When I learned that my cousin Allison was getting married in Iowa in June, it seemed like the perfect opportunity for a road trip in my camper van. So, I left home on Memorial Day and drove through Nevada into Utah, to visit the many parks there: Zion, Bryce Canyon, Grand Staircase-Escalante, Capitol Reef, Natural Bridges, Canyonlands, and Arches. Then I drove through Colorado to the Denver airport. Since there’s little of interest between Denver and Iowa City, I left my camper van at the airport and flew to Iowa for the wedding.
After the wedding, I flew back and picked up my van. I crossed the Rockies on Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain NP, then north through Wyoming and Montana to Glacier NP. Turning southwest to head home, I passed through Idaho, Washington, Oregon and Northern California. I wound up in the Lakes Basin Area of the Sierras to enjoy the Fourth of July fireworks in Graeagle with my mother, before returning home.
To get the trip started, I decided to drive over the Sierras and across Nevada by routes I had not taken before. I drove over Ebbets Pass (CA Highway 4) and Monitor Pass (CA Highway 89), both of which were beautiful. Then I drove across Nevada on US Highway 50, the so-called “Loneliest Road in America”. This was both more pleasant and, in my case, more direct than taking I-80. On the eastern side of Nevada, I stopped at Great Basin National Park and took a tour of the Lehman Caves there.
I only spent one day at Zion National Park; it was crowded, and also what I thought was excessively hot. (Little did I know that I would encounter much hotter weather later!) Still, I got in a couple of good, short hikes — the Riverside Walk and the Emerald Pools Trail — and enjoyed the scenery.
Bryce Canyon National Park has been a favorite of mine since we visited it when I was young. I spent a very pleasant several days there, and took hundreds of pictures (of which only a few are shown here). It wasn’t as crowded as Zion; in fact, the service workers there were commenting on how unusually slow it was. The fact that it is higher elevation that Zion meant it was considerably cooler, as well.
I did two larger hikes here: the Swamp Canyon Loop and the Queens Garden / Navajo Loop. Both descend from the rim into the canyon, traverse a portion of the canyon, and then return to the rim. The Swamp Canyon Loop covers mostly forested ground. The Queens Garden / Navajo Loop goes through a variety of hoodoos and rock formations, including the narrow passage called “Wall Street”.
After visiting Bryce and Zion, I took the superbly scenic Utah Highway 12 through the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. This doesn’t get a whole lot of attention from most tourists, flitting from one National Park to the next. But it’s absolutely worth the visit.
I took one significant hike in this area, along the Escalante River Trail to the Escalante Natural Bridge.
Continuing east on Utah Highway 24, I went through Capitol Reef National Park. My one hike there was aborted by rain: the trailhead was several miles out on a dirt road, and I didn't want it to become mud before I drove back out.
Next I headed south on Utah Highway 95, into the Natural Bridges National Monument. This monument is set aside to protect three amazing natural bridges, called Sipapu, Kachina, and Owachomo. I viewed all of them from the mesa road, then stayed the night. In the morning, I hiked down to Sipapu Bridge, along the canyon to Kachina Bridge, and back up to the mesa.
From Natural Bridges, I headed north on US Highway 191 towards Canyonlands, Moab, and Arches. Canyonlands National Park is a single park with three disjoint districts. The Maze District, on the western side, is remote and undeveloped and I didn’t visit it. My next stop was the Needles District, the southeast portion of the park. I drove around there and looked at various overlooks, but didn’t stay there or do any long hikes there. Then I went to the Island in the Sky District, the northeast portion of the park. Again, I visited various overlooks, but after staying the night in Moab, I came back the next morning to do one longer hike, along the Lathrop Canyon Trail to the mesa rim and back.
After enjoying Canyonlands, I turned my attention to its big brother across the road, Arches National Park. The area is having very hot weather, with daytime highs around 105°F. I did two larger hikes in Arches, both of them starting at dawn to avoid both the heat and the crowds. The first was the Devils Garden loop, including all of its spur trails. It is one of the most popular trails in the part and visits a variety of different arches. The second hike was to Tower Arch. The trailhead for this hike is several miles down a dirt road, so it is much less crowded. In fact, I didn’t see a single other person the entire time I was hiking it, which was wonderful. This trail only visits a single arch, but it’s quite an impressive one and the views along the way are beautiful as well.
Each day, after finishing my big hike early in the morning, I spent the next few hours exploring overlooks and viewpoints, then went into Moab for lunch. I’d spend the afternoon staying cool in some air-conditioned store, or the library. Once the sun went down, I’d go back into the park, to the campsite I had reserved, and spend the night there.
When I left Arches and Moab, I went east on I-70 to Glenwood Springs, then south on Colorado Highway 82. I stopped off to look around Snowmass and Aspen; my family used to come ski there every year when I was younger, and I have fond memories there — although it was weird seeing it in summer without snow.
Then, after staying the night in a campground outside Aspen, I drove up and over Independence Pass. It was the wrong time of year to see the aspens in full color, but the vistas are incredible any time of year.
On the other side of the mountains, I explored small towns and back roads, had lunch with a high school friend in Salida, and had breakfast with an old chorus buddy in Denver. Then I left my van in long-term parking at the Denver airport, and flew out to Iowa for my cousin’s wedding.
