Monday, 18 October 2021
Early this morning, after daylight but before sunrise, a large flock of grackles showed up in the Sand Pit and landed on our roof. It was a very strange sound, all those bird feet clicking around on top of us. It worried the dogs and made me think of The Birds. Actually, I didn't know that's what we heard until they flew off to another campsite, then flew back to us. At least, I guess that's what they were. The bird book says grackles aren't usually in Utah except for breeding, and this isn't breeding season any more. But they were big, black and had long tails, so I really think that's what they were.
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| today's route |
We passed through Hurricane, which has the distinction of its Purgatory Correctional Facility (it really is named Purgatory) having housed Warren Jeffs, when he was extradited to Utah from Nevada, before being sent to Texas where he was convicted and is serving a life sentence for, basically, raping 2 minors. Remember him? The head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which broke off from the main LDS branch to continue practicing polygamy? Apparently, his sect is still going strong in the tiny town of Hildale, which you can just see on the map above on the border with Arizona. They continue to take their orders from him, believing it's quite all right to "marry" off girls as young as 12 to someone many times their age with other wives already, because he says so.
I crossed the Virgin River and came to the town of La Verkin, "The Bridge To Zion," they say. I looked it up because I vaguely remembered the town's name came from the Virgin River, and I found something entirely different: in 2001 the town declared itself a "U.N. Free Zone." The ordinance required supporters of the United Nations (i.e. anyone who didn't oppose it) to post signs declaring their U.N. support, file annual activity reports and pay fees. Here's a local news article about it. https://www.hcn.org/issues
The article describes other unusual nearby efforts to declare freedom, such as the neighboring town of Virgin passing an ordinance requiring all households to own a rifle and ammunition. You might want to take a look at it. I know 2001 was 20 years ago, but I'm not convinced there's been a major shift in thinking locally. However, I saw that local elections were clearly imminent in Virgin, and were fiercely contested between slates of "conservative" and "diverse" candidates. But these folks in "Dixie" are clearly not thinking along traditional lines - even for the South.
The town of Virgin didn't have a highway sign with its name, but I saw the post office, which also informed me the elevation was 3,552'.
The road kept climbing, I met a hairpin turn or two, occasional very strong gusts of wind hit me, and the sun sometimes blared straight into my eyes. And signs told me:
Speed Limit
65
and then a separate sign tacked on:
MPH.
Why on earth do you suppose the "MPH" was an afterthought. Even foreigners driving here know the US doesn't use kilometers per hour. I saw that configuration in several places.
I passed a large corral of horses and a sign saying "Frequent Wildlife Crossings Next 11 Miles."
At Rockville, "pop. 247" they said, I saw a herd of Longhorns in a smallish pasture.
I don't know how long it's been this way, but Rockville and especially its neighbor Springdale are now pretty thoroughly taken over by tourism. Springdale is smack on the edge of Zion National Park, the 4th most visited national park in the country and the only one in Utah to make it into the top 10. It receives about 4.5 million visitors a year. I have to admit I wasn't expecting the incredible numbers of people I saw - it was a Monday, in mid-October, and I figured the major crowds would have gone by now. Nope.
Zion National Park
A couple of pointers to start with, in case you ever contemplate a visit. First, you should do it. Everybody should see this amazing natural wonder of a park. Second, you should drive through in the direction I did - from south to east - rather than from east to south. I'm pretty sure the views were much more spectacular my direction than the other way. And third, unless you're in a camper, plan to stay at one of the dozens and dozens of hotels and lodges and motels in the Springdale area. The shuttle for the park runs right past all of them and you don't have to worry about finding a parking place, as I saw so many others doing. I imagine these hotels charge for the privilege, but this is likely a once-in-a-lifetime experience so make it easier for yourself.
The shuttle is required most times of the year to visit some of the very special areas of the park (no private vehicles allowed in those areas) - they're trying to reduce the pressure of all that tourist traffic on the environment. I didn't get to see most of them, because of not wanting to leave my critters alone in the RV parked somewhere. But based on what I did get to see, I'm sure you'll want to see the sights I missed. This is a really special place.
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| my route through the park - the shuttle keeps going north |
What I didn't understand was that UT-9, which was the most direct route between Hurricane and Cannonville (tonight's stop), not only ran directly through the park but included that tunnel as part of its route. I didn't realize my mistake until early this morning as I was planning to leave that sand pit. So I looked into the situation more closely and learned that I could just drive as usual up to the park's entrance, where they'd measure my RV and give me instructions if I were oversize.
So I drove through Springdale, dodging a zillion tourists, and came to the park's entrance.
I took this photo while I was waiting in line at the entrance. My senior pass got me in for free to the park, but my RV cost an extra $15 because of the extra trouble they'd have to go to for me with the tunnel. (They accepted only plastic, no cash payments.)
On the map above, the tunnel is marked with a checkerboard pattern, and I had a little drive to get there. And as you can see on the map, the drive included 6 switchbacks connected by multiple s-curves. It was some drive. At one point I found a pull-off to take this photo.
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| It was still too early for the sun to make it onto these mountains. |
Just after the museum, that's marked on the map as closed, there was a magnificent natural amphitheater that I didn't get a photo of. So when I came across another one similar to that, I stopped for some pictures.
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| This belongs with the next photo. |
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| The mountain on the left is the one in the photo above. |
I got a different angle a little farther along the road.
