Cedar Mountain Recreation Area, Utah - Camping

With springtime arriving in the Utah desert and excellent weather expected for the upcoming weekend, Tim and Brett invited me to join them for a quick camping trip to the San Rafael Swell.  We left Salt Lake City on Friday afternoon and made our way south, passing through Price and Wellington before exiting the highway near Woodside.  We headed west on the Green River Cutoff Road with no specific destination in mind.  An interesting rock formation caught Tim's eye, and after some debate, we decided to check it out.  Just above a rocky wash, with excellent views of Chimney Rock, we set up camp.  The view to our southeast was open desert, all the way to Green River.  We were surrounded by silence, far from pavement and other people.

Camping near Chimney Rock

Before sunset, we explored the wash that cut through the rocks just below our campsite.  A few places had characteristics of a slot canyon, with smooth, water carved waves of sandstone.

Exploring the wash below Chimney Rock

Water carved stone

Looking east from camp at sunset

Brett and Tim at camp

The wind really picked up during the night, but the morning was calm and sunny when I awoke.  The sun felt strong, and signs of spring were everywhere.  I love knowing that winter is over.  After breakfast in the sunshine, we decided to hike up the wash and explore the area above Chimney Rock.  Wildflowers were abundant and made for a striking contrast to the rugged landscape.

Dwarf Evening Primrose

Paintbrush

Hiking around Chimney Rock

Hiking around Chimney Rock

Tim above Chimney Rock

Enjoying the warm desert sunshine

Whipple's  Fishhook

Claretcup

After a few hours of hiking around Chimney Rock, we headed back to camp to relax.  The stillness of the desert, the complete lack of sound, is one of my favorite aspects of camping.  The warm sunshine after a long, cold winter, adds another level of perfection to the experience.

Camping with a view

We packed up camp on Sunday morning and headed back to Salt Lake.  Along the way, we stopped to view some roadside petroglyphs.  Farther north, we took the scenic route through Huntington Canyon where winter was still lingering.

Molen Reef Snake

Petroglyphs at Molen Reef

Molen Reef Snake

Fremont Indian State Park, Utah - Camping, Hiking, and Biking

Roger and I discovered a hidden gem in the Utah State Park system over the 4th of July weekend.  We were looking for a camping and hiking trip that wasn't too far from Salt Lake City and wouldn't be too overcrowded on a holiday weekend.  We also wanted a location where we could watch some fireworks on Monday evening.  After a lot of searching, Fremont Indian State Park seemed to fit the bill.  We left Salt Lake City on Saturday morning, passed through Richfield a few hours later, and made our way over to Fremont Indian State Park.

Clear Creek running through Fremont Indian State Park

We stayed in the Castle Rock campground, a two mile drive from the park's visitor center, at the end of a gravel road.  The campground was beautiful and well maintained, and many of the sites were surround by trees and spectacular views of the surrounding rock formations.  It seemed like an oasis on the desert with Joe Lott Creek running through the center of the campground.  Our site was large, but a bit exposed, and it felt more like a parking lot.  We found a more secluded area for our tent and set it up just before a strong thunderstorm moved through.  The rain and hail came down hard for several minutes, and the air was filled with the smell of pine as needles were ripped from the surrounding trees.  After hunkering down in our tent for almost an hour, I emerged to find the ground covered in ice and fog shrouding our campground.

Hail

Our tent surrounded by hail at Fremont Indian State Park

Thankfully, the sun came out and quickly warmed the air, giving us a chance to hike around the campground and explore the castle-like rocks.  Later that evening, we joined a "scorpion walk" hosted by the state park.  After listening to a talk about scorpions in the Utah desert, we were given blacklights to look for the arachnids on a nearby hill.  Scorpions fluoresce under blacklights due to chemicals in their cuticle.  We saw several small scorpions before heading back to camp and calling it a day.

Castle Rock campground at Fremont Indian State Park

Exploring the Castle Rock campground

Dinner at Castle Rock campground

Sunset at Castle Rock campground

Scorpion fluorescing under blacklight at Fremont Indian State Park

  

On Sunday, we drove to the town of Sevier with our road bikes and found the trail head for the Candy Mountain Express bike trail.  The paved trail travels up the canyon, following the Sevier River, and offers great views the entire way.  The trail ends at Big Rock Candy Mountain, an interesting roadside attraction, and the entire round trip back to the trail head was only about 14 miles.  We intended to continue our ride after returning the to trail head, but more thunderstorms were brewing. We decided to return to Fremont Indian State Park and hike some of the short trails in the area for the afternoon.

