughed, we had parked at the bridge he was talking about.  We got in the car, drove the 0.8 miles and sure enough; there to the left was what looked like a slot canyon.  The entrance was hidden by a large cottonwood tree, but it was a short walk down to it and there it was.  It was not very long and not as narrow as some of the slot canyons, but it was very beautiful and sure enough, the acoustics were wonderful, though neither Val nor I wanted to expose the world our singing.  We were the only people there for a while, but a couple of people noticed where we parked and soon there were a few other people so we thought that was our sign to move on.

It was a short hike to get to Singing Canyon.

 

 

We continued through Long Canyon and drove up out of the canyon to a large plateau.  Just as we exited the canyon we saw the turnoff for the Wolverine Loop, a 28 mile dirt track that ended back up at the Burr Trail.  I had read about it and thought it might be interesting to drive so we decided to at least start it and see what it was like.  It was a rough road and went through many creek crossings, but could probably be done by a 2-wheel drive, high clearance vehicle, but I definitely felt more comfortable having 4-wheel drive.   

We were traveling through a high dessert plateau area that, while beautiful, was not really very interesting and after about 8 miles we were considering turning around, but decided to press on and have some lunch before deciding.  We found a beautiful spot to have our lunch and decided to continue the loop.

This seemed like a nice place to stop for lunch.

Wise decision, just after lunch we started passing through a deep canyon and then rising onto plateaus and going right back down into another canyon.  The road was pretty rough in places and slow going, but it was a great drive and we were glad we pushed ahead.

We got back to the Burr Trail and continued on into Capitol Reef National Park where the road turned to dirt and got a little rougher, but not bad.  The Burr Trail goes all the way to a road called the Norton Bullfrog Road that runs north to the main highway leading to Capitol Reef and south to the Bullfrog Marina on Lake Powell.  The road that runs to Bullfrog is considered part of the Burr Trail.  We had driven to Capitol Reef on our last trip, but we decided it was getting late in the afternoon so we would just drive to the Muley Twist, turn around and head back.

The Muley Twist is a very steep series of switchbacks that drop 1000 feet into the valley below.  It is a bit of a harrowing drive, but very interesting.  When we were here last time, I had found a spot where I could take a picture of the switchbacks and the route down, but I couldn’t find the spot this time.  I think it must have been after we had already started down, but oh well, we were ready to start back.

The top of the Muley Twist.

Looking down the Muley Twist.  You can't see much of the switchbacks from this viewpoint, but you can see the bottom of the Muley Twist far below.

We made the drive back along the Burr Trail to Boulder and then SB12 back to Escalante and our tiny house.  We made it back by 5:00 and it felt good to sit down and relax for a bit, but we had dinner to think about.

There is a fire pit out back of our house and we had decided that we would relive our childhood and roast hot dogs on sticks over an open fire and tonight was the night.  I went out to start the fire while Val got things ready, but I didn’t do very well so Val came out and rescued me and took over the fire starting and soon we had a roaring fire going which felt good as the evening was getting pretty cool.  We roasted our hot dogs (actually Polish sausages) to perfection and had a great dinner of our hot dogs and potato salad.

Val has jut gotten a good fire going and is ready to roast the hotdogs.

It was a bit cool, but not as cold as I look in this picture.

These hot dogs tasted great after being roasted over an open fire.

It had been a long day and we have another long day tomorrow so after getting thing cleaned up and relaxing for a while, we called it a night.  Tomorrow we are driving the Hole-in-the-Rock Road, another off-road adventure.

Grand Staircase (Off) Road Trip - Escalante Day 1

Smoky Mountain Road

Monday, October 18, 2021

We woke up refreshed this morning as it was much quieter here in Escalante than it was in Las Vegas.   After having some breakfast, we relaxed a bit and enjoyed our first morning in our tiny house.

When we first decided to take a road trip to the Escalante Grand Staircase National Monument, Val started looking around for places to stay.  Escalante is a very small town of around 700, but they do have tourists coming in so there are a few places to stay and eat, and we didn’t really want to have to eat out so Val started looking at VRBO for a small house to rent.  She ended up finding a compound of tiny houses that were rented out by a company called Escalante Escapes. 

There are nine tiny homes around 400 square feet each in size and although they are small, they are fully equipped with a living / dining area, a full kitchen (albeit small), full bathroom with a shower, a bedroom with a queen size bed and even a very small bunk room with bunk beds.  It is quite modern with TV’s in the living room and bedroom, nice appliances including dishwasher, refrigerator, cooktop and a combination convection oven / microwave – all the comforts of home.  We were very pleasantly surprised and really liked it.  There is also a deck with a view of the mountains in the distance and a fire pit with Adirondack chairs.  It is very nice and I congratulate Val on another great find.  We can have breakfast, cook our dinners and make our own lunches to take with us while we explore the area.  The pictures below give you a tour of the house and surroundings.