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| That's white rock, not snow, that you see. |
And only a little way farther came the entrance to the tunnel.
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| The tunnel entrance is just visible at the end of the road. |
There was a sign beside the road saying:
Zion-Mt.Carmel Tunnel
Completed 1930
Length 1.1 Mile
Mt. Carmel, by the way, is the next town past the park.
Look at the size of the mountain they blasted this tunnel through. My photo doesn't even get the top of it. Fortunately, I didn't think about how huge it was until I was actually inside the tunnel, so I didn't worry in advance about it collapsing. But the tunnel isn't just a straight shot. It had a number of curves in it and an uphill pitch and 4 openings in the tunnel wall so we had brief glimpses of the outside scenery as we drove through. Mostly, though, it was dark and had a strange cave-like feel to it. Which makes sense, because it was sort of a cave. The park ranger instructed me to use both lanes when I drove through, and I was happy to oblige. There was no spare room on either side.
Because the road kept going uphill and kept curving around even after the tunnel, they'd made a slow-vehicle turnout on the other side, but I wasn't allowed to turn out to let others pass because the whole area was full of people who'd parked to take photos. So I kept going as best I could.
Some way farther along, I came to another tunnel that was a piece of cake in comparison. It was high enough to take anybody (because semis were prohibited from this road altogether) and short enough not to cause trouble. Immediately on the other side, filling my field of vision as I was nearing the end of this 2nd tunnel, was a wall of rock that looked like the earth had slipped sideways. I remember it as white with big sideways folds and I wanted so much to stop for a photo. But once again all the pullout space had been taken up because other people had the same idea.
I did manage to find a stopping place farther on with an entirely different kind of geological formation, but it's at least reminiscent of that one wall.
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| a different view |
Continuing to the east gate, I came across multiple near switchbacks and one that was labeled a switchback. This isn't a drive you can coast through on automatic pilot.
It took me 45 minutes from the south entrance to the east gate, including wait times. Not a long drive but truly spectacular. And as I say, I think I missed some of the best part that you can see from the shuttle.
Back on the road
Not far outside the park I passed a large herd of bison held in a large pen, and there was a large number of tourists who had stopped to take photos, some of them not bothering to move off the road. I'm a fan of bison, but I've now seen plenty and didn't bother to stop.
And suddenly I was in ordinary hill country scenery. No more of those spectacular mountains and canyons. It was a jolt.
We started losing elevation rapidly on the road down to Mt. Carmel Junction and my ears started popping. That was before we came to the 6% grade and a switchback.
Mt. Carmel Junction, it turns out, is separate from Mt. Carmel a few miles farther along the road. The junction is where UT-9 meets US-89, which I took northward.
Mt. Carmel was thriving in the late 1800s, but it was mostly a farming town; the boll weevil and the Depression ended that prosperity. Now it's a tiny town, one of several along this road. I'd hoped to find a place to take a break in Mt. Carmel Junction, and then in Mt. Carmel, and by the time we got to Orderville, I was ready to give up. Which is when we found a large empty parking lot at the Orderville LDS Church. The dogs got a walk and we all got some lunch and left town feeling refreshed. The Virgin River ran through town and along the road for a way.
Not long after Glendale, I noticed the trees were turning yellow. And these weren't aspen or birch but a tree that I don't know the name but have seen all over the country - it's got lots of long thin leaves and turns colors earlier than many other trees.
I saw a dead fox by the road and mourned the death of that beautiful red-haired creature. And I saw 4 dead deer. Either there are an awful lot of deer crossing the road along here or drivers are unusually careless - or both.
At the town of Hatch, I noticed some beautiful red cliffs in the distance to the east and mistakenly thought they were around Panguitch (which is west). In looking it up I stumbled on a historical marker that detailed an incident called the Mountain Meadows Massacre which I've learned really was a massacre - unprovoked, as far as I can tell. A wagon train from Alabama was on its way to California when an army of Mormons decided, based on rumors and rhetoric, that these folks were planning to cause them trouble. They tricked them using a false white flag of truce, and fired pointblank at the men and boys, and later on the women and older children. They left only 17 survivors, all children they deemed too young to report on what they'd seen. Mormon families then took the children in but apparently treated them abominably, as they were found in terrible condition when they were later rescued by the US Army. Then the Mormon authorities blamed the massacre on local Indians for as long as they could. It's a bizarre story and shows the dangers that a cult can result in. https://en.wikipedia.org/Mountain-Meadows-Massacre
And I only wanted to know about the red cliffs. But I found out about those for myself a little farther along.
Utah is very proud of its Scenic Byway 12, designated an All-American Road. And it is definitely scenic. I stopped to take a photo of these odd-looking rock formations.
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| I know it was Red Canyon because a small sign down by that curve said so. Note too that we were entering the Dixie National Forest. |
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| I have not doctored the color in any of these photos. |
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| See enlarged views of this below. |
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| detail from the right side |
And along this part of the road there were 2 arches; this is the 2nd one.
The road was climbing and I soon reached a summit - 7,777'. Then I came to a traffic circle where the road to Bryce Canyon split off. It was still early enough in the day for me to visit there, but frankly I was just amazing-sceneried out for one day. I figured I'd appreciate it more if I waited a day or two before visiting.
As I was nearing Cannonville, I saw yet another batch of impressive mountains.
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