When orchards on the Fremont bloom (Capital Reef National Park)

 

There’s a pecking order to the Utah Five national parks. It’s easy to pair off Canyonlands and Archest or Zion and Bryce Canyon. 

By lacking a nearby dance partner, Capitol Reef gets the short shrift. It sits by itself, away from the interstate and down one windy canyon road. It still gets its visitors and rightly so.

I emerged to field of massive red rock formations after Torrey. I hiked to a short rise above the highway crossing the park, and soaked in the majesty.  There I spoke with an Asian man while at an overlook. He told me the name didn’t make sense until he got up there and recognized the red-rock formations whose shape more some resemblance to the U.S. Capitol building. Time, erosion, and water have carved the Colorado Plateau red rock into intricate mesas and buttes. 

A chill stuck in the air. Capitol Reef felt as if it was still waking up. I didn’t mind. I had no patience for anyone wanting to rush me in this exquisite place. I would rather watch the falcons soar and the Fremont River churn astride the Fruita orchards. 

The attractions of the other Utah national parks also require less of a geology lesson than Capitol Reef does. The Waterpocket Fold, a 100-mile wrinkle in the Earth whose origins reach back 280 million years. This fold of red rock runs down to Lake Powell. 

The Capitol Dome formation’s loose resemblance to the U.S. Capitol gave the park its name. These days most people would agree that central Utah’s version is superior. 

The combination of the Fremont River’s water – its confluence with Sulphur Creek is at the center of Capitol Reef - and the rock formation’s large shadows made agriculture possible in this dry region. For nearly a thousand years ago, ancestral tribes settled on these lush lands, leaving multiple petroglyphs as evidence of their culture. 

The might Fremont

Dry winter has not kept the Fremont down. 

Along with numerous buildings from the former Fruita settlement, the park services has maintained the fruit orchards begun more than 100 years ago. During the summer, one can buy pies made from the orchard fruit or pay to pick fruit from whatever trees have ripe fruit. In early April, the trees continued to leaf out. I only had seen the orchards in winter. 

Resilient Chinese wisteria

This time, the promise of spring and future fruit crops ran deep. I took a short hike along the Fremont, its currents surprisingly swift despite the dry winter. The sun hit the rocks and gradually descended upon the fruit trees. There seemed enough water from the Fremont to ensure a decent crop come summer.  

Near the orchards in a flat, wooded park, a rail fence blocked off a gnarled tree covered in old vines. This Chinese wisteria had been thought dead by park officials, then started blooming again in 2010. On this morning the pale purple blossoms emitted some wondrous scents. 

As I traveled east up the Fremont’s canyon, despite all the geologic wonder that curved with the river, the fragrant wisteria aroma that heralded spring stayed with me most. 

 

Quiet times crossing central Utah

80 miles to Fillmore, no services. 

Pahvant Range at Fillmore

Koosharen Reservoir

Colorado River overlook with Hite Crossing Bridge (center right)

For all the grandeur of Great Basin National Park, everything slips right back to desert in a few fast miles. After the obligatory state line casino-hotel, Utah goes silent for 80 miles. The highway crosses a number of silent mountain ranges, some dusted with snow.

I got my fill of banded rock and little else, moving toward cities as the mile slowly clicked off. The mountain passes were marked with elevation signs more than names. 

Crossing the desert of southern Utah on Easter Sunday was not lost on me, but I did not dwell on it either. The season of renewal was moving forward briskly where water and shade allowed, as the warm winter did not replenish the West as it might have in past years.  

The dry winter meant no glimpses of Lake Sevier, which lies just south of U.S. 50. Lake Sevier is a Lake Bonneville remnant but no longer a year-round lake. Agricultural diversions and lack of a decent snowpack left the lakebed empty. 

For of rural driving, I stayed in Scipio, a little farm town with a large name, at a nice, spartan hotel. Its founded was named after the Roman general who defeated Hannibal and helped end the Second Punic War. 

