Dinosaurland

With this post, I'll be up to date on recent blogs! Must be time to head to a new place :)

We have been in Vernal, Utah for a couple of days at an RV park to restock and explore. Just to the east is Dinosaur National Monument (and we almost made it into Colorado for our third border crossing in a couple weeks, but decided to stay in Utah this time).

Dinosaur in the parking lot!


Sadly, the real visitor center is under construction - that's where they have a huge wall of dinosaur fossils all still in place (over 1400 bones!). The photos look amazing. We'll have to come back after they finish (est. fall 2011).

For now, they have opened up a short walk where you can see a few fossils in a different cliff wall, including this large dino bone:


Other than the fossils, the park also has some great scenery. We did a hike near Split Mountain and the Green River:


Heading off on the hike:


Inspiration for Desert Winds?


The "Desert Voices" trail:


I especially like the Dr Seuss quote in the lower right:



Parts of the "Sounds of Silence" trail - an excellent loop:





Still need to visit the Mojave Desert - all the others have been great so far!


The Green River:



Petroglyphs:


Box Canyon trail:


Vernal is a fun, quirky town:


With lots of great flowers!


And an excellent Field House museum, with a bunch of dinos hanging around outside:




It has been a wonderful couple of days. Time to head south to the town of Green River and then back to Moab for more training :)

The beauty of Flaming Gorge

I'd love to see all of the national parks and monuments in Utah, although we might not have time this summer to quite hit them all. I'm glad we didn't miss Flaming Gorge - it's really pretty, and another wonderful area for adventure race training.

The Sheep Creek loop drive has some amazing geology on display from many different timeframes:


View of the gorge from the visitor's center (they have a great location!):


Looking downstream:


We took a fun (and free!) tour of the dam. No photos allowed during the tour, but here is the dam from the top:


And from the other side - wow, that's high:


A pretty overlook near the dam:


One of my favorite mountain animals - love this sign board:


Also love national forests, especially when we can find free dispersed camping in great locations:


The Sheep Creek inlet, where we paddled Sunny:


We paddled around Kingfisher Island, docking at a "boat-in" campground for a quick break:




The next morning we biked up to the Ute lookout tower:


And did a short run down to Browne Lake:


It was a quick trip through the area, but we were very happy we got to see it.

Kings Peak - Utah highpoint

After Antelope Island, it was time to head east, toward the Uinta Mountains. We are on a long-term Highpoints Quest to reach the top of the highest points of each state. Utah's highpoint, Kings Peak, seemed like it might elude us this time. But when I finally connected the dots of places we wanted to go, it fit right in between Salt Lake City and Flaming Gorge. The timing was such that we wouldn't make it to a race near Salt Lake that weekend, but otherwise it worked out great. Even the weather was perfect, for which we are grateful. The day we drove up to the mountains, many hikers got wet. As it was, Howie got muddy from the drive on dirt roads, but we stayed dry (except for our feet) the next day on the trail.

To get to the trailhead, which is pretty remote, we had to go through Wyoming. A windfarm along the way:


Some cows next to the dirt road on the way to Henrys Fork campground - it's hard to see, but they have something like a "double waddle", or danglies, on their necks which we had never seen before:


We arrived Thursday evening, slept a few hours, got up at 1 a.m., and started hiking at 1:40 a.m. toward Kings Peak. The trail is somewhere between 12-14 miles long (depending on which route you take) and climbs 5000 feet; most people hike in with big packs and tents to set up a base camp before tackling the peak. We decided to do it our way and try to get it all done in one day. We're currently in "monsoon season" in the mountains, meaning it tends to rain and thunderstorm in the afternoons, hence the very-early start. The day actually turned out beautiful, from stars and moonlight for us, to a clear blue sky all morning, to just a few clouds in the afternoon.

I posted a brief write-up on my Utah highpoints webpage with some of the details and photos of our hike, so I won't repeat quite everything here.

Looking back toward Gunsight Pass in early morning light:


John trying to figure out why I was stopping to take pictures, when we could be moving toward the warm sunshine just above...


That's better!


The rocky approach to the top:


One of our funnier selfies that morning:


Looking down into a gorgeous valley, also the small plane that circled a couple of times:


Basking in the glow of the sunshine:


Howdy, y'all!


An alternative to John's "top of the mountain" pose:


Looking back at the peak:


A view toward The Slide, a different way to get to/from the peak:


Looking down the long scree slope. It wasn't too bad, just really long. Lots of rocks at the top, then some dirt in the middle that slid nicely, finally more rocks at the bottom. It would have been quite steep for going uphill, though!


The pretty valley leading back to the trailhead and Howie:


Interesting rock formation (and I should be able to say what the formation is, after all the geology study we have been doing, but sadly I still don't know for sure - except it's probably really old...):


Looking back toward The Slide, with Kings Peak above it:


It was a long last few miles, and we were ready to be done so we could take a nap. Eventually we made it!