Pronounced “Es-Ca-Lant” apparently.
From the Editors
Hello there faithful readers! Boy we are way behind on posts. Kayla got hit with a lot of work stuff, which pulled her out of the JSB Editorial Office – with most of the pictures for this picture-heavy story on her phone! We are now in sunny Portland for the month of July and even the first week of August! We’ve got some time to catch up on our reporting, so here’s the next dispatch in the series, from almost a month ago!
Trip Odometer: 12,347
Wednesday, May 31: After some solid provisioning in Grand Junction, we took a beautiful drive across I70 and through three small towns in the canyonlands of Utah: Torrey (we will return there later), Boulder (elevation 9600), and finally Escalante for five nights at The Canyons of Escalante RV Park. The drive took us through so many different landscapes: sand castles, red rocks, aspen forests, even snow at the higher altitudes.
Escalante (population 798, elevation 5,820 ft) puts us right in the heart of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
June 1: Lots of working during the heat of the day, but then a swell hike along the Escalante River to a natural bridge. There were dire warnings of mosquitos, but we only wound up feeding a few.
June 2-3: Not much on the agenda except a little driving around on the 2nd, but on the 3rd we take a teeth rattling drive down Hole In The Rock road to the Devil’s Garden. We’ve noticed this tendency all across canyon country to give things a hellish connotation: Hell’s Backbone, Devil’s Pocket, etc. For fun we begin naming other feature’s this way, for example, Devil’s Coatrack, and Hell’s Port-a-Jon. Devil’s Garden was super-cool: definitely a highlight of our whole trip so far!
June 4: Escalante is right next door to Bryce Canyon National Park, so we enjoy a long day there.
June 5-6: We travel the 65 miles from Escalante to Torrey, Utah for three days of exploring before we check into the Fort Desolation Festival. We take our time getting there and setting up. The next day is working and provisioning, nothing too exciting. We do play a little music and draw a little crowd for that.
Our single-file setup in Torrey.
Wed, June 7: Into Capitol Reef National Park in search of a hike to an arch we’ve been told about. We miss the turn off for the hike at first, and wind up taking a lovely off-road drive through the canyons. Eventually we find the trail and enjoy some uphill climbing at high altitude on a hot day.
That takes us up to our big Adventure Camping and Music Festival, which deserves its own post. Stay tuned for some pictures of something other than rocks! Oh, and there will also be pictures of rocks.
Dear K & M, Yet another outstanding report and photos, many thanks. Ole Jeff did a Bozeman to Skagway trip with outstanding scenery some darn decent weather except for about 1 1/2 days. And then speaking of forests: the Sign Forest at Watson Lake, in the Yukon Territory and darn close to BC as well. Unusual to say the least. Probalby pushing 100,000 sings of a vast majority of types etc (maybe worth a google). Save travels. Jeff is back in Sitka with the Granddaughter, yippee, he says. Jeff b
Great photos and descriptions!