Zion, Bryce, and Staircase

Today was more rapid-fire than we’d intended.

This morning, Evan went off to get his flat tire repaired so he’d have a spare again. The only tire shop in Hurricane had a two hour wait, so he headed back and got pulled over on the way. The officer noted that the plates showed no insurance. Evan explained that it was a recent purchase. That set the cop off; in Utah it is illegal to display the tags from a previous owner. Evan tried to counter that in California, Oklahoma (and, for that matter, in Texas, if this had happened to me) that the plates travel with the car, and thus what he was doing was actually legally required of him in the origin state of the car and his own home state. “Well, when you re-register the car at home, they’ll give you new plates,” he said, and removed them from the Rover himself. That inspired some nervousness in George and me, feeling like we’re sitting on this time-bomb.

Back at the house, we packed up and headed out for Zion National Park. On the way, we made lunch stop at a cute little diner that was incredibly slow. Then we got gas for the time since Mesquite and surveyed the damage. Surprisingly, the 4Runner won for fuel economy, but set an embarrassingly low bar to do so.

As we approached Zion, we got stuck in a helluva traffic jam outside the park in a resort town on the edge of it, and it was filled completely with cars. As we approached the entrance gate, an NPS sign read, “All Parking in Zion Full. Return to town for shuttle.” That would have probably taken an hour or two to find parking on the far side of town, get to a shuttle stop, and get into the park. So we decided to take our chances, since we had to pass through the park anyway. We were able to pull off at a few scenic overlooks to look around and make a plan. I started to miss the Parashant where we would go hours without seeing another soul; this place was packed with people.

Unfortunately, we soon discovered that the majority of the trailheads and all the hikes I had starred are along a road that is only open to NSP shuttle busses, you can’t drive your own car up there. That was incredibly deflating, since I feel like that’s something I should have been able to find out on my own. The road proceeded directly to the east exit, but there was one last trailhead there for the East Rim Trail. We stopped and explored. It’s a one-way five mile hike toward a junction which splinters off toward other trails, but even the modest distance we walked offered beautiful views and highly nerdy conversations of a “technology meets automotive hobbies” variety. Not as much of Zion as I had hoped, but better than I feared given what things were like at the entrance. And it did give us two opportunities we hadn’t planned on.

First, we had yet another picnic luncheon that featured Evan’s squeeze-cheese in a shady thicket by the car park. Then we decided that instead of heading directly for Escalante, we should stop at Bryce Canyon!

It was about an hour from Zion to Bryce, and it was getting pretty late. Pushing the speed demonstrated increasing death wobble problems in the Jeep. These cars aren’t dead, but they have had a rough couple days. Also the 4Runner is developing a squeaky brake, which George reminds me is small-potatoes.

For fear of another dead-end shuttle service fiasco with less than two hours before dark, we didn’t go in the main Bryce Canyon National Park entrance. Instead, we continued on UT-12 to the Mossy Cave trailhead. It’s a beautiful little half-mile trail next to a white river of snow-melt, trees growing out of rocks, a really cool big waterfall, and the Mossy Cave which was not what the signs had cracked it up to be because it was no longer frozen, but it was cool. After exploring the waterfall area, we strolled back down to the cars and headed out.

The evening drive took us through the edge of the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument area and offered stunning views of cliffs, valleys, canyons, and rocks of many colors, illuminated by sunset orange. It was a beautiful way to close out the day. We stopped briefly at an overlook for the tail end of sunset before heading into Escalante.

Then we discovered a problem. Escalante is tiny and a late-check-in mixup at the motel meant we had to call the owner in from home to sort out that, first, someone was in our room, and second, that our keys didn’t open our room nor did they seem to open any other room. Not a major problem, but enough so that by the time that got sorted, the only restaurant in town had closed. So we raided the snacks in the Rover for dinner and used a little whisky to wash it all down.

So all in all, it was a long day that made up for in quantity of parks what it lacked in thoroughness of parks explored, but it was a beautiful day that gave me a taste of what southern Utah has to offer. I will be back here some day.

Tomorrow, we head out from Escalante to Ferron via Capitol Reef. It will be our final overlanding day.