I fared better with lakes when leaving Scipio early the next morning. Roadhouse Blues came on the radio, and I couldn’t argue with Jim Morrison howling, “Keep you eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel.” I rolled past Scipio Lake, then winding Rocky Ford Reservoir near Sigurd. The Sevier River had some decent flow through Sigurd, and the creeks in the mountains seemed healthier. 

I stopped near the earthen dam of the Koosharem Reservoir, with morning mist hanging above the surface. A handful of ducks rippled the water, but it was otherwise cold and quiet, the lake not yet in the morning sun. 

Where golden eagles fled

As I started driving again, some large birds picked in the sage ahead. I expected buzzards but realized I stumbled onto a pair of golden eagles, a species I’d never seen in the wild. The eagles ignored me until I braked to find a spot to view them. I could see their pupils dilate as they surveyed me and quickly took flight. They clearly wanted nothing to do with humans. 

I parked and shuffled my camera lens for hopes of a few shots, but with a few muscular flaps of their wings, they cruised out of sight. There would be all sorts of bird sightings in the next 50 miles, but the two that got away would stick with me. I lacked photographic evidence, but I saw them. 

Focusing on the eagles, I paid little attention to the turnoff for Fish Lake, Utah’s largest mountain lake and home to Pando, the quaking aspen clone that has tens of thousands of genetically identical aspens connected by one root system. One of the world’s largest organisms, it could be between 9,000 and 16,000 years old. 

Sure, I saw golden eagles and would soon stand below the red rocks of Capitol Reef National Park. But I hate to miss highlights on roads I might not travel again. 

The quiet of the road resume quickly after Capitol Reef. With many days of roads without services, I knew what I was getting with Utah Route 95. The scenic route has no services for its whole length from Hanksville to Blanding, all 125 miles. 

Hanksville’s famous convenience store built into the stone was closed for Easter Sunday, even if the gas pumps remained on. I didn’t need to fill up but I did anyway. 

Following the patchy Dirty Devil River, I barely saw any cars until reaching the overlook of the Hite Passage Bridge, a turnoff that rises several hundred feet above the Colorado River. The overlook lies on a high bluff five miles from the bridge.   

If I called the Colorado River mighty, you could call me a liar. From this height, the water seemed low, green, and sedate. In an ordinary April, the Colorado would be flush with water. But the Colorado Rocky Mountains are historically dry. 

East of the ghost town Hite lies the Hite Passage Bridge, which marks the unofficial northern end of Lake Powell and the only Colorado River crossing in a 300-mile span between Moab and the Glen Canyon Dam Bridge. 

Hite falls within the northern boundary of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, which abuts the southern end of Canyonlands National Park.In this year of deep drought, the Hite marina and boat launch were hundreds of feet from the Colorado’s thin ribbon. When I crossed, I didn’t glance below, and headed back into the bone-dry country. 

From the overlook, it didn’t look especially healthy, although the influence of the dam generally doesn’t reach this far. Following the bridge, I fell back into the land of interesting mesas and rock formations, enjoying the lack of people while it lasted. 

I already felt the pull of home as I reached the Four Corners region, even if I had two-thirds of Colorado and at least three mountain passes ahead. 

The sky island of Great Basin National Park

West face of Wheeler Park, core of Great Basin NP

 I could see Great Basin National Park long before I could approach the isolated preserve. Try as I might, I could not temper the excitement at hitting a national park I dreamed of visiting for decades. I was far from anywhere in eastern Nevada, but that's what it takes to reach Great Basin. 

A lone white-capped mountain rising from greener foothills becomes visible shortly after Pioche, where the already-desolate U.S. Route 93 becomes the Great Basin Highway, dropping all civilization except for the pavement and the occasional farm or ranch. There’s the ghost town of Atlanta, a failed mining camp populated only by a caretaker. That's not worth a bumpy ride off the paved road. 

Wheeler Peak is the pinnacle of the Snake Range, a 13’er and Nevada’s second-tallest mountain (albeit its most prominent). Wheeler hides Nevada’s only glacier, a shrinking slab of dense ice embedded in a cirque’s steep walls. With the warm winters plaguing the west, its future is dim, and that lonely ice might no longer qualify as a glacier within a decade or two. 

