Moab, again!
This road trip to Utah takes us to both familiar and unfamiliar locations. We start out with the familiar on a rendezvous with Ben, James and Karen in Moab where they camped with a rented R-Pod camper trailer in their quest to determine what kind of camper they want to eventually purchase. While in Moab for the long weekend, we took in a couple more rides on the Slickrock trail, which still stands as one of my all-time favorite mountain biking trails, and a ride on the Brand Trails (aka Bar M) for the first time. The Brand Trails have something for everyone, from fun, smooth beginner trails where we saw toddlers on Strider Bikes to terrible advanced trails that try to kill you, and also everything in between.
A new discovery for us in Moab was Milt's Stop and Eat. If you want a milkshake that is about as good as it gets and a really good guacamole burger this is worth the visit. Eating here is probably a multi-thousand calorie meal, so be sure to have had a big ride before indulging.
Sue opted out of a second go at the Slickrock trail with the boys and instead made her way south on Spanish Valley Road with the road bike finding some great tarmac and fall colors.
Capitol Reef National Park
As Ben and his people headed home, Sue & I headed further south in Utah. To get to the national park, we traveled the Utah 24 Scenic Byway. This byway is routed through incredible geologic scenery with layers, textures and colors that change dramatically with each mile. The area was called the "Land of the Sleeping Rainbow" by the Navajo because of the brilliantly colored canyon walls.
The scenic byway runs right through the Capitol Reef National Park. Capitol Reef is one of the lesser known and visited national parks. This is the first national park we've visited where there is no entrance fee to get in. There is a Scenic Drive within the park that does have a fee. This road would make a nice 20 mile bike ride with great scenery and rolling hills. We hope to take the opportunity to ride it the next time we are in the area. Throughout the park there is a nice variety of things to see from geologic features, to petroglyphs created by Native Americans to more recent settlements by the Mormon pioneers.
Utah 12 Scenic Byway
Continuing on Utah 24 out of the national park brings you to the small town of Torrey which has a fuel station, county visitor center and the intersection with Utah 12 Scenic Byway. This is the road that takes us to our destination, the Petrified Forest State Park where we camp for the next couple nights. The Byway goes from Torrey to Bryce Canyon National Park, 125 miles and 10,000 feet of climbing away. The scenery is fantastic and varied, from high alpine aspen and conifer forests to desert to amazing geologic areas including Escalante National Monument and Bryce Canyon National Park. If your timing is just right, you might even get into a cattle drive.
Riding this entire byway is now a bucket list item.
Petrified Forest State Park
We made camp at this rather small state park. The amenities were quite posh compared to what we were used to, with hot and cold running water, showers and flush toilets. This was our home base for our road ride the next day along the byway though Escalante National Monument. The state park also offered some hiking trails though a trove of petrified wood.
Epilogue
On the way back home, we detoured onto the Notom Road Scenic Backway, with is a more off-the-beaten-path yet, still very scenic road. Utah has a number of these scenic backways in addition to the scenic byways.
Van status:
- With this trip being further away from civilization, cell service was harder to come by. We'll be looking into ways to get better signal with the leading candidates being a hotspot with a MIMO antenna or a WeBoost signal booster.
- Storage, we still need more of it built in to the van