By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org
I have just returned from my first camping and mountain biking trip in the desert.
Transformative. The chalky colors of the red, cream, and yellow sandstone, the unusual land formations, and dark night sky, are absolutely dazzling.
I was awed and humbled and surprised how much I liked the desert. I thoroughly recommend a visit to the area I visited around Zion National Park in Utah recently.
Thanksgiving Day found me and my 27-year-old daughter Eliza, now a new resident of Salt Lake City (by way of Boulder, Colo.) driving the more than 300 miles across vast fields dotted with cattle and rimmed by snow-topped mountains, to the little town of Virgin, Utah.
This is in the southern part of Utah, about 25 miles from St. George, which is now the third-largest city in Utah, and about an hour and a half from Las Vegas, Nev.
The car was packed with camping gear and two mountain bikes for a four-day stay in the desert.
The weather was predicted accurately to be about 55 degrees by day and as low as 20 degrees at night with a very dry air mass making the skin dry quickly. It was dusty.
I dressed and packed for a ski trip with lots of layers to shed, wool rather than cotton, wind shells and for around the windy campfire at night, a long down coat and wool hat.
The plan was to meet our friends Carolyn, who lives in Park City, and her daughter Sophie, Eliza’s best college and ski racing buddy, and Sophie’s fiance, Hunter, for Thanksgiving at the campsite owned by other friends who loaned it to us.
Eliza’s job was sorta easy, hors d’oeuvres and cocktails, but ended up being more difficult because of cultural differences between New Hampshire, where booze is sold on holidays.
Not so in Utah.
Utah still abides by what I recall as “blue laws” and limits the sale of liquor on holidays.
Getting There
I landed Wednesday night on a Southwest flight out of Manchester, through Chicago, leaving about 6 p.m. and arriving there at what was 1 a.m., but 3 a.m. here. The busiest travel day of the year, but it was uneventful and I was fully rested going into the trip.
I also prepared for the trip by going to the gym this past month and have been enjoying spin classes with a friend of my daughter, and my 30-year-old adopt-a-daughter, Ali.
It helped to have that added leg strength to power up some of the hills and rocks on the mountain bike.
The trip was also good in preparing me for ski season which is just around the corner.
When we arrived at the campsite at about 4 p.m., the sun was beginning to set.
The view from our friends’ 10 acres, with just a fire ring and a tear-drop camper, includes a commanding view of Zion’s Smithsonian Butte with its three main peninsulas and the red and cream white West Temple. Below and alongside the main road into the park’s west entrance, which is about seven miles away, is a river cutting its way through the valley floor and a few ranches with horses and campgrounds.
We arrived to find Thanksgiving preparations well underway with a pit dug in the dusty and rocky ground filled with coals for the baking of the pecan pie in a cast iron pan and covered for about two hours.
Our friends Suzie, Todd, and Quinn, who own a second home nearby, arrived with the cooked turkey while Carolyn worked on preparing the vegetables and stuffing over the propane stoves she set up.
Sophie and Hunter worked on both the pie and delicious stuffed mushrooms, cooked over the open fire.
I brought Granite State Candies – dark chocolate peppermint patties, and maple sugar candy which went over big.
It was a Thanksgiving like none other for me and I was grateful for the new experience, seeing old friends and seeing for the first time my daughter’s new and very beautiful resident state.
Around the campfire, we all had great laughs and stories and we at times leaned into each other in support as we have all suffered significant loss and sadness recently and a lot of loneliness due to COVID-19. So it was great to be together in the desert enjoying the warmth of friendship without having to be indoors as the pandemic rages.
In the morning, I was stunned by the beauty that surrounded me as I sipped cowboy coffee.
Eliza and I decided to explore Zion National Park and the others went mountain biking.
I wanted to first get my bearings and be a bit of a tourist.
She has a national parks pass which cost her about $80 last year but it has paid for itself already.
You can either park your car and take the shuttle through the park, which because of the pandemic we chose to hold off on, or for $35 you can drive your car on a different route through to the East Entrance and through a one-mile, 1930s era tunnel cut seemingly by hand through the stone walls of the park.
Our Black Friday experience was about the park and included cobalt blue skies, deep canyon walls in the shade and bright light, scary-looking drops down from the car to dry floors. It was similar to the Auto Road on Mount Washington, lots of tourists pulled over taking pictures and jaw-dropping scenery around seemingly every turn.
We enjoyed a Mexican lunch in Springdale, just outside the park, and did some boutique shopping to help out the local economy which relies on visitors.