Just its appearance on the horizon urged me forward across these empty miles. After many miles of relentless brown mountains with minimal vegetation beyond sage, juniper, and Gambel oak, such lush mountains provide a welcome respite. 

I finally left U.S. 93 at the junction for U.S. 50, which cuts across the valley west of Wheeler Peak. The path across or around the mountains was unclear until the road swung into the foothills and unofficially signaled another mountain pass to cross. A short, windy stretch carries drivers through a pass in the Snake Range. 

By the time anyone enters Great Basin National Park’s via its main road, a good acquaintance has already been made with Wheeler Peak. Great Basin National Park only protects a tiny portion of the Great Basin, which runs from east of the Wasatch Range only the way to the Sierra Nevada in California.

Blooming aspens, Wheeler Peak Drive

Wheeler Peak and the Snake Range

But the national park definitely protects one of the most delicate, important chunks of real estate in that vast area. During the last Ice Age, much of Utah sat beneath Lake Bonneville, which counts the Great Salt Lake, Utah Lake, and Sevier Lake as remnants. 

The national park lands cover a sky island, a series of high-elevation ecosystems wildly different from their surrounding lowlands. In Great Basin’s case, the lowlands don’t support much life at all, as few plants grow in the salt flats to the east. The Snake Range has proven important for other Lake Bonneville remnants – the Lake Bonneville cutthroat trout, a species that had nowhere to go as the lake dwindled into smaller salt lakes, found refuge in the headwater springs of streams that emerge from the Wheeler Peak and the Snake Range. 

Great Basin is a double-edge sword – with virtually no light pollution, it has some of the Lower 48’s darkest night skies. But it also lies hundreds of miles off the beaten path. There are no services for 50-80 miles in any direction outside of Baker, Nevada, the small town at the park’s base. Millions of visitors descend upon the Utah Five national parks. 

With its remote location, Great Basin rarely crests 200,000 visitors annually. With the park visitor center in Baker, five miles from the actual park, you could stop and never set foot in Great Basin. I couldn’t bear that thought after a full day of Nevada wilderness. 

This trip came with a major fault - I visited too early in spring. 

Before I got in the car, I knew that. Wheeler Peak Drive stays closed at the three-mile mark until May. Lehman Cave tours do not open till May. Usually there would be snow on the road, not just the thin amounts on the park's highest elevations. The dry winter did not change those start dates. Still, I would take what I could of Great Basin. It took me years to get here, and who knows when another trip might coalesce. 

Great Basin turkey crossing

Turkey encounter

 

End of the road till May. 

This park felt like an ecstasy of riches, and I just touched upon the edges. But I think I would have to convince someone else of that to return. Upon the Wheeler Peak drive, I spotted movement – a turkey ambled across the road and back into the pine forest. I couldn’t glimpse any of Great basin’s other elusive wildlife. That would require some extensive hiking and full access to the Wheeler Peak Drive. 

Even with the Lehman Caves were closed, I decided to visit the area. The cave visitor center’s small café reopened for April. Chicken fingers sufficed this afternoon, and I grabbed a few Nevada beers for the hotel room that night. 

As Nevada’s longest cave system, Lehman Caves were the initial conserved area in the region, protected as Lehman Caves National Monument in 1922. Local tribes visited the caves, and a homesteader offered tours as early as 1885.  

 Next to the cave visitor center sits the Rhodes Cabin, a cabin from 1928 built by early park rangers to accommodate visitors to Lehman Caves. It has been moved from its original sight, but it represents a different park era, when a 19X11 wood cabin passed for lodgings. 

In 1986, Congress approved rolling Lehman Caves into the new Great Basin National Park, protecting the northern part of the Snake Range. The move was easy enough, since the U.S. Forest Service already covered the Snake Range; the Wheeler Natural Area simply joined the new national park. The southern sections are protected as the Highland Ridge Wilderness. 

From the cave visitor center, one can look down into the past. Lake Bonneville’s waves would have lapped upon shores now covered in salt flats that extend to the next mountain range. That range would have been an island. 

