We decided to keep heading south into Utah, knowing that there was a lot that we wanted to explore there. Trying to get truly out of the smoke meant that we had some long days of driving, but we tried to find some interesting things to do along the way as we headed toward some big destinations on our list: Arches, Canyonlands, Bryce Canyon, and Zion. Mike had never been to Utah and I had few memories. With so much to do, we knew that we would be in the state for a while. Everything we wanted to do was in southern Utah, so we planned a route that took us through the state in clockwise direction.
We went through Salt Lake City and made an underwhelming stop at the Great Salt Lake. Maybe it would have been a little prettier on a sunny day, but it was hazy or smoky when we were there, which meant that we were just surrounded by gray – gray sky, gray sand, gray water. The beach was incredibly sulphurous smelling, but at least at the water’s edge, the breeze gave us a cleaner scent. We wandered a bit and then moved on…
To the east! Over more mountains and we took it slow. We were that car that just kept up with the slowest moving truck, blinkers going. We knew that we would be pushing the truck’s pulling capacity and so we took it easy on the steep ups. We made it over and headed toward McCoy Flats for the night. This was a wide open BLM area, full of small buttes and mountain bike trails that we didn’t take advantage of. It did put us near our activity for the next day: Fantasy Canyon.
Fantasy Canyon is the strangest little place. You drive out to the middle-of-nowhere Utah and suddenly come upon this tiny canyon full of the most fantastical naturally made sculptures. We had read reviews that said the road in could be treacherous (probably only in wet conditions we later decided), so dropped the trailer a ways out. As we parked, we got to watch a herd of pronghorns watering across the road. Never heard of them? Neither had we! They ran off when we started to unhook the trailer, but we got to see quite a few more as we travelled across Utah.
So, Fantasy Canyon. We hiked around the outside hills, scrambling on sand, strange dried clay and hard rock. We eventually dropped into the canyon to take in the crazy sculptures that nature had made. This area had once been on the shore of a lake and collected deposits from many different kinds of sediments. After the lake dried up, the various kinds of rocks weathered at different rates, shale and silt stone wearing away to leave the sandstone behind, for now. The sculptures are delicate and apparently ever changing as they wear away. I felt lucky to be able to see such an amazing little area.
