An excellent visit to the Utah canyonlands! This time of year the weather is pretty unpredictable, but if you are willing to risk the venture the rewards are great (see the February 14th entry).
Based on last minute forecasts, we decided to commit to the canyonlands area. Nevertheless, we headed south towards canyonlands on Friday morning with little promise of decent weather. Light traffic on I15, light also on US6, and I70 was a ghost highway. With sketchy forecasts for the following morning we decided to camp in Moab.
The original plan was to hike Natural Bridges NM, one of my favorite areas anywhere. Saturday morning was beautifully clear and we decided to have a go at our target. The road south was dry and clear to just north of Monticello. Here we encountered snow blowing across the freeway, and these conditions persisted through to Blanding. US191 lies to the leeward of westerly winds blowing across the Abajo Mountains and these peaks control the local weather. Fortunately, the conditions improved as we headed west towards the monument along UT95.
NBNM doesn’t get many visitors this time of year and the parking lot of the visitor’s center was empty except a couple of park service vehicles. The ranger was friendly, but had some bad news. Unfortunately, most of the trails down to the floor of the canyon had several inches of snow on them making them impassable.
We did manage to scope all three of the major bridges in the park: Sipapu and Kachina from the view points, and Owachomo by hiking beneath it. Stay tuned for photos from NBNM coming soon.
We spent today, Sunday, in Dead Horse Point State Park and in the Island in the Sky unit of Canyonlands. A beautiful morning. Light clouds appeared about mid morning, which thickened significantly during the day. Had a go at reaching False Kiva. Look for photos in the next couple of days.
Tags: canyonlands, Kachina, natural bridges, Natural Bridges NM, Owachomo, Sipapu, Utah
