VisionQuest™: Mixed Bag

Two postings in one day! We've been busy lately but found a lazy Tuesday (what day is it?) afternoon to download some photos and write some descriptive blogs. First up is a mixed bag of travels. After Arches, we drove to Canyonlands National Park - Islands in the Sky District. This is a car-friendly park only 1 hour from our campsite. Namely consisting of high overlooks above the Colorado and Green rivers, it looks out over the areas we hiked days before. Below are a couple snapshots to show the elevation change across the park - cliffs drop to plains which drop to canyons which drop to rivers. It's very expansive, but a short visit by car. One last photo shows the famed Mesa Arch, which Utah law requires us to post. Speaking of Utah law, all beer here is limited to 4%, which takes a little bit out of the fun of trying new Pale Ales.

Plateaus and Canyons

Upheaval Dome - A Large Salt Formation (Creation Process Unknown)

Mesa Arch

The Green River Basin

On our way back to our same campsite along the Colorado River, we stopped back at Arches for a few short hikes to see popular features. Double Arch, The Windows, and Balanced Rock are some of the key pieces we were missing before. Although much busier, these arches were massive and worth the repeated trip into the park. We went into town and ordered a Pizza Hut pizza of all things after the long day, and took a few more rope swings into the river (sorry, no more photos after the camera debacle).

North Window

Turret Arch

Double Arch

Balanced Rock (Corn Kernel)

The following morning we achieved two milestones by 1) leaving by 8 am and 2) packing and leaving within 60 minutes of waking up. We had a 6 hour drive to Bryce Canyon, driving through Capitol Reef on the way. Below are a few panoramas of Capitol Reef. The main geologic feature of the park is only accessible over 40 miles of dirt roads, which kind hikers at Canyonlands told us were "rough" in their 4x4. These photos are from a scenic drive down into one of the canyons, which gave us a hint at new colors to come.

In Canyon Gorge

Painted Wall

Canyon Gorge

Scenic Drive

Our drive took us up and over the Dixie National Forest, where fall was beginning to arrive. Our final experiences of the day involved some back-country driving while hunting for campgrounds. My Mazda6 can officially go anywhere an ATV can, although the ATV riders looked perplexed when seeing us miles from a 2-lane dirt road.