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1997 West Vacation -- September 13 through September 27, Part 5

Index
1997 West Trip, Part 1
Nebraska Wyoming Colorado Rocky Mountain NP
Garden of the Gods SP Florissant Fossil Beds NM Cripple Creek
1997 West Trip, Part 2
Great Sand Dunes NM US-160 Mesa Verde NP Four Corners, Navajo Indian Reservation
1997 West Trip, Part 3
Little Colorado River Gorge Grand Canyon NP (South Rim) Glen Canyon NRA (Wahweap) Navaho Bridge/Marble Canyon
Glen Canyon NRA (Lees Ferry)
1997 West Trip, Part 4
Grand Canyon NP (North Rim) Zion NP Cedar Breaks NM
1997 West Trip, Part 5
Scenic Route 12 Bryce Canyon NP Capital Reef NP Utah 24
1997 West Trip, Part 6
Utah 279 Canyonlands NP Arches NP Utah 128
Colorado NM Rocky Mountain NP (Part 2)

Map_97West.jpg
My 1997 West Vacation. 14 days, 5440 miles.
Around 40 miles East of cedar breaks, is the Highway 12 Scenic Byway. It's a 120 mile road of some of the most diverse and beautiful country in the country. No exaggeration. Between the backroads and the monuments, you can easily spend a week exploring the hostile and amazing areas on or near this road.

Scenic Utah-12
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Bryce Canyon, *is* a canyon, but Bryce Canyon National Park is several amphitheaters showcasing some of the most amazing rock formations in southern Utah. The original Canyon was named after Ebenezer Bryce around 1875, a Mormon who helped settle Southern Utah and Northern Arizona. Bryce has been a National Park since 1928.

Bryce is one of those places that surprised me back in 1997. It's a beautiful place, someplace where the scenery can certainly be described as spectacular. The Hoodoos (the 'columns' of sandstone) stand in rows like some failed engineering feat, or half carved figures eroded over a millennium. Of course, it's erosion. They get 18 inches of rain here, but it's mostly frost erosion that forms the hoodoos.

Bryce Canyon National Park
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Scenic Utah-12 is sort of a misnomer, since every road that goes through this area is scenic. They are also desolate, and unforgiving. Two hundred years ago, this area would have scared me to death, but today it's someplace I want to go back to...

Scenic Utah-12
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Capital Reef would be our 10th National Park Service venue this trip, quite overwhelming when you think about it. 1997 was an odd year, they had quite a lot of rain in the desert. Unfortunately, one of the casualties, was Capital Reef National Park. The areas around Utah-24 were open, but the park road had been washed away.

So I really only got to seen the Waterpocket Fold around Route 24 and Route 12. One day I'll go back to see the rest of the park...

Capital Reef National Park
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Utah 24 starts up just off I-70 in Central Utah, travels South about 40 miles, then East some 50 miles, then travels Northeast where it meets back up with I-70. It was probably the road you had to take through the mountains until I-70 was built.

Today, it's the road you have to take to get to Capitol Reef National Park, if you're approaching from the East or the West. We took Utah 24 from Captial Reef to I-70 through the San Rafael Desert, once the bottom of a vast inland sea.

The road was so desolate and deserted, that I stopped in the middle of the road, and took the panoramic below. In January of 2000, that picture got me $50 and a nice hooded sweatshirt as a prize for one of the Top 10 Straight Roads in Car and Driver Magazine. They even spelled my name right. :-)

Utah 24
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End 1997 West Vacation Part 5
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