Big Rock Candy Mountain Express bike trail

Big Rock Candy Mountain

We checked out the interesting visitor center museum while the thunderstorms passed.  As the weather cleared, we hiked a few of the looping trails that surround the visitor center.  While construction was occurring to build Interstate 70, the largest known Fremont Indian village was uncovered in the area.  Many of the surrounding rocks and cliffs contain pictographs and petroglyphs left by the Fremont Indians several hundred years ago.  The noise of cars and trucks from the interstate is hard to escape in the park, but it adds another level of human history to the canyon as a corridor for travel.

Petroglyph at Fremont Indian State Park

Petroglyphs at Fremont Indian State Park

 

Example of a wikiup at Fremont Indian State Park

Example of a pit-house at Fremont Indian State Park

Petroglyph at Fremont Indian State Park

 

On Monday, the 4th of July, we headed into Richfield to watch the town's parade before riding our bikes from Elsinore to Big Rock Candy Mountain and back.  We enjoyed some relaxation time back at camp before checking out the fireworks in Richfield later that evening.  For a small town, the fireworks display was spectacular, and many people were launching their own fireworks in the streets prior to the main show.  It was quite event in Richfield and a great way to spend the last evening of our trip.

Castle rocks

Birthday boy relaxing at camp

Castle rocks at Fremont Indian State Park

As we traveled back to Salt Lake City on Tuesday morning, we made a stop at historic Cove Fort.  It was  built by Mormon pioneers and founded in 1867 and served as a way station and stagecoach stop for people traveling between the towns of Fillmore and Beaver.  It's a great place to learn some interesting Mormon history and tour beautifully restored structure.

Cove Fort

Cove Fort

Peaceful surroundings of Cove Fort

Little Grand Canyon and the San Rafael Swell, Utah - Hiking

The San Rafael Swell, located in south-central Utah, is a region of geological uplift that offers some of the best desert solitude anywhere in the state.  The area is managed by the BLM and contains several wilderness study areas, but it does not enjoy the same protection that national parks or monuments do.  This means that  people are free to hike, camp, and ATV without strict regulations or permits, but the area is also a constant battleground of ideas and opinions about how to enjoy and manage it.

Sunset in the San Rafael Swell

A three hour drive from Salt Lake on Friday afternoon brought us to the Wedge Overlook at the "Little Grand Canyon" in the San Rafael Swell.  It is a destination that I have been wanting to explore for a while and this past weekend was the perfect opportunity to check it out.  Camping is available at numbered sites near the Wedge Overlook and we had just enough daylight to enjoy the views of the canyon before setting up camp and settling in for the night.

The Little Grand Canyon in the San Rafael Swell

We woke up before the sun on Saturday morning and headed back to the canyon rim to watch the sun rise.  We had the place to ourselves and the quiet stillness of the desert air surrounded us as we enjoyed the spectacular views.  We wondered why we hadn't been to the Little Grand Canyon before!

Sunrise at the Little Grand Canyon

The Little Grand Canyon at sunrise

Roger enjoying the views

Grant at the Little Grand Canyon

After sunrise, we headed south to check out the Buckhorn Wash pictograph panel, an easily accessible and spectacular panel of Barrier Canyon style art located alongside the road.  After enjoying the pictographs, we left the car at a small parking area and did a short hike through a portion of Pine Canyon.

Buckhorn Wash pictograph panel

Buckhorn Wash pictograph panel

Pine Canyon

Pine Canyon

The temperatures were very warm for late September so we decided to head down to the San Rafael River to check out the old swinging bridge and walk along the river for a bit.  The river banks were extremely muddy from recent floods and the hiking wasn't as lovely as we were hoping, so hopped in the car and headed a little farther south to enjoy the scenery and explore a shallow side canyon leading down the the river.

 Swinging bridge

Hiking in the San Rafael River

Side canyon meets up with the San Rafael River

San Rafael River

The wind picked up in the middle of the night and storm clouds surrounded us on Sunday morning.  We made breakfast and quickly took down camp before the rain began.  We drove to Wellington, UT and up Nine Mile Canyon (which is actually over 40 miles long) since the weather wasn't looking very promising for hiking in the San Rafael Swell.  Nine Mile Canyon was a beautiful drive and some of the rock walls in the canyon are covered with petroglyph panels, a few of which we were able to view with brief hikes from the road.

 Rainbow as we left the San Rafael Swell

Nine Mile Canyon petroglyphs

 Nine Mile Canyon

Nine Mile Canyon

Should the San Rafael Swell be a national monument or a strip mine?  Should it be covered in oil wells, cattle, or backpackers?  It depends on who you ask, of course, but the reality is that the area is not particularly rich in oil or minerals, it's not as awe inspiring as Zion or Arches National Parks, and it's too fragile to support unlimited ATV and off-road use.  Maybe it should just remain the San Rafael Swell, a beautifully ugly and delicate place, where you can wander and enjoy without taking anything from it.