Day 97: Bryce Canyon National Park to Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, UT

A visit to Escalante Petrified Forest State Park was the first stop on today’s itinerary. We did two hiking loops to check out the landscape. We loved the self-guided tour via a pamphlet with different stops along the trail to teach us about what we were seeing. We learned about the desert bush called the roundleaf buffaloberry (which we also saw on the Hanging Gardens hike in Lake Powell). We were very excited when we started to see hunks of petrified wood along the trail. We saw several amazing fossilized wood samples, many with a rainbow of colours ranging from white to rose to scarlet to yellow to green. We enjoyed seeing an example of the painted desert where different minerals make the dirt look striated with different colours.

Roundleaf buffaloberry.

Look at the

Painted desert. The dirt was red, then pink, then greenish grey.

Balancing rock.

Even the tree rings are preserved.

You could see the knots in the bark preserved perfectly in stone.

The boys took their role as Junior Rangers seriously and were strict about not taking souvenirs from parks, so they were excited to stop in at the interesting rock shop just outside the park. Alistair picked up a nice chunk of Utah pigeon blood agate for $3.

Next stop was Escalante to visit the Grand Staircase-Escalante Visitor Centre. We picked up a permit for backcountry overnight camping on National Monument land, hiking maps, and the boys completed the Junior Ranger program here and received their badges. 

Dino print. Cast of the real fossilized footprint.

We dropped the trailer off at our campsite and headed out for some exploring. Our site for boondocking tonight is down a sandy dirt road and is really windy. It was a bit dicey driving on the sand in the deeper spots so we are praying that we don’t have trouble getting the trailer out when it is time to leave. Only time will tell. Fingers crossed.

We visited Devil’s Garden and walked through the gigantic hoodoos. It was hot! We were back to 40 degrees Celsius here. The hoodoos were so neat, though. If this place were not so remote, these rocks would draw heaps of tourists. As it was, we were lucky to have the hoodoos all to ourselves.

Looked like giant fists.

We thought these hoodoos looked like giant teeth with the roots attached.

We then drove through Boulder to check out Long Canyon, a 1/4 mile slot canyon. It was amazing to be the only ones there and have the canyon all to ourselves - quite a switch from the crowds at the Narrows in Zion. In fact, we were alone at all the landmarks we visited today. Apparently  there aren’t many people exploring this part of Utah at this time of year. 

The Scenic Highway 12 through this part of Southern Utah is nuts. The section we drove along today was built along the top of a mountain ridge with cliffs on both sides and no guard rails. It is a bit of a nerve wracking drive, even in good weather.

Woke up from a nap for this short hike so Ali was a bit grumpy.

The streaks on the canyon walls were beautiful.

After our busy day, we rolled back in to our private campsite, ate dinner, and are heading to bed early so we can get an early start to tomorrow’s hike to beat the heat.