But that was 10,000 years ago. I suspect if I can return to Great Basin in its prime season, I can explore more. The only urgency is to see the glacier, which is already struggling. The Bonneville trout have recovered, and Wheeler Peak seemed to fare better than many Colorado mountains in the snow it received. 

At least the groves of bristlecone pines will still stand and easily outlast most modern visitors to those montane heights.  

Looking downhill at old Bonneville shorelines. 

Eastern Nevada’s lonely road

Nevada and Utah have plenty of contenders for the title of loneliest road, even if U.S. 50 across Nevada earned the name decades ago. 

I knew that awaited me as I took a last walk around the refuge with my friend, said goodbye, and dropped back into the outer edge of Las Vegas for 20-some miles. As soon I as turned north, the city dropped off again. U.S 95 and U.S. 93 connect Vegas to different parts of Nevada, but they compete for which route is more desolate. 

Headed northeast, my drive was all U.S. 93 which connects the state’s population center to a handful of hardscrabble towns and mining ghost towns in Nevada’s vast rural regions. With the impenetrable mountains of Desert National Wildlife Refuge to the west, my only company was satellite radio and fields of Joshua trees. 

Being in such a empty place, I cringed when Lindsay Buckingham’s Holiday Road came on the satellite radio, fearing the National Lampoon’s Vacation song might bode poorly for the many miles ahead without services. Along some drives, I have to hunt for the flourishes. Eventually they arrive. 

 After an hour of high desert, the land suddenly turned green, leading to a pair of reservoirs forming the core of the Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge. Taman Spring, which runs behind the visitor center, was dry this morning, but lizards scattered through the underbrush with constant birdsong in the trees. 

Willow flycatchers come to Pahranagat to nest. Others pass through their longtime migration routes. Hope as I might, the golden eagle on the Pahranagat sign was the only one I saw. On the drier hills above the refuge headquarters, Joshua trees grew tall with many arms. I wanted to stay longer, but I arrived way to early for the visitor center to open, and could not hang around. 

 But the green did not last. The little towns faded and the dry vegetation moved back in. The Joshua trees gave way to juniper and other hardy western trees. Crossing passes became a matter of course. Time and mileage stopped mattered; I just moved in my rental car. 

Caliente passes for a big town in this part of Nevada, with restaurants, parks, and a stately train depot from the town’s busier days. Panaca barely registered as two miles north lies one of Nevada’s best-kept secrets, a state park where nature has carved stone temples, spires, and columns from canyon walls. 

 The clear pinnacle of this quiet road lies just off it in Cathedral Gorge State Park. Anyone could miss it, even though it almost hugged the road. Even on a Saturday, it didn’t feel crowded, although an impressive volume of children flowed from every SUV and minivan that parked around the rock formations. After a campground, a dirt road travels a mile or so into the gorge and its unforgettable rock constructs. 

While not a big state park, Cathedral Gorge could pass as a cousin to the hoodoos of Bryce Canyon and Cedar Breaks in Utah. The formations stem from sediments of a freshwater lake that covered the larger valley more than 5 million years ago. Few plants thrive in the gorge’s clay formations. 

That starkness makes them stand out, and the gorge walls feel as if an architect designed them more than natural elements. A stone water tower from the Works Progress Administration stands near the formations; it was capped and closed when the water proved too alkaline to drink. 

Cathedral Gorge deserves far more time than I gave its signature formations. I didn’t hike a trail but wandered around the easily accessible areas of intricate red rocks. 

 A day use area at the park’s north end takes visitors to an overlook atop the canyon where raptors stare for prey and other birds soar. U.S. 93 between Las Vegas and Ely spans many lonely communities. Pioche was the last of any size, set in a series of mountains and mostly blocked from view. 

 It took me many years to take a drive like this, but Nevada truly has a setup unlike any other state. One large massive market (Las Vegas) disconnected from its second-largest (Reno), a suburb-sized state capital, and nothing but tiny towns from its mining days sprinkled elsewhere. 

You have to cross Nye, Lincoln, and White Pine counties to feel how slight the influence of humans can become. I have no regrets for driving that pavement. 

Yet the loneliness on this road became palpable at times. Cathedral Gorge was a good salve. At least a cure was not far away.