Utah's Canyonlands: Please Release Me!

Cedar City, UT: Just a quick update before we finally leave Utah. We’ve been in the state since June 8. There is so much to see and do in this state that we could spend an entire month and still not see everything.

Our first stop was in Canyonlands National Park, where we spent a total of 8 nights, six nights in the Island in the Sky District and two in the Needles District. (The Park consists of three districts carved out by the Green and Colorado Rivers: Island in-Sky, Needles, and the Maze. Island in the Sky is actually a two-tiered mesa whose top tier is at 6,000 feet. It overlooks sheer sandstone cliffs over 1,000 feet above the surrounding terrain. We camped at Willow Creek Campground, which by National Park standards is rather primitive in that it has no water or other services. Just restrooms. But it did feature an overlook onto the cliffs that looked down onto the next tier of the mesa as well as the Green River Gorge. Our primary activity included some nice hikes and finding nice places to view the sunsets. It was here that we discovered an antifreeze leak in the Honey. Which meant, after leaving I-Sky, we had to stop over for a day in Moab to get it fixed (or so we thought).

After Moab, it was on to the Needles district, which I think is the nicer of the two districts that are accessible by paved road (the Maze, an area that lives up to its name, is only accessible by 4-wheel drive vehicles). At Needles, we spent one day riding our bikes through the Park, which was really nice because it has fewer people and hence, fewer cars on the road. The second day we hiked a nice trail that took us through the Needles, which are really colorful spires of Cedar Mesa Sandstone that dominate the area. And, it was here too that we discovered another antifreeze leak, so it was on to the next town south, Montecello, Utah, where we think the problem has finally been fixed (keep your fingers crossed!) We’re also discovering that part of the adventure of this trip is traveling cross country in a 1987 RV with almost 100,000 miles on the odometer.

While waiting for the Honey to be fixed in Montecello, we received good news from Jim’s doctor that the bloodwork he had done in Jackson before we left came back fine. His PSA is undetectable, so it looks like the treatments are keeping those nasty cancer cells in check.

After Montecello, it was on to Escalante State Petrified Forest and then Red Canyon which is adjacent to Bryce National Park. Since we’ve been to Bryce before, we decided to explore the surrounding area, which is in National Forest and just as nice but not as crowded as Bryce.

We spent our 37th wedding anniversary (June 24) at Cedar Breaks National Monument, which is a natural amphitheater canyon, stretching across 3 miles. The rim is at over 10,000 feet and the canyon drops down over 2,000 feet. The eroded rock of the canyon is similar to formations at Bryce. A 4-mile trail took us to some stands of Bristlecone Pines, which live longer than any other known thing. Some local specimens are known to be more than 1600 years old. Story is one was cut down a few years ago for study and found to be 4,600 years old! (oops!) We stayed until everything had closed and people had gone, and (illegally I’m sure) took our chairs, a bottle of wine, and the dog to an overlook on the trail to watch the sunset.

We are spending today in Cedar City, Utah, waiting to get Jim’s prescription filled and getting provisioned for crossing Nevada into California. All for now. Talley-ho!

Island in the Sky Overlook


Anasazi Indian Ruins in Island in the Sky


Needles Hike


Pertified Wood


Red Rock Canyon Formations


Cedar Breaks



Bristle Cone Pine