Yet another road trip thread with pics

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It's taken a while to get some free time and post some pics, but took a road trip from 4/12-18 to Moab, Goblin Valley area, St. George area, Lake Mead, Owl Canyon (north of Barstow), Alabama Hills, then down to the southern entrance of Joshua Tree NP in "the 10" (am I allowed to call this location that instead of I-10?).  Most all campgrounds were free BLM sites I found on campendium.com.  I was planning on doing a mix of tent and car camping, but in my haste to get out of my house I took my old tent which was bad news all the way around so stayed in my car the whole time.  The reflectix cutouts for my windows made all the difference.

Moab was a zoo.  Goblin State Park area was far more mellow with Little Wild Horse (slot) canyon being really cool to check out. 

I took the route through Escalante to get to St. George, but unfortunately didn't get a chance to spend much time in the interior of the state due to cold / snowy weather moving in (opted to audible further south a bit sooner).  Never made it into Snow Canyon State Park, but the overlook was very cool. 

Got a cool lakeside camping spot at Stewart's point on Lake Mead.

Owl Canyon near Barstow was a very cool hike with some interesting rock formations / coloring.   I drove up into the western part of DVNP and passed on a camping spot there and forged ahead to Alabama Hills near Lone Pine ... which was a really cool place.  Unfortunately, I arrived on a Saturday and it was kinda crowded so didn't get the best spot.  I would've liked to have continued further on up to Bishop, but didn't have the time and energy at that point to extend the trip in such a way.  Also wanted to get to the ocean, but unfortunately wasn't able to do that.  Final stop was a free blm "campground" at the southern entrance of Joshua Tree NP.   Finally, went to AZ to visit my mother for five days or so.

https://imgur.com/gallery/4fL9Kgx

Beautiful... crisp pics of lovely places.

Sweet FOM. If you went to Little Wild Horse and then drove Rt 12, ya done pretty good in the Beehive State for a quick trip through.     

awesome  thanks for sharing

America The Beautiful 

Sweet FOM. If you went to Little Wild Horse and then drove Rt 12, ya done pretty good in the Beehive State for a quick trip through<<<

It was the first time I've been to LWH.  It was very cool to say the least!  My neighbor told me about it a few days before I left.  He and his family actually went due east of Hanksville (maybe slightly north)  to explore some slot canyons and features in a lesser frequented area in western part of Canyonlands NP (or just outside of the park boundaries).  Wish the weather had been better ... seems like there's a lot of nooks and crannies in that general region that fly under the radar - at least compared to the hordes of people in Moab. 

Yeah, hwy 12 is amazing for sure!  ... next time hopefully I'll get off the beat and path along that route a bit more.

>>>>Wish the weather had been better  

Yeah, gotta be careful in LWH. Tragically, two sisters 3 and 7 were washed down the canyon and drowned a year ago in a flash flood when the family went on a Mother's Day hike and a storm hit. Didn't find the 3 year-old until the next day. Absolutely heartbreaking. 

I forgot about this and just re-read a news article about it.  Yes, truly heartbreaking.

 

Great pictures.  Thanks for sharing.

>>>>forged ahead to Alabama Hills near Lone Pine ... which was a really cool place  

We spent three nights camping outside Lone Pine in March and checked out the Alabama Hills.   Yes, a cool place with really neat dispersed camping sites, but it seem like there was a lot of people there:

Alabama Hills_0.jpg   

Rumor has it they might be closing off the Alabama Hills from dispersed camping because of over use.

Nice pics, and nice to see you getting out there.

 

>> Yeah, hwy 12 is amazing for sure!  ... next time hopefully I'll get off the beat and path along that route a bit more. <<

 

One great stretch of road, for sure.

We decided to explore of UT-12 a little on our way back from Escalante a couple weeks ago. We needed a pla=ce to camp for the night and I have always wanted to check out the area east and south of the highway down past Bown's Reservoir. We ended up driving all the way through to an unofficial entrance to Capitol Reef the next morning. We drove down past Bown's on Forest Rd 168 which became South Draw Rd. You cross a pass (and the road deteriorates) and eventually spits out on the east side at Pleasant Creek into the park. There were some surprised travelers when we popped across that creek. I wouldn't drive it again unless I had a Rubicon type clearance....we barely made it.

 

Rumor has it they might be closing off the Alabama Hills from dispersed camping because of over use<<<

I'm not surprised.  After driving around for about 30 minutes looking for a "good spot" on Saturday I must've come across literally 100 little unobtrusive signs barely visible on the ground stating you can't park there.  These were all over the place in every conceivable location someone either has in the past or might consider in the future to carve out a new spot.   This whole larger concern immediately came to mind after I caught on about the intention and time it took to place all of these signs - and simply seeing how many people there were with some elaborate group setups.   Eventually, I just "gave up" looking for an isolated spot and retreated to one of the larger clusters closer to the entrance - which was still cool, even though there was a good deal of traffic nearby.

I had never been in this area of California before, so I found it to be interesting to check out the southern Sierras from the eastern side.   It's amazing how quickly they gain vertical and see why there's (apparently) no real east <--> west vehicular egress that cuts through them until you get further north.   This is another area I wish I had spent more time exploring (hiking in particular) ... and would've liked to check out Bishop and the hot springs up there.

There were some surprised travelers when we popped across that creek. I wouldn't drive it again unless I had a Rubicon type clearance....we barely made it.<<<

Nice!   That reservoir looks like a cool spot to hang out at.  Yeah, sometimes when you're just forging ahead on unknown roads it's easy to go past the "point of no return" and take risks that you wouldn't otherwise take because you've already made the effort to get as far as you did.

 

Pleasant Creek, August 2015. I think we did a shuttle. 

These are volunteers with the "Loose Rock Safety Patrol" or "LRSP", my non-profit group.

After those yahoo Boy Scout leaders felt unsafe and toppled a rock in Goblin Valley a few years ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYFD18BwmJ4 , we decided to organize and set about documenting ALL the loose rocks in southern Utah. It's a dirty and time-consuming job, but SOMEBODY'S got to do it!!! Spring patrols in the Canyonlands area, patrolling other national parks and BLM lands in the fall, and of course, summers on the river! Send your donations! I need a new truck and a camper shell. A new raft would be good, too.  

DSC_0388 (426x640)_0.jpg

Seeing Ned's Escalante pics reminded me of this. 

DSC_0403 (426x640).jpg

 

Pleasant Creek was flowing nicely as we drove through it :)

Ooops, my bad. That was Sulphur Creek, not Pleasant Creek. Still in Capitol Reef N. P.