After my cousin’s wedding, I flew back to Denver and picked up the van from long term parking. Then I drove to Estes Park, where I camped overnight before going into Rocky Mountain National Park. I stopped at a couple of scenic sites on the eastern side of the park, but my main objective was to drive over Trail Ridge Road to the western side of the park (and the Rockies). I drove over Trail Ridge Road when I was here in 2017, but that was in bad weather. Between the snow limiting visibility and the white-knuckle driving taking my concentration, I didn't get to see much of the views, so I wanted to try it again on this trip. And I wasn’t disappointed! The weather was excellent and so were the views.
After passing over Trail Ridge Road, my plan had been to make my way to Yellowstone National Park. However, they had massive damage due to flooding a couple of weeks ago, and the park is closed. So I rearranged my plans to go to Glacier National Park instead. From the west side of Trail Ridge Road, I went north on state highways to Laramie WY and then Casper WY, then northwest on Interstates to Helena MT, then northwest on state highways to Glacier National Park.
Along the way, I made several interesting stops in Montana. First of them was the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. It tells the story of that battle well, with considerable care not to take sides in the telling of it. I will say, however, that I found the memorial to the Indians there to be more evocative and expressive than the memorial to the U.S. soldiers.
Another stop was at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman. They had an interesting planetarium show about supervolcanoes. But they are best known for their dinosaur fossils, which are extensive and well presented.
The third interesting stop was at the Lewis and Clark Expedition Interpretive Center in Great Falls. This had an excellent video and an extensive and informative exhibit on the Lewis and Clark Exhibition, which I found fascinating. The design of the exhibit was chronological, from the preparations and start of the expedition to the return and aftermath. All along that exhibit, the right wall contained information about the expedition and its progress while the left wall contained information about the Indian tribes they encountered, their lifestyles, and their interactions with the expedition. It was very well done.
Like Canyonlands, Glacier National Park has a number of disjoint districts. I started my visit on the west side of the park, in the Apgar area, because that was where I was able to get a campground reservation. I explored there and did a couple of small hikes: the Trail of the Cedars and the John’s Lake Trail.
Normally, one would then drive over Piegan Pass on the “Going to the Sun” Road to get to the east side. However, when I got there, the road hadn’t yet re-opened for the summer; the snow was still 15 feet deep in spots and they didn’t expect it would open for at least another couple of weeks. So, when I finished in the Apgar area, I left the park and drove south, then east, then north, to re-enter it on the east side.
On the east side, I visited several areas: from south to north, the Two Medicine area, the St. Mary area, and the Many Glacier area. I explored each of these areas, and did hikes in each of them: Aster Park Trail in the Two Medicine area; the Three Falls Trail and Swiftcurrent Pass Trail in the St. Mary Area; and the Grinnell Lake Trail in the Many Glacier area. (I would have liked to hike to Grinnell Glacier itself, but the trail is still snowed in.)
There are still more areas of the park that I did not visit, either because they were still closed for winter, or because they are north of the border. (Since I wasn’t planning to go to Glacier at all, I didn’t have my passport with me.) And there are more hikes I’d like to do in the areas that I did visit. This is definitely a place to come back to.
Sadly, the time came to leave Glacier and start working my way back home. My route home took me through Idaho and the southeastern corner of Washington, into central Oregon and Northern California. While passing through Oregon and Northern California, I made a few interesting stops.
First was the Thomas Condon Paleontology Center at the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in central Oregon. The John Day fossils (which John Day never saw; they’re named for the river that’s named after him) are 200 million years newer than the dinosaur fossils shown at the Museum of the Rockies. They have an extensive collection to view.
Next was the Newberry National Volcanic Monument, just south of Bend OR. This has lava and obsidian fields spread by an eruption 75,000 years ago. The Newberry volcano is still active and could reawaken at any time.
Next was Crater Lake National Park. I’ve been here several times before and wouldn’t have come this trip, but it turned out I had an extra few hours and it was on my way, so I happily went to see it again.
Finally, my route south took me through Lassen Volcanic National Park, so I stopped at a few of the overlooks and viewpoints while passing through it.
The capstone of my 5-week road trip was the Fourth of July Fireworks in the town of Graeagle CA. My family had a vacation home in nearby Sierra City for nearly 40 years, and we’ve been coming to these fireworks on and off for most of that time. But we haven’t been here since we sold that home 6 years ago, and I’ve been itching to come see them again. And it turns out, it’s not just me: when my mother saw it on my itinerary, she asked if she could come up and join me for them.
We stayed two nights in the Salmon Creek campground in the Lakes Basin area. On Saturday, we took a hike to (and picnic lunch at) Gray Eagle Falls. Then, in the evening, we went to Graeagle and joined the thousands of others waiting for the fireworks. Graeagle’s fireworks are set off over the mill pond in the center of town, with thousands of people gathered all around the shore. They are always a great show. This year’s show was marred with some technical difficulties which made it later and shorter than normal, but it was still really fun to watch, and I’m very glad I came.
On Sunday we spent a short time visiting some of our old haunts, including breakfast at Bassett’s Station and fresh peach milkshakes at Ikeda’s in Auburn on the way home. And with that, my road trip came to an end.
| Duration | 33 days (not counting wedding) |
| Miles driven | 6,658 miles |
| Pictures taken | 1,026 pictures (of which 140 shown here) |
| National parks visited | 10 national parks |
| National monuments visited | 5 national monuments |
| Trip cost | $2170 gas
$1220 campground fees \u2007$500 meals out \u2007$200 tours and entrance fees $4090 total
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