Ghost Towns and Smoking Mountains

Hey Guys!! We have so much to get through in this post…so lets just dive right in!

The first place we went when we got to Page is the Carl Hayden Visitor Center. This is the visitor center for Glenn Canyon National Recreation Area and where you can find all the most up-to-date information on the hiking trails and dirt roads in the area. While we were there, the boys did the Junior Ranger program and we walked across the bridge to check out the view of the Glenn Canyon Dam.

The Glen Canyon Bridge is 700 feet above the Colorado River which makes it the second highest steel arch bridge in the world! From the walkways along the bridge, you get a pretty stellar view of the river below. We walked to the center on one side then crossed the road to see the other side.

One of our favorite adventures at Glenn Canyon NRA was driving out to Alstrom Point to get a view of Lake Powell. To get there, we found ourselves on a dirt road out in the middle of nowhere. The road started off pretty good…really we commented about how smooth it was. But I think that after a certain mileage, they decided to just let the “road” return to nature. There were a couple of times that we weren’t sure we were even on the path anymore. And then we reached the slick rock section where you have to try and follow the little cairn stacks. We got lost on this section and had to turn around and take a better look at where we thought they wanted us to go. Needless to say, it was quite the adventure! And we loved it! We made it to Alstrom Point right before sunset and had the entire place to ourselves!! The water was so still and had some amazing reflections of the redish/orange rocks. This…this is what we look for when we set out on an adventure. No crowds. Nothing but nature.

We also drove out to the Lake Powell Campground and Marina for some more views. We were there right around sunset and there weren’t too many other people there. I think the bitterly cold wind kept everyone else inside. We woke up the next day (the day we left) to find that it had snowed. There was a very light dusting of snow around Page. I wasn’t able to snag any pictures of the lake with snow…but it was pretty!

Horseshoe Bend. I’ve wanted to see Horseshoe Bend in person for years. We’d driven by the parking lot several times during our stay in Page and every single time the parking lot was jam-packed with cars and huge tour buses. And every time I thought…well, maybe next time it won’t be so crowded. But, it always was. I was running out of time to see it during our stay so we bit the bullet and went during the time of day that was supposed to offer the best lighting for it. And…it was pandemonium. Just soooo many people everywhere. Standing in line to wait for my turn at the railing I kept looking around at everyone getting those Instagram shots. What’s funny is when you see those shots on social media, it looks like that person is all alone out in the wilderness with some meditative look…but in reality…they’re surrounded by chaos. People climbing every rock trying to get that just right angle…taking seventy or more selfies…the whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth.

I took a few pictures of the bend itself, snapped some of the insane amount of people and then we left. It is pretty. And from the picture above you can’t tell that the family right next to me was doing an entire photo secession and kept sticking their arms in my shot. Or that the couple on the other side of me kept pushing at me trying to get into the perfect spot. But, I got to see it and the picture doesn’t look half bad…all things considering.

We found ourselves back in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument again! We can’t seem to stay out of this park. This time we entered from it’s southern border and headed for the ghost town of Paria. There’s not really anything left of the Paria town sight or the movie set. We really loved the colors in the rocks though!

Between a fire or two and the seasonal flooding, the only structure we saw was this vault toilet put in place by the park. And Guys, one of us (Charles) got stuck in it. I’m not even kidding. Charles got stuck in the bathroom while we were out in the middle of nowhere. The door closed and didn’t want to open back up. It took a combined effort to get him out. I can’t imagine having that happen when you’re all alone out there…with no cell service. But look at those stripes and colors on the rocks!!

We did find a little pioneer cemetery. None of the markers had names on them. Instead, there was a little plaque toward the front that had the names of everyone buried there.

We made it all the way to the river where the original town sight is rumored to have been. Again, we never saw any traces of what was once there, but we enjoyed the drive and the scenery. We used our imaginations a bit and tried to decide what buildings would have been where and talked about good and bad places to build a town.

The whole adventure to Paria took us a couple of hours and we only saw a few other people. But boy-howdy…Guys, just look at that view. It really was like that the entire drive. One amazing thing to see after another. So, even though we didn’t get to explore a ghost town, we spent some time outside soaking up some vitamin D in a gorgeous setting. I call that a win.

The last thing we did in the Page area was head back into one of our favorite National Parks, Grand Staircase-Escalante, for one more adventure. Smoky Mountain Scenic Backway will take you all the way up to the All American Scenic Byway 12, but we didn’t go the entire 78 miles.

We kind of felt like we were driving around on another planet as we drove through stark canyons and some desert slick rock. The colors of the rocks kept changing…different sections had different colors. There was very little plant life. The first picture above…with the grey rocks…that area is called The Moon and parts of the movie Planet of the Apes was filmed there. It really felt otherworldly and remote.

Sometimes, if you’re lucky (or just plan better than we did), you’ll see smoke wafting up from one of the vents of the 100 year old coal seam fire still burning deep in Smoky Mountain. Which, is where the mountain got it’s name. In the upper right picture, you can see some of the coal seams that run through the mountain and in the left picture you can see what one of the vents looks like. To see the smoke, you have to be near a vent when it’s below freezing. So…we didn’t see any smoke.

We made it to the Kelly Grade Overlook and that’s as far as we went. We’ve driven a lot of dirt roads…but the road to get up to this overlook at 6,500 feet was so narrow with blind turns…I really don’t know what we would have done if we’d met someone going the other way on this road. We sat and ogled the view while we ate lunch. Not a bad view…you know, if you like that sort of epic landscape.

I know that people call these landscapes “badlands” because they’re not really good for anything…but I find them so beautiful and interesting. I’m so thankful that our government saw the need to set aside places like this for us to explore.

We found this pizza place…Strombolli’s Italian Restaurant… Guys, it was so good! We got the sampler appetizer platter and it was so big that we didn’t have that much room for pizza. Oh! And the mozzarella sticks were so huge and obviously house made. They were amazing! The pizza was delicious. The crust had that chew that we look for with a savory sauce (not sweet). When we’re back in Page this Spring…we’re totally going back here.

Ok, Guys!! That’s it for Page!! We didn’t do some of the activities that we’d initially planned on, but we knew we’d be back in the area soon.

See y’all down the road!

#NationalParkTour