Thursday, October 12
The last morning on Lockhart Basin. I was ready to move on, but I really liked this spot. Time to go.
The plan was to drive to Natural Bridges National Monument via Beef Basin Rd. To my knowledge, this is just a typical dirt road that drives Cathedral Butte and intersects with Elk Ridge road. In fact, you can take Beef Basin Rd all the way up Elephant Hill if you choose. If you go that route, it takes you past Indian ruins. Like I said, the plan was to take Beef Basin to Elk Ridge and pop out right near the entrance to Natural Bridges. There was also a second layer to this plan. You see, there is a spur road from Beef Basin that leads out to the end a mesa over looking a canyon. Somewhere in that canyon is Wedding Ring Arch. This is where I was planning to propose to Natasha.
If we stuck with the plan, it would have been Friday afternoon before we would be anywhere that sells fuel: the marina at Lake Powell. “We've got no fuel for this.” We had to take pavement to Monticello and scrub the Beef Basin plans. Damnit. We did have enough fuel to cut through the mountains instead of taking the highway the whole way. Saw at least 30 deer and probably as many turkeys, all just off the road. Pretty interesting.
Gassed up, we head to Natural Bridges. We're way ahead of schedule at this point. We cruise through the camp ground and notice they don't allow camp fires. This won't due. We decide to either camp in many of the available BLM areas nearby or…wait a minute…we're way ahead of schedule. I bet we can make the last ferry at Hall's Crossing if we wanted to. We drive the loop at Natural Bridges, walk to a few overlooks, realize this place would be much better if we had time to do the long hike that takes you up close to all the bridges and ruins.
And we're off to Lake Powell. The road to Hall's Crossing from Natural Bridges was straight, well maintained, and when we came through, deserted. Speed limit of 55, it was impossible to go that slow given the above attributes. Then it turns to a very well maintained gravel road, no change in speed limit. I was impressed. We get Hall's Crossing by 2:30, the next ferry is at 4:00. More PBJ's, camp chairs in the sun, looking at maps, and reading. The ferry shows up around 3:30, unloads and the crew goes “down below”. There was a school bus on the ferry, how cool would it be to have a ferry ride as part of your daily ride to school? The ride across is about 20 minutes and costs $20 per vehicle.
No matter what your opinion is of Lake Powell, it is an interesting place. We were planning on camping at a place called Stanton Creek. Primitive, dispersed, $6. All the cars you see near that bowel shaped rock are camped at Stanton Creek. We drove down the access road, saw all the campers and their generators, turned around and grabbed the last room in the “lodge”, which is really just an overpriced hotel with an overpriced restaurant. The shower was worth every penny that the room cost…it'd been a few days. Like I said, we got the last room available…on a Thursday in October (practically out of season). Apparently, the Utah Education Association has a yearly conference in October for educators. Anyway, we lucked out, got the last room and probably could have sold it for double what we paid. People were camping out in their boats in the parking lot before the night was over. Showered and feeling comfortable in our room with running water, electricity, and a patio (over looking the parking lot and eventually the lake itself), we head to dinner.
Friday, October 13th
We now have a day to spare and decide to head up to Capitol Reef National Park a day early. We load up the truck, hit the gift shop, hit the mail drop and head out. The truck didn't start on the first turn of the key. Just a click, not a repeating click, just one click and then nothing. Interesting. Turn the key a second time, a slow crank. I had the AC/DC inverter running for a few hours, surely the battery isn't that low? Third try, fires like nothing was ever wrong. Good enough, let's gas up and go.
We call the Capitol Reef NP visitor center to check on road conditions. The plan was to take the Notom-Bullfrog road all the up along the Waterpocket Fold. Surprise, the road is “impassable” at Bullfrog Creek due to washouts. Check the map, that creek is just a few miles up the road, we'll check it out and make our own judgment. Sure enough, there was a road closed sign, but it wouldn't have been a problem to cross. Others had already, but we played it safe and headed for pavement.
