Spring 2022 Utah Adventure, 4.23.22 - 5.12.22, Part 2 of 12
Waking up that third morning it was twenty-one degrees but I didn’t think it felt that cold. We got an early start. It was only a four and a half hour drive to get to our next camp but this would be a free dispersed campsite so we wanted to arrive fairly early to improve our chances of securing a site. For me it is a source of anxiety to not have an advanced reservation. We would experiment several times on this trip with non-reservable sites and in all three of these gambles we had no trouble finding a good spot to pitch our camps.
Leaving Ward Charcoal Ovens State Park we got back on US-93 heading south but instead of driving all the way down to Panaca and then east to Cedar City, Utah, we opted to drive around the northern side of Great Basin National Park. The view of Wheeler Peak from the north ridge was outstanding. Dropping down we came to the small town of Baker, Nevada and the main entrance and visitor center to Great Basin. Boy, I wanted to go exploring but we had a different agenda on this day.
From Baker to I-15 may have been the most desolate stretch of road I’ve ever driven. Vast miles of pure nothingness reminded us that this would not be a great place to break down. We would go for miles and miles across flat empty valleys, rise up through a ridge only to have another huge flat section to pass through. This went on for hours before we finally hit I-15 which we took south to Panguitch.
I pride myself on being prepared and just to be safe we stopped into the ranger district to get a current report on conditions. The place we were hoping to camp had seen snow the previous week and the ranger wasn’t positive whether or not the road in would have snow or mud. The RVs are not well suited for being off the pavement so we wanted the smoothest road we could find. Driving up through Red Canyon we had originally planned to turn left onto Cabin Hollow Road where there were dispersed sites. I opted to pass up on that, instead turning off onto Tom’s Best Spring Road just at the top of Red Canyon. This road by all accounts was more established and supposedly had hundreds of free sites scattered in the woods. We unhooked the Jeep at the entrance, leaving the RVs at the highway entrance and drove in to scout out a spot to camp. Despite being a weekday, many of the spots right next to the main road were taken. We didn’t really want to take the RVs too far off the main road but we found a nice open meadow about a mile in. Back to the RVs and we drove them in, leveled them out, put out the slideouts and established our camp. Just as we were preparing to take off in the Jeep for a hike a gigantic horse trailer pulled in right next to us. The guy came over and said he had scoped the site out earlier and was expecting four or five more huge horse trailers any time. I gave a weak stab at saying we were already set up but knew I wouldn’t stand a chance against a few dozen cowboys so we packed up the RVs and went looking for a different spot to camp. It actually wasn’t that bad. A short drive down a side road just across from where we were and we found two good spots so moving to the new camp wasn’t a big deal.
Now that we were officially settled we piled into the Jeep and drove back through Red Canyon to the Casto Canyon Road and the trailhead for Losee Canyon. At that same trailhead was a hike I had found that we could all do. It was called the Arches Trail and it was a loop of only .7 miles. This was a great way to ease into the hiking on our itinerary. The trail gently climbed up into a maze of brilliant orange colored rock formations. Once we reached the high point it basically wrapped around a small bowl before dropping back down and rejoining the original trail near the trailhead. It was a quick and easy hike to begin the “adventure phase” of our Utah Adventure.
Arches Trail/Red Canyon
Arches Trail/Red Canyon
Arches Trail/Red Canyon
Arches Trail/Red Canyon
Arches Trail/Red Canyon
Arches Trail/Red Canyon
Arches Trail/Red Canyon
Arches Trail/Red Canyon
After doing the thoroughly enjoyable hike on the Arches Trail we drove back to our camp on the Tom’s Best Spring Road. Bob un-trailered the side by side and he and I went for an explore further down the Tom’s Best Spring Road. We found a side road that traversed over and then up to the top of a ridge. I believe we could have connected up to the Cabin Hollow Road but we headed back so that Dana could also go for a ride. It was really fun being able to just explore at will.
Razor Bob
It was nice camping for free in the open timber just a few miles from Bryce Canyon. Actually, it turned out the sites weren’t free. After getting back to our camp, the guy with the horse trailer came over with a woman who was clearly the head honcho of their group. The group turned out to be an established organization in the Bryce area called Bryce Canyon Mule Days. She wanted to thank us profusely for not putting up a big stink and that we had been beyond gracious to give up our spot for their trailers. As much as we tried not to accept it, she forced us to take a hundred dollar bill out of gratitude so the sites weren’t free after all, we got paid to camp there!