Made it to Utah

For the record, Rex and I drove into Utah on Easter Sunday. April 20^th also happened to be Rex’s birthday, and he was given a very fine gift: an open campsite in the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park. We knew we were lucky to secure one of only 26 sites--which are available solely on a first-come, first-served basis. But as we set up camp and watched dozens of people driving by, looking for a site, we realized how fortunate we in fact were. We plan to stay here through Friday night.

We could not be happier with our campsite, #2 in Squaw Flats, Loop A. It’s near all of the main trailheads and affords an unbelievable 360-degree panorama of the surrounding mountains and bluffs. Unfortunately, we cannot now show you the view. We happen to be camped in one of the few places within the park with a modicum of cell-phone access, but we are unable make phone calls, upload photos, or surf the Web. Emails and simple text uploads seem to max out the available bandwidth.

On Monday, we walked to the confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers--the first of what we hope will be three epic day hikes in the Needles District. This first walk certainly lived up to its billing. The overlook offered a striking view, but frankly, the hike itself, not the destination, was the best reward. It is very hard to describe the abstract sandstone forms that populate this place, let alone the full palette of colors, vibrant desert plants, living soils, etc. Again, please stay tuned for the photos.

I’ll close for now with a unfairly brief summary of our trek across New Mexico, which deserves more exploring, too. We chose a rather circuitous route, following the last-minute advice of a U.S. Forest Service officer in Carlsbad. From Carlsbad, we went north to Artesia, then mostly west into the Lincoln National Forest. We stayed one night in Mayhill, then drove NM 130 into Cloudcroft. At 8,779 feet elevation, this village deserves further exploring. Unlike most Colorado mountain towns, Cloudcroft does not feel lousy with urban money and retains its Western edge. We then looped back north and west to Ruidoso Downs and Hondo, took an (awful!) US 380 to Captain, made a surprisingly worthwhile stop at the Smokey Bear Historical Museum, and found better road and an excellent BLM campground on the way to Carrizzo. The next day we made a final, hard push for the Four Corners, driving 410 miles to Socorro, Grants, Gallup, and Shiprock, crossing into Colorado not long before the sunset and making camp in Cortez. Phew! Not the way we prefer to travel, but we saw enough to want to go back to the Enchanted State.