This was one heck of a whirlwind tour of south-eastern Utah. Over the Thanksgiving weekend of November 2005, Tracy and I took a long road trip that hit the following locations: Green River State Park, Goblin Valley State Park, Valley of the Gods, Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Natural Bridges National Monument, Capitol Reef National Park, and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Whew! I get tired just thinking about it! We put about a thousand miles on my truck in less than three days, but we saw some of the most beautiful countryside we had ever seen.
This corner of Utah was truly amazing. There were times when we drove over 100 miles and didn’t see another human being or any sign of human existence besides the road we were on. A couple of times at night, we went several hours without seeing any headlights, streetlights or house lights. I mean, this area was truly in the middle of nowhere…just the way I like it!
The rock formations were amazing. Goblin Valley, Valley of the Gods, and Monument Valley were incredible, as you can get a hint of them from the pictures. Natural Bridges had some Anasazi ruins, and that made us get philosophical about pre-historic man and how hard life would have been for them. The canyons in Capitol Reef were exactly what I’ve been looking for in my quest to hike slot canyons. In all, the trip was absolutely amazing. The only bad part of the whole trip was the sub-zero wind chill temperatures that we experienced in a couple of the places. The area outside of Capitol Reef was the worst, but once we got inside the canyons, the weather was pretty nice. All in all, the solitude, massive rock formations and overwhelming beauty definitely made this area of south-eastern Utah one of the prettiest places we have seen.
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