It really did look like a tiny house on first view.

The entry way on the side.

The living room and the outside deck.

The kitchen area

The hallway to the rest of the house.

The bunk room (we used it for storage).

A built in washer and dryer.

The bathroom

Another view of the bathroom.

The master bedroom with a queen size bed.

A view of the fire pit from the deck.

Val standing on the deck.  The was also a grill on the deck.

Three of the six tiny homes on the lower level.

And three tiny homes with lofts on the upper level.

By mid-morning it was time to start the day and the first order of day was to visit the Grand Staircase Interagency Visitor’s Center in Escalante and get some information on road conditions and weather.  The area is governed by the National Park Service, the BLM and the Forest Service hence the interagency center.   The Visitor’s Center was very nice and the rangers there were very friendly and helpful and we got all the information we needed.

From the Visitor’s Center it was a short drive to the Escalante Petrified Forest State Park so we decided to take a look.  It was interesting, but to be honest, we weren’t all that interested and to really see much you had to take a somewhat strenuous hike so we decided to move on.

Part way up the trail through the petrified forest.

The views were great.

The morning had been sunny and pleasant, but clouds were moving in and the weather reports said there was a possibility of rain in the afternoon so we decided to head back to the house, have some lunch and decide what to do.  After a delicious lunch of homemade muffulettas, we decided that we would explore Smoky Mountain / Alvery Road.

Time for lunch.

The road starts in Escalante and runs southeast for 78 miles to Big Water on Lake Powell.  We couldn’t drive the full length of the road because it was impassable due to some deep mud areas, which was fine with us as we wouldn’t have had time to drive the full length in an afternoon anyway.  The road requires a high clearance vehicle, but not 4-wheel drive and the part that we drove was in remarkably good shape.  The first 10 miles of the road were through a canyon with cottonwoods lining both side of the road with various degrees of fall color.  This was the most scenic part of the drive.

Our drive for the day shown in red.

 

 

From there the road got a little rougher and started to climb out of the canyon and up to a plateau.  The plateau area was high dessert and not as interesting as the canyon, but that is of course relative as all of this remote area is beautiful.  We wouldn’t be driving it today, but the other end of the road where it descends down to Lake Powell is also a spectacular drive.

  

 

It seemed wise to stay left.

We didn’t know how far we could go before the road was impassable and the clouds were getting darker and more ominous so we started thinking about going back.  We actually started to see a few raindrops at the 20 mile mark and we decide it was time to turn around.  This area has a lot of clay in the soil and a perfectly good dirt road will turn to very slippery mud when it gets wet.  There are warning signs on many of the roads that say don’t drive them when wet even if you have 4-wheel drive.  The good thing is they usually dry out pretty quickly.  We had also crossed quite a few dry creek beds on the road and you could see how dangerous they could become with a flash flood.

With all that said, we weren’t really worried as there wasn’t much rain, but it doesn’t pay to ignore possible dangers so we did the right thing by turning back.  Besides that, we had really seen what we wanted to see.

By the time we were back on the paved road, the cloud cover was now complete and we were getting some intermittent showers.  It was late afternoon anyway so it was time to head for home.  We got back in time to relax a little, look at our pictures and discuss what we would do tomorrow.

We had planned on having a fire in our fire pit and roasting hot dogs for our dinner tonight, but the weather had turned cold and windy with a few rain showers so we decided to have more of the soup we had last night that had tasted so good.  It tasted very good tonight too.

The clouds and rain are supposed to blow through tonight and it’s supposed to be mostly sunny tomorrow.  We will wait and see what the weather is in the morning before deciding what to do tomorrow.  Our first day in Escalante was great and we are looking forward to more adventures for the rest of the week.

Grand Staircase (Off) Road Trip - We're On Our Way

Home to Las Vegas 

Saturday, October 16, 2021

From the title, it sounds like we are stopping in Las Vegas as usual to do a little gambling on our trip, but this time that’s not the case.  We are actually staying at a Hampton Inn in North Las Vegas tonight so no gambling for us.  We had hoped to be on the road by 9:00 this morning, but we didn’t quite make it and didn’t get on the road until 9:55.  We usually take two short driving days to get to Las Vegas, but today we are doing it all in one day, not a bad drive, but a little long. 

The 4-Runner is loaded and ready to go.

