October 24, 2010

From the Zion Canyon Campground and RV Park; N37°11.582’ W112°69.475’

An old house in Grafton

We had decided to make a day of it today, first caching and then through the Park no matter what the weather was.

Turkeys in Grafton

We started with some easy caches down the highway toward Virgin. We worked our way up Dalton Wash Road, until we got to the Zion National Park Boundary. There was some mud and water on the Dalton Wash road, it got about 3” deep on the road by the boundary fence. Fortunately that road looped backed to the Dalton Wash Road, so I didn’t have to leave the road to turn around.

We drove through Zion via the Mount Carmel Tunnel; we didn’t stop on the way up. We saw oak trees that had turned red and maples that had turned even redder.

We drove out the North Fork Canyon Road after leaving Zion. It has been many years since we had driven this way and I didn’t remember any of this road being paved. This road connects Utah 9 with Utah 14 near Navaho Lake. A road also branches off this one and goes to the trailhead for the Zion Narrows Trail. The pavement looked old but not thirty years old. We weren’t on it very far anyway; we turned into the Ponderosa Ranch and Resort development for some caches. Away from the main development the roads turned pretty rough, but passable. We found one cache with a travel bug and when we were headed for the second which was about a 600’ walk, my crew was rebelling. They had had enough slogging through the mud and wanted to see more of Zion. I walked the 600’ feet by myself. In true Longwalker fashion I chose the wrong trail. I walked an ATV trail toward the cache; I should have taken the cache name to heart “Horse Lane.” I bushwhacked to the cache and saw the horse trail a few feet away. I stated back on the horse trail, but it was muddier than the ATV Trail. I was slipping and sliding with my shoes getting heavier with each step. I decided to bushwhack back to the Jeep. It was a lot easier going.



I'll bet they were glad we weren't the hunters



On the way back down through Zion we stopped at a few places for foliage photos.

Bill grilled steaks for dinner and we had a fine meal with all the trimmings.

Good company, good scenery, all in all a great day.