No home, no destination.
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Arches and Canyonlands are right near Moab. First pic is from the colorado river canyon right behind arches, and the second is from in canyonlands. Hiking myself to death. Did a 2.7 mile trail with 1400ft of elevation change straight down (and then back up) a canyon wall yesterday, so driving/resting mostly today Looking to camp in or near great basin tonight.
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Made it back to Wisconsin yesterday. Picked up a few things from storage and am staying in Madison now. I finally had some time to go through the pics on my camera, so here's what I've been up to:
Starting back at Arches; I did most of the tourist stuff, and then some. The whole Moab area has a surreal, otherworldly feel. Hardly anything about the landscape fits into your pre-concieved notions about what the landscape should look like.
The hike up to the Delicate Arch was relentlessly uphill, but it was worth it. My favorite though was the double arch.
After that was Canyonlands. Arches was over-run by tourist, but there wasn't nearly as much traffic here. Lot's of great hiking opportunities. The most difficult thing about "the west" to capture in pictures, is the scale of everything. A good vista covers miles of terrain. You can spend a lot of time just staring off, examining the details. This picture is of the Green River canyon, taken from the edge of the canyon. If you can see it, it shows a truck/jeep driving around the edge of the inner canyon. The truck is probably 4 or 5 miles away from where I took the pictures.
I believe I picked up a stow-away here. More on that later...
I was planning on stopping somewhere in-between, but the road went through the mountains, and it was cold up there. Bright side was that I got to see another awesome sunset.
After that was Bryce Canyon. A bit touristy, but I it was another cool, other-worldly landscape to take in.
The good thing is that they had showers and laundry facilities, which I was in need of.
Then I arrived at Great Basin National park, and realize that I forgot my laundry in the dryer at Bryce Canyon... shitdamnfuck. Anyways, they have bristlecone pines there, which (depending on your criteria) are the oldest living things on the planet. This particular specimen is about 3200 years old, and still living.
They also had a really cool cave, which I toured, but didn't take any pictures of.
From there I hauled ass across Nevada on "the loneliest road in America", which I think means any road that goes through Nevada. If you look closely, you might be able to see my car is parked in the middle of the road, probably an eighth of a mile away. It doesn't matter, because you can drive for an hour out there without seeing another car.
In an effort to make it to somewhere that wasn't Nevada, I decided to drive until I got too tired to drive anymore, and then stop a rest area and sleep in the car. While sleeping, I was awoken by the sound of the previously mentioned stow-away digging through my garbage can (an empty 1-gallon paint-can). I grabbed the can, opened the door, put it outside, and started to remove items from the can. Sure enough, half way down there was a mouse. Being the kind and gentle person that I am, I let him/her go, back out into the wild, and went back to sleep.
When I got up, i finished the drive to Yosemite and got a campsite. I had gotten a days rest while driving across Nevada, so I planned a pretty ambitious hike.
While on said hike some judgement calls were made, as well as some navigational errors. In the end my ambitious hike turned into a 10+ hour death-march. I've never been so exhausted in my life. I was seriously concerned for my health, and was worried I wouldn't make it back to camp before dark. Somehow I did though. Ate an apple and some soup and went to bed. It was cold. When I finally got out of bed around 8:30 there was still frost on my windshield. Got up, saw the sights, and then headed for Sequoia.
I got to Sequoia later, and part of the park was closed due to wildfires. Got this pic while going through the park looking for a campsite:
No campsites available, ended up sleeping in the car again and realized that my stow-away was back when it crawled arcoss my leg in the middle of the night... In the morning I decided to hit up a little side-road that was on the park map. It was a steep, rough, winding road up into the hills. It was a bit sketchy, but I guess that's just my style sometimes.
At the end of the road were some serious alpine trails, so I headed back down to the lower campsite and took a trail from there. This turned out to be the perfect trail for me. A good hike, and a chance to see the sequoia redwoods growing out in the forest without the noise and distraction of a bunch of tourists. On the 7.4 mile round-trip I only saw other people once on the way back down.
Then I went back down to the main park to see the tourist stuff. It was labor-day weekend and the place was over-run. Had to park so far away that I had to take a shuttle to a place where I could take another shuttle to see the biggest tree in the world:
Bet you can't guess which part of the park I enjoyed more...
From Sequoia, I went to Highway 1. Got to the south end bright and early.
Spent a good portion of the day driving up. It was different than I thought it would be, but there were some great driving sections. I'd consider it more of a couples destination. Lots of amazing beaches, art galleries, wine tastings, little shops and cafes. It's easy to get into the relaxed sea-side vibe out there. Pro-tip: start at the north end and drive south. You'll be on the ocean side of the road, rather than the land side, and your passenger will get a better view. At the north end of the highway, south of Legget, there are a couple long sections that are very similar to tail of the dragon, so this is my new favorite road.
Stayed at Humboldt state in norcal to see the costal redwoods. Wasn't impressed with the hiking trails, but it was fine otherwise. From there, I hauled ass towards Yellowstone.
Just realized I didn't transfer any of the pics from the last couple days to my phone, so that's it for now. I spent 2 days at Yellowstone, saw lots of buffalo, elk, pronghorn deer, and even a black bear. After that I just drove back to Wisconsin. Definitely felt wierd being back in Menasha, but I didn't stay long. Hopefully things work out for me here in Madison.
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Welcome back! Looks like you had one hell of an adventure. Glad it was worth it!
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Awesome story with some great pictures.
It's sad too see that so many people were on their phones while next to the biggest tree in the world.
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wow great adventure. you sure took it ALL in.
That's what she said.
Sorry, couldn't resist.
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