We headed towards Hanksville because it is near where we wanted to end up and we were familiar with the area. We were about an hour outside of Hanksville when we started to run out of daylight, but we found a useable campsite for the night. It was very warm here! In the morning, we got our Atlas out and headed out for some adventure. We ended up exploring the San Rafael Reef.
Our initial plan was to go for a hike in Dang Canyon. But when we got near, it seemed as if you would have to pass through the Goblin Valley State Park. We were not interested enough in Goblin Valley to have to pay to go through it. We looked for alternatives and found our way into the reef above. We found some other prospective hikes but ended up investigating Chute Canyon. We initially went out to just check it out. We did not intend to hike the whole thing. The hike is a relatively easy 8 mile hike (round trip). But temperatures were above 100 degrees.
We parked and head out a little ways down the canyon but our feet kept taking us farther and farther into the canyon. 
We found a neat climbing wall. We even think that it had been used as such a long time ago, though there is no published information about it that I could find.
Saw some crows living in the abandoned homes of the diamond billed rock peckers! There was a pretty strong breeze, which made the heat a lot more bearable. I think one of the young crows might have been learning to fly or something and the gusts of wind made it difficult for him to get back up into his nest. It stayed down on the rocks for quite a while while another crow kept flying nearby cawing loudly to it.
We kept heading down the trail seeing how far the canyon went and seeing what was around the next bend. Before we knew it, we were pretty far in. We kept thinking that we wanted to get to the end of the trail and that it couldn't be that much further...but of course, it was.
At some point, we finally came to our senses and headed back. It was super hot out there and we did not bring ANY water. The GPS on the GoPro showed us that we were actually almost to the end of the canyon by then, but we had already gone much farther than we should have and the hike back was even more quelling as we were hot, tired and parched by then. Needless to say, we did end up suffering a bit of heat stroke afterwards. We took it easy the rest of the time, driving around in the air conditioned truck.
We went looking for and finding some possible campsites. It was still pretty gusty in the area and we had to try to be extra picky about where we would camp that night. We still had some time though so we went back out to see if we could get to the original road we were supposed to find to get to Dang Canyon. We figured that it was getting towards the end of the day and the park officials for Goblin Valley might be calling it a day by then and we would be able to get by to see if the road we were looking for was out there.
It turns out that there was no need to get into Goblin Valley after all to find our road. It branched off just before the gate for Goblin Valley. We proceeded down the road and actually did find Dang Canyon after all. Not that we would be in any shape to hike any more trails on this trip. We also decided to stay in this area instead of going all the way back to where we were before.
We really liked the area and thought that we found some great alternative campsites but it either it was filled with bugs or it was kind of windy. We actually opted for the wind over the bugs!
The next day, we headed out to Panorama Point. These are all places that Christian and I were planning to visit over a year ago, but something kept getting in our way. So we figured since we were passing through, we would finally get around seeing these places.
We took a trail heading in to the Hands Flat Ranger Station. We passed next to Little Flat Top and a sand dune which was fairly widespread but it was not piled up very high.
We stopped by the Ranger Station to get some maps of the area. We really want to bring the girls back to explore all these areas some more. The trail to the Panorama Point was quite rough, so although it is not very far, it was very slow going. We banged up the cross member pretty good trying to maneuver our way up this trail. I don't think we would ever attempt this trail in the truck if we ever came back here. This one is definitely made for the Jeep.
But the view was quite stunning.
Between the heat and the difficulty of this trail, we got the whole place to ourselves, so that was really nice. There was another place we wanted to see that was just a little farther off our trail, but we were a little worried about making our way back up this trail and it was getting late.
We headed back the way we came and made it back in better time than we had anticipated. Going back up some of the obstacles went smoother than we thought, so that was good.
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| Cleopatra's Chair |
The last place we wanted to visit on this trip was Blue Bell Knoll on the Aquarius Plateau. We attempted it with the kids some time ago but could not find our way to it. After studying the maps again, we thought we would attempt it from another direction.
We made it into the general area without too much trouble and found a fairly nice campsite for the night before we ran out of daylight. It is a good thing that the summer days around here are so long since we have needed all the extra hours of sunlight almost every day on our trip.
The next morning, we went on our way to try to get to Blue Bell Knoll, but it seems that, once again, it was not meant to be. We followed the road on the map which should have lead us to the access road, but it seemed to be just a private ranch road. We ended up driving around the property trying to see if it continued on the other side. We could not find the road. We were uncomfortable driving on somebody's property and decided to just leave. The owner of the ranch came out to see who the stranger driving around was. He was very nice but could not help us find the correct road. We had already given up at this point and was airing our tires back up for the paved roads.
At this point, we decided that it would be best to head home. We'd been gone a long time and was anxious to be back. We had planned to stop by to see Christian's sister, so we gave her a call as we were approaching St. George. She told us Austin was home taking care of Georgia, so we swung by there for a few minutes before continuing on our way. We met up with Aron. She chatted for a while and then she gave us a tour of Kraig's ranch. Before leaving, we wanted to stop by to see Kraig. He was out trying desperately to finish the RV park that he is opening up. He gave us a tour of the place. We were going to leave from there but they suggested going out to dinner. As we left for the restaurant though, his autistic son, Dillon, had a fit so he took him home. We didn't want to wait half an hour to get a seat at the restaurant he had suggested, so Aron took us to some little Mexican joint she liked. The food was really good and we sat and talked some more. We actually talked for hours. It was 11 o'clock by the time we left. Aron suggested that we spend the night but we were eager to get back and we knew that it would upset Dillon and we didn't want to cause them any trouble. Aron had to get up in the morning to look after Georgia.
We got home at 4:am. We were so beat.
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