2-up on the Hammer in Capitol Reef National Park

'The Hammer' with our lunch and a water jug on BLM land in Southern Utah

Salt Lake City is full of smog in the winter.   It sits in the valley like a toxic blanket, ready to smother your body and cloud your mind when you step outside.   Winter in the city finds us gasping for clean air and free space.   Fortunately for us, Utah is full of deserts, mountains, canyons, hot springs, and empty expanses.    

Sunshine plays off of the walls and floors of the Grand Wash Canyon

We decided to go South this weekend and try to find something. We did.  Mid-February is a long way from tourist season in the desert, and the BLM lands, dirt roads, and even the Capitol Reef National Park were almost entirely deserted.   It felt like we were the only people on a strange, lonely planet.   We were alone, and surrounded by other-worldly landscapes on macro and micro scales.

Bentonite hills take on different color characteristics as the light changes

"Glass Mountain" a rare selenite formation in the Captiol Reef National Park

Beautiful white sandstone lines the blm roads

As we rode the sandy, washed out roads, the hills glittered and hummed with selenite deposits. 

Selenite "mountains"

A lonely "hoodoo" on a red clay hill

Capitol Reef is a part of the earth shaped by millions of years of oceans, volcanos, earthquakes, sediment deposits, and erosion.   The area has an incredible diversity of landscapes, minerals, and rocks.  

The Capitol Reef area is said to have the darkest skies in the country.   The wildness was juxtaposed with the sounds and sights of jets traversing the skies.   The stars were worthy enough to spend hours staring at, finding planets, and experiencing the feeling I hope every human knows; of everything you think you know dissolving into the mystery of the night skies.   

Jet trails and part of the Chinle Formation

As we do best, we slept in the dirt, cooked over a fire, and drank gritty cowboy coffee in the morning.   Much to my dismay, I lost my coffee strainer which I was given as a memorable gift nearly ten years ago when I first hiked the Northville-Lake Placid Trail  It was a constant companion of mine and produced hundreds upon hundreds of cups of delicious, crunchy, wilderness coffee for me.   It deserves this eulogy of sorts.   

farewell, friend

The best trips involve hot springs.  They are something to be protected and respected.   Hot water full of minerals that flows out of the ground and into a pool or tub or (in this case) old cattle cisterns.   Sleep in the dirt, soak in the springs.   It's some kind of life.   

Mineral deposits at some unpublished hot springs in Southern Utah

Peace and until next time!