Showing posts with label escalante. Show all posts
Showing posts with label escalante. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

 My student, Chris Brown, is working on his CFI.  Part of the course is to do a cross country flight.  Because this will be the last cross country of his training, he decided to make it a really neat one.  We flew from Salt Lake City to Page, Arizona.  We took the route that took us over the San Rafeal Swell, Capitol Reef National Park, Escalante National Monument, Glen Canyon, Lake Powell, and Navajo mountain.  It was specatular scenery.  Half way through the flight, my camera stopped working!  After I reset it, it started working again, but I missed pictures from the escalante area and Capitol Reef.
The Wasatch Plateau as viewed from just south of Price

San Rafael River Gorge




I 70 cutting through the middle of the swell





Reds Canyon and Hondu Country (southern part of the Swell)








Hidden Splendor Mine Landing Strip.  I would LOVE to fly and land a plane there!

Escalante River







Navajo Mountain




Above Bryce Canyon on the way home

Final Approach to land at Bryce Canyon

FBO in Richfield Utah.  

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Escalante! Day 4


After rushing to get packed in the morning, one of the local outfitters came up in a big Suburban to pick us and a our gear up and take us back into town. We were all very sad to leave the cabin. It had been a wonderful place to stay. Once back in town, we got breakfast and waited for the news on the Charger. Luckily, the local mechanic was able to fix it. He did have to use Ford parts though. With the Charger back on the road, we were ready to head back home. We took our time leaving town, and had lunch with the Bakers on the banks of the Escalante River. On the way home we had to stop for more picture opportunities. Highway 12 has to be one of the most amazing highways in the world! After leaving the Escalante River canyons, you climb Boulder Mountian to enjoy some amazing over looks of the desert!

The Charger made it home great! Although all of us were very tired, we all made it home great as well! It will be a trip that we don't forget, and we are excited to visit that part of the state again. Here are some more photos from the trip!

Escalante! Day 2



After a nice lazy morning enjoying the mountains, we headed out for our adventures in the desert. With lunch packed we headed out in the Charger for Hole in the Rock road. Our first stop was for lunch at Devils Garden! Because Scott forgot the can opener, we had peanut butter and applesauce sandwiches, not the tuna fish as planed. It tasted great though. Here is an arch we found at Devils Garden. We took tons of pictures! It was a very neat place to play. We climbed up hoo-doos and into narrows. Kennedy did not want to leave. This beat any playground she had ever been to.

We did convince Kennedy to get back in the car and we went to Dry Gulch, were the famous Spooky and Peek-a-boo narrows are! The hike was much more difficult than I had remembered! Kennedy and Nicole did awesome! Kennedy had the best attitude and hiked and hiked and climbed and hiked. She hiked to the point that I was worried she was getting heat exhaustion. Needless to say, she slept very good that night. I don't have words for how amazing these canyons are. You will just have to see them for yourself. We did find a lizard that had found its way into spooky, and was unable to get out. The canyon floor never sees the sun and the lizard had gotten to cold. We carried him out of the canyon and put him in the sun to regain his energy.



Hole in the Rock road was a great road driving to Devils Garden, but after we hit Kane County, on the way to Dry Gulch, the road fell apart! The washboard was like speed bumps lined up in the road! The charger started shaking so bad, that the rear view mirror fell off, Nicole kept having to put screws back in the dashboard as it was falling apart! As we pulled into Dry Gulch, the breaks fell apart. Literally. The back brake shook apart and the adjuster fell out and the brakes became completely useless. Because it was the back, the parking brake also was useless. Scott managed to drive the charger 30 miles back to Escalante. It was a very stressful ride back to town. With it being Saturday night, there was nobody in who would be willing to fix it until Monday morning.
So we were stuck in Escalante with all our gear at the cabin. It was about that time that the Bakers arrived! There tiny Toyota was completely full of stuff and there was no way that we would be able to ride in there car up to the cabin. We went out to eat at a lovely Mexican restaurant. There we met some very friendly locals who overheard our situation and offered to drive us up to our cabin!! So with the sun heading down, exhausted from our day, we hopped into there big Dodge truck and headed up the mountain.