The day went mostly well, but there were a few hiccups.  We ran into heavy traffic due to some construction around Bakersfield that delayed us a bit and then when we decided to stop in Tehachapi for lunch, we found they were having an outdoor street festival and the town was very crowded with nowhere to park and the restaurants full.  We gave up on lunch in town and drove up the road a bit and ended up eating a hamburger at a fast-food place.

One very good thing today, at least for those of us who rely on Highway 58 to get from Bakersfield to Interstate 15 in Barstow, it is now four-lane freeway all the way.  Almost two years ago, when we made our last trip to Las Vegas before the pandemic, they were working on the last segment and now it’s all done.  It sure makes that drive a lot easier.

The rest of the drive was uneventful, except for an accident in Las Vegas that brought traffic on I-15 to a stop.  We still managed to get to our hotel by 5:00 PM, so despite the delays, not a bad day.  Tomorrow is the final leg of our journey to Escalante where we’ll be spending the rest of the week.

Las Vegas to Escalante, Utah

Sunday, October 17, 2021

We got a later start than we wanted today as neither one of us slept very well last night.  Our hotel is near the Las Vegas Speedway and it sounded like they were practicing on the street outside, very loud!  The air conditioning seemed to be on a cycle that left us either freezing or very hot so that didn’t help our sleep either.

We finally got on the road around 10:00 and headed north on I-15 until Mesquite, NV near the Arizona border where we stopped and bought groceries.  After we left Mesquite we ran into a construction zone that narrowed I-15 down to one lane and traffic came to a complete stop and it took us over a half an hour to get through it.  Normally there isn’t much traffic on that stretch of highway, but I guess there were lots of people from Utah heading home after a weekend of gambling in Las Vegas.

We followed I-15 through St. George, UT and on to Cedar City where we stopped for lunch.  From Cedar City we finally got off the freeway and took a much more scenic route.  Escalante is out in the middle of nowhere and there is no direct route to get there, but no matter how you get there, the drive is very scenic.  We took Highway 14, which goes through the mountains, passed the entrance to Cedar Breaks National Monument, and up and over a 10,000 foot pass before it ends at US Highway 89.  It had snowed last week so there was snow on the ground much of the way.  The white snow contrasting with the red rock was very beautiful.

Once we hit US89, we only had a short drive north until we turned onto Utah Highway 12, the final leg of our journey to Escalante.  Scenic Byway (SB)12 is a Utah scenic byway and has been designated an All American Road, which is well deserved as it is a beautiful drive from one end to the other.  On the way to Escalante, it passes Red Canyon in the Dixie National Forest and the entrance to Bryce Canyon National Park.

Scenic Highway 12

Red Rock Canyon

 

 

 

Red Rock Canyon

Finally, after a wonderful drive on SB12, we arrived at our tiny house in Escalante where we will be staying until next Saturday (more on our tiny house tomorrow).  We arrived around 5:00 PM, unloaded the car and settled in to our new home for the next week.  Val made a wonderful soup for dinner that really hit the spot and then we relaxed for a while before calling it a night.

Not sure what we will do tomorrow, but we do want to visit the Grand Staircase Inter Agency Visitors Center first thing to find out about road conditions as most of the roads are not paved and only randomly maintained.  We will be spending most of our time off-road on this trip so we want to make sure we don’t get in a bad situation.

Grand Staircase (Off) Road Trip

Friday, October 15, 2021

Since the pandemic started we have taken a couple of short trips to Lake Tahoe and Reno, but have not taken a real trip since our Canadian Road Trip in September of 2019, but that is about to change.  The pandemic certainly isn’t over, but we are fortified with all of our vaccinations and we feel like it’s time to get out and do something. We've decided to take a road trip to the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.  We leave tomorrow and we can’t wait.

The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is an area of 1.88 million acres located in South-Central Utah.  It was established in 1996 and Val and I visited it in 1997, but we haven’t been back since.  It is a very remote area with few paved roads and very few people.  We have rented a house in the town of Escalante, which is in the central area of the Monument.  Escalante is the largest town in the Monument with a population of almost 700 so you can see, the area is not very populated.

From Wikipedia (link): “The Grand Staircase is an immense sequence of sedimentary rock layers that stretch south from Bryce Canyon National Park and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, through Zion National Park, and into the Grand Canyon National Park.”

Grand Staircase National Monument

The Geology of the Grand Staircase

We are very excited to be back traveling again and can’t wait to leave.  It is snowing in Southern Utah this week as I write this, but by Sunday when we arrive, the temperature is supposed to move up into the mid 60’s so we are hoping for nice weather.  So it’s time to pack everything up and get on the road for our next  adventure (finally!!).