After spending the night at Kodachrome Basin State Park, we packed up and started exploring Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. If you haven’t read the previous post, read it here.
When we woke up, it was even more clear just how cool our campsite was. We were protected from the first light by the rock formations around, which was good. Most mornings, as soon as the sun got up, it was on our campsite, which meant it was immediately hot. That’s definitely something to think about when planning a camping spot. At most of the Utah state park campsites, you can see a picture of the campsite, so you can plan which ones will be more sheltered from the elements.
One of the entrances to Grand Staircase is right next to Kodachrome. We went to this part of the park first, because that’s where Grosvenor’s Arch is. We learned that none of Grand Staircase is paved. So there were a lot of dirt roads. We had to drive pretty slow, because my car doesn’t have very high clearance.
The views from this drive were pretty incredible!
It felt like a pretty long drive, but eventually we made it. The parking area is a short walk from the arch, and you immediately get crazy views.
Because we were there so early, there were only two other people there. We ended up having to wait for them, because they were having a full-on photo shoot.
There’s this really cool tree right underneath the arch.
The whole formation is pretty stunning, too. There are a few trails around, so we walked around a bit.
Then we headed out. It was a reasonably long drive back to the road. After that we drove all the way around the park to the entrance that’s close to the town of Escalante.
Eventually, we made it! We were heading towards the trail head for Zebra Slot Canyon. That was the main thing we wanted to see in Grand Staircase: a slot canyon.
There were vague directions online, no sign at the actual location, and we didn’t have a map. Also, we started the hike just before midday. So we were really setting ourselves up for success….
We followed the main trail for over an hour. There were a few people ahead of us, and we passed one person who was heading back towards the way we came.
After a while, it was really feeling like we were in the middle of nowhere and there was no sign we were anywhere near our destination.
We were also about halfway through our water supply we bought on the hike, so we decided we couldn’t go much farther.
We did find this mini slot canyon, which wasn’t quite as dramatic. We decided that we had had a good hike, we were somewhat satisfied by the mini slot canyon and all the cool things we had seen and that that was all better than getting heat stroke and dying in the desert. So, we turned around and headed back to the car.
When we got back to the car, we had a major cool down. We drank a ton of water, blasted the air conditioning, and sprayed ourselves with the mist sprayer we had in the car. We also ate lunch, which helped us recover.
We also knew down the road a ways was some sort of dinosaur fossil thing. We drove down there and realized the way to see the footprint fossils requires a long hike – so long and remote you have to sign in and out on a log at the trailhead, so they know no one died on the trail. Needless to say, we didn’t even consider it. We just drove back to the town on the long and bumpy dirt road, which was made even longer because we had to drive so slowly so as not to destroy the car.
Because we were feeling exhausted and a bit disappointed, we decided to have dinner at this little drive up burger place in the town of Escalante. It was a nice treat. This meant we could go to the campsite and set up the tent before it got dark and enjoy the rest of the evening without having to cook and clean up.
We tried to enjoy the lake, but the water was too cold. I couldn’t have imagined after how hot and sweaty we were that there would be such a thing as water that was too cold. I couldn’t even get in past my knees! Even James was struggling.
We did still manage to have a relaxed evening. This campsite had a shower, which was always a nice amenity. We went to sleep early, because we planned on going on a sunrise hike around the park our campsite was on. As part of the hike, you make a quick ascent to the top of the mesa, which gives you beautiful views of the area.
About halfway through the walk, we finally spotted some petrified wood!
One thing I never knew about petrified wood before I saw it was that it is super colorful. I also never realized it would be so smooth, which I guess makes sense because some kinds of rock are smooth.
Then James started to have an allergic reaction. There must have been some sor tof pollen in the air that he reacted to. Luckily, we packed a serious first aid kit, which had Benadryl in it. He took some and we had a drive ahead of us, so he was able to sleep it off a bit.
So on that dramatic note, we left Escalante and headed towards Capitol Reef! Read about it here.