I found a road that looked like it went all the way through to Notom, we'll try it. It dead ended at a mine shaft. We tried a second road. This one took us way up into the Henry Mountains. It was very cool while we were in the mountains, a two track gravel road, very rough and twisty. Eventually it spit us out on some road that crossed a usually dry wash about 9,000 times. Every crossing we came to, the rougher the crossing got. No water today but the washes proved to be tedious. Eventually the drop offs were in the two to three foot range. Soft sand drop off into gravel creek bed. It took us a very long time to get from Bullfrog to Notom. We passed by one road that was closed due to “wildlife preservation”. We later learned that area plays host to one of the last free ranging herds of bison (or buffalo?).
We stop at the entrance to Capitol Reef for a pit stop. Turn the key, click, no start. Tried again, no start, three, four times. Ok, I check the voltage on the battery and at the starter. Everything is fine, I wiggle the starter relay. Fires right up. That's weird. We drive off to find a place to camp and then to find a parts store. We catch word that more rain is rolling in. With a truck that's not 100% and no luck finding parts, we check into a motel with Internet so we can do some re-routing. The nearest dealership is in St. George, 120 miles from Vegas and 230 miles from our current location of Torrey, UT. When I talk to the parts guy, tell him I'm looking for a starter relay, and says he doesn't have one and describes to me exactly the symptoms I'm experiencing.
“The contacts on the starter need to be cleaned.”
“The battery contacts? Is that something I can do in the parking lot”
“Well, the contacts inside the starter. You can do it if you stand on your head, otherwise you're going to have to come see me.”
“Are you open on Saturday?”
“Ha, no, it'll be Monday.”
So we make an appointment for 11 AM on Monday, in St. George, UT. The exact opposite direction we need to be headed.
Saturday, October 14th
Rainy and cold, we drive to the cabin we have booked near Boulder, UT after finding out everything in Capitol Reef is closed due to flooding. It's on a horse ranch off Hell's Backbone Road, has running water, electricity, a shower, and a wood burning stove. The truck starts fine all damn day.
Sunday, October 15th
The weather is beautiful. A touch of rain but mostly sunny and warming up. Natasha informs me we're hiking to Calf Creek Falls in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Recreation Area this morning, so we eat a good breakfast at the ranch house and head out. Calf Creek Falls is a 126' waterfall running from Calf Creek, a spring fed creek that apparently has water all the time. We see a rainbow on the way to the trailhead.
The trail is a easy six mile out and back. This is going to be the place where I propose…Plan B. So I sneak the ring out of the console and into my pocket and we head out, but not before reading a sign that states that the ravens have taken a liking to windshield wipers…please cover your wipers with a towel or shirt before leaving your vehicle. Windshield wipers?
On the hike to the falls we meet a couple people coming the other direction and the BLM ranger that left a few minutes ahead of us. He tells us we've got the falls all to our self, no one else is on the trail ahead of us. Perfect!! We get to the falls and they are amazing. This place is probably better then Plan A!
So we're standing there, looking at the falls, and this raven lands five feet away from us and starts walking straight at us. It's like he's egging me on! After he flies off, I pop the question, she says yes and then a few minutes later another couple strolls up. Someone to take our picture, fantastic!
After that, it's a three-mile hike back to the truck. We drive up to Escalante for lunch, make the phone calls, dinner reservations, and then for a short drive down Burr Trail road and Wolverine Loop. We get to a point where Wolverine Loop is so washed out that route finding is difficult. We turn around and head for the cabin to clean up before dinner.
Dinner was at Hell's Backbone Café. Apparently it's somewhat famous, people were buying a book and having the staff autograph it. Dinner blew the budget so we opted to not buy a book.
Tomorrow, we get up early to start the long drive to St. George, UT.
. The 211 to Needles route is what I'm looking at for the spring, interested to hear how it turns out. Wish we could join you for the Needles section but the grindstone calls 