And we found an open liquor store.
Returning from a day mostly in the car, I took to wandering up to the tops of the hills surrounding our camp, admiring the rugged terrain which must see brutal heat and cold nights.
I had just bought new AirPods and wandered around listening to my Spotify favorites while working up a sweat.
There were few animals, but holes of “go-downs” they are called, which are similar to a large rat with long tails which would visit the camp for crumbs in the darkness.
I did see a few mule deer, in a grove of pistachio trees, and a few birds and hawks but wildlife was pretty scarce.
The landscape included sagebrush, stumped conifers, oval cactus, and conical ones, and everything was knee-high or waist-high. It’s tough to find a meal out here unless you were around our campfire.
You could see for miles around and the only noticeable sign of humanity were power lines and cell towers which did not work too well for this Verizon customer.
The camper had solar power so we could charge devices and turn on the heat at night, though it was not necessary for the two of us, who warmed it up with body heat and had piles of sleeping bags and hats with headlamps.
I slept well in the desert.
Mountain Biking
The sun rises late. I woke up at 7:41 a.m. to sunrise over Zion with the sun lighting up a butte to bright red behind the camper.
Coffee just tastes better made outdoors and we made breakfast burritos to start our mountain biking day off right.
I was able to borrow a suspension mountain bike from Sophie who went into the nearby town of Hurricane (pronounced “Her-kin”) to the Over the Edge bike shop where she rented/demoed a bike.
The guy who worked there said he spent his summer at Highland Mountain bike park near Tilton, N.H. Small world.
These guys were kind and helpful and had a shop cat. I would recommend them for bike rentals and repairs.
From there we drove back toward the campsite to a free mountain bike trail system in Virgin, near and high above our campsite called “Guacamole.”
The rides included “Holy Guacamole” and “Salt Rim” and other interestingly named trails. The trail system is marked by cairns of rocks inside a circle of chicken wire and the surface is mostly slick rock, a veritable moonscape with views to Zion and a lot of difficulties.
The rated trails did not include a lot of easy stuff or we just never found it. We stuck mostly to the blue or moderately difficult trails which skirted steep drops to the canyon floor, involved lots of ups and downs, and good braking and speed control.
While I have done some mountain biking here, this was more like horseback riding or backcountry skiing where you had to stay in control and light off the saddle, pick your line, and know when to ditch.
When a riding group would approach us we would pull over and they would invariably say “thanks” and then inform us of the number of riders in their party. This helped so we could know when to safely head back out on the trail.
I found the riding extremely exciting, scary in spots, and a bit difficult. I was able to jump off the bike and walk or run it in spots I found too challenging for my limited ability. And I did not fall or injure myself, thankfully.
My daughter said she was impressed with her mother’s daring doo, so much so that she posted a video she took of me on social media.
The two-and-a-half-hour ride ended with a cold beer and a clink of glass for “cheers” with a view across the fields to Zion.
The ride proved to be a wonderful time with Eliza and well worth the trip in and of itself.
Sometimes, it is the learning and the shared experience which is the most important. That is why I prefer to give gifts at this time of year as experiences rather than objects.
It was sort of fun to be in shorts in the warm sun, while it was very cold in New Hampshire. I did not miss the cold.
Park City
Our final day near Zion involved a pre-dawn hike, breaking camp, and hitting the road north for the 300-mile ride to Salt Lake City, by way of Park City.
There was no snow in this famous and tony ski town and people were worried about the climate there as they sipped their whisky in the bars and watched football.
The place was decorated to the nines for Christmas and it was fun to stop for a snack at the No Name Saloon where the buffalo wings are super spicy.
Salt Lake City is so close – only a half hour – and that is great for Eliza, who loves to ski.
I can look forward to a few snow trips this winter as I have purchased both the Ikon and Epic pass for this season.
COVID-19 – willing.
I will write about some of my trips in this space monthly through winter. I love to relive my outdoor experiences by writing about them.
In the meantime, enjoy the holidays with meaningful experiences rather than stuff and if you get stressed, please go outside.
Paula Tracy’s first big hike was in 1975 with classmates from Concord up Mount Lafayette with teacher and outdoor enthusiast Ned Bergman. She was 13 and was immediately captured by the wonders of New Hampshire’s great outdoors. It would lead to a lifetime love of exploring the woods, water, and wildlife in the Granite State. As a staff reporter, for 25 years at the NH Union Leader and then for WMUR.com, she has written about the subject extensively and continues here with the hope of connecting New Hampshire’s residents with their own backyard.