Marc's Blog: trips - Hiking and Visiting National Parks in NV and UT: Lamoille Canyon, Moab Cayonlands and Arches NP, Goblins, Petrified Forest, Bryce NP and Zion's Kolob Canyons, Great Basin's Wheeler Peak

π 2020-09-22 01:01 in Hiking, Ntrips, Trips

After being cooped up at home for too long and wanting to escape the fires and smoke in California, stars aligned for us to go with Arturo on a tour of NPs in Nevada And Utah:

turns out we filled up Arturo's small SUV

2775 miles and 11 days:

Day 01: Silicon Valley to Lamoille Canyon, NV

Long drive the first day, 9H+ of driving.

First stop in Truckee:

first stop in Truckee

and then back on Hwy 80:

Reno went by quickly

We took a small detour to see a patch of land filled with warehouses, datacenters, and even the Tesla gigafactory:

would have been nice if we could have gone in

And we resumed a long drive at night to Lamoille canyon where we barely found a camp:

Day 02: Lamoille Canyon, Wendover Airport, Salt Lake City, to Moab

We got up did a nice hike around Lamoille canyon:

Then, back for a long drive to Moab, with a few stops:

burning man art

At the Nevada-Utah border, we stopped at Historic Wendover Airfield (see the page for it)

Eventually arrived at Salt Lake, picked up some food and got a very quick tour:

unfortunately got there 20mn too late to be able to visit the SLC Google office

Then, we had a long drive to Moab with a quick stop by the Google Fibre office in Provo:

Day 03: Moab's Canyonlands

After arriving late at night in Canyonlands, we barely got a spot at a dry campsite and went to Canyonlands the next day:

Day 04: Moab's Arches National Park

The next morning, we got up early to go to Arches NP before all the crowds (the park entrance actually closes at a certain point if enough cars are inside).

just in time for sunrise

Then, lots of nice arches and view we hit from our car:

sheep rock?

We then went on foot for a 9 mile loop ending up on primitive trail to see more arches:

landscape the most impressive arch for me

chipmunks were everywhere, this one wanted our lunch

double arch was pretty cool

first arch I got to be on top, of

not much holding the arch

yes, I know

last picture before sunset

After a pretty long day, we went back to our camp for some rest

Day 05: Moab's Canyonland 4WD Backroads with a Jeep

sunrise

We rented an expensive $300/day jeep rubikon and went on fun roads:

interesting road to take down

we were hoping it would hold for a bit longer

colorado river

salt ponds

we got some feet cleaning fish for free :)

After some 4WD fun all day, we went back to camp for sunset:

Day 06: Goblins Valley and Little White Horse Slot Canyon towards Bryce/Zyon

It was time to leave Moab and go towards South Western Utah (Bryce/Zyon). On the way, we stopped at Goblins Valley. Very cool formations:

we found an interesting and challenging path inside the goblins. We were hoping we'd get out eventually

after a challenging path, we did get out eventually

After a good drive, we got to Little Wild Horse. It wasn't as breathtaking as the more famous Antelope Canyon but it was almost empty, free, and a definitely worth the 2 mile walk in and then out:

some rocks had bits of iron and looked like chickenpox

We got a bonus stop on the way, Hickman Bridge:

After that, we drove to a hotel. nice to have a shower and clean bed:

Day 07: Petrified Forest, Bryce Canyon, and Zion's Kolob Canyons

Escalante Petrified Forest SP was nearby and worth the 1H hike we did around to see the petrified trees from the Jurassic Period:

We did a quick stop by a moss cave just before Bryce. The rocks and ground were already a beautiful red:

moss cave

Then, we had a nice lunch by the beautiful inspiration point:

Next, we went to Kolob Canyon, North Zyon, which we could drive into instead of the rest of Zyon which required riding shuttles in the middle of covid, and that limited entry:

And it was then time to drive to Minersville Lake where we had a campsite.

Arturo made good use of the facilities :)

Day 08-09: Nevada's Great Basin and Wheeler Peak

That was it for our time in Utah, we drove back to the Nevada border (close enough that our cell phones would routinely connect to a UT cell site and change timezone back and forth). We did a hike around the pretty dry lakes and the Wheeler Peak glacier:

we got a nice campsite

chicken-bird

pretty dry

Dinner:

it was quite cold at night

The next morning, we had a nice breakfast and went for the summit (13,000ft):

then 2h20 more to get back down

Back to camp, we had a nice grosbeak that kept us company and enjoyed a bit of our food:

I always bring seeds

Day 10: Across Nevada's US-50: America's Loniest Road

By then, it was time to head back. We headed for Minden, just east of Tahoe and took US-50, across a few very small towns and long stretches of lonely road. We did have a few stops on the way, one of them was Ward Charcoal Ovens, an interesting remnant of history:

Our first stop after the ovens was the train museum in Ely (see this page for more):

After that, it was back on the road:

We did a quick stop at a petroglyphs site, but it was really a waste of time. A few carvings in the rock from pony express passengers:

Next, was a town that had a small "castle", Stokes Castle:

Just to show that we were scraping the bottom of the barrel, the shoe tree was a stop not to miss ;)

And finally, we arrived at Middlegate, for our monster burger challenge. By then it was 15:00, so we were hungry, but the monster burger was almost too much food for the 3 of us: