Over a number of trips, we had become smitten with the Southwest, especially in their relatively cooler times during Spring and Autumn. The combination of blue sky, mild temperatures and lovely reddish rocks were a welcome change during the cold and dreary times in the PNW.
Marcia planned this trip as a car camping trip in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument of Southern Utah interspersed with day hikes and short back pack trips. We left Seattle in early April with our station wagon fully loaded for the two week trip. Our first hurdle happened to be a late season ground blizzard which closed I-82 near Twin Falls in Idaho. Fortunately conditions improved quickly and we resumed our drive taking US-93 towards Nevada and an overnight stop at a campground in the Great Basin National Park. After a cold start the next morning, we took the Lehman Cave tour.
From there it was across the Great Basin of Nevada into Utah ending up at Kodachrome State Park. We picked up the incredibly scenic Utah SR-12 along the way and followed it to the Escalante Petrified Forest State Park. This and the nearby community was our base for exploring the recently (1996) created Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
Our main access to the area was down the Hole-in-the-Rock Road. From there we did a day trip to Spooky and Peek-a-Boo Canyon and a multi-day trip to Harris Wash. Nearby we did the Lower Calf Creek trail. After our stay there we continued onto Capitol Reef National Park for a short visit. It was in the town of Boulder just west of Capitol Reef that we heard about the horrific shootings at Columbine High School.
With the exception of the brief snow storm while driving through Idaho, the weather up to this point had been perfect. But after Capitol Reef a wet front rolled in. We had intended to stay at the Goblin Valley State Park but as we drove in the rains were pouring down and, only half jokingly, we feared that the hoodoos in the park would dissolve on top of us. We started our journey home before our memories became tainted by camping in soggy conditions.
