Utah/Arizona - October 2022

In mid October I escaped for a few days down to Southern Utah.  There were a couple of off road trips and hikes that I wanted to do and this was a perfect time to do it - nice warm weather without it being too hot and yet still a reasonable amount of daylight.

Onions as far as you could see

I drove over to Nevada and took the route through Yerrington, Hawthorne to Tonopah.  Just outside Yerington, they were harvesting onions.  It was quite remarkable to see the productivity of the crop.  An entire field stacked with literally hundreds of sacks of onions.  How productive the soil can be. 

Mina Motel

The Boat Bar in Mina

In the remote little town of Mina there is a nice old motel sign advertising $21.95 per night for a room.  That must have been some time ago - though judging by the state of the hotel maybe not.  The town also has a boat that has been converted into a bar.  Not sure why a big boat ended up there but at least it is being put to good use.

The Mizpah Hotel, Tonopah

I stayed in Tonopah at the Mizpah Hotel.  This impressive old hotel is the tallest building in town, and was once the tallest building in Nevada.  The hotel is the stuff of legends - Wyatt Earp supposedly kept the bar there, Howard Hughes married his second wife, Jean Peters there, and Jack Dempsey was for a while the bouncer.  None of those legends stand up to much scrutiny and are all debunked but they live on.  The hotel is also supposedly haunted.  A woman was beaten to death on the 5th floor by a jealous husband or boyfriend and apparently she has been seen walking the corridors at night.  I stayed on the 5th floor and didn't see or feel a thing.

The Extraterrestrial Highway

From Tonopah I drove east and eventually joined Highway 375, the so called Extraterrestrial Highway.  This highway runs along the north edge of Nellis Airforce Base which is where a lot of secret military stuff is carried out.  It has become associated with all sorts of conspiratorial theories about aliens and government cover ups of the same.  Nevada cashed in on this by naming the highway the Extraterrestrial Highway.

Alien Memorabilia in Hiko

In the small town, extremely small town, of Hiko there is an establishment selling all sorts of alien related souvenirs - fridge magnets, mugs, T shirts, books, etc.  There's a big statue of a supposed alien outside the building.

Caliente Union Pacific Station

I stopped for lunch in Caliente.  A railway town in the past and while the railway still passes through there, that is all it does - just pass through.  The station is now closed and there are no sidings for what once must have been a busy railyard.  I did like the look of the old Union Pacific station however.  They built nice stations in those days.

Late in the afternoon I arrived in Kanab and got a room at one of the many hotels there.  Kanab is pretty much a tourist town these days.  It promotes its links to the movie industry and calls itself Little Hollywood.  So many Westerns were shot in the nearby area and there are commemorative plaques to all the actors all down the main street.  It also is doing well from the boom in adventure travel with OHV rentals and tours of the area.

Smoky Mountain Road out of Big Water

The next morning I set off to explore some trails in the area.  Highway 89 runs east from Kanab and then there are several trails heading north from the highway that pass through the Escalante National Monument.  I had done the Cottonwood Trail on my last visit to the area so I went a little further east to Big Water and turned north on Smoky Mountain Road.  This road is so called because of the many coal beds in the area, some of which are supposed to be burning (I didn't see any indication of that however). 

Smoky Mountain Road

On the way up the Kelly Grade on Smoky Mountain Road

After crossing a wash this road climbs up and around some spectacular mountains.  The scenery in Southern Utah is just spectacular - it is one amazing sight after another.  The road switchbacks up the hill to the top of the Kelly Grade and the overlook at the top.

View from the top of the Kelly Grade

From there the road is relatively flat on top of the plateau.  The road is in good shape and I could maintain a good speed.  It was quite a distance to Escalante and I finally reached the town and the tarmac just after 6:00 pm.   I stopped at a restaurant in Escalante for dinner and debated what to do next.  I decided to make a run out on the Hole in the Rock trail.  

It is almost 60 miles of dirt road to the Hole in the Rock and my memory from an earlier attempt, over 10 years ago, was that the road was quite challenging.  It was after dark when I left Escalante with the intention of driving to the start of the trail and then sleeping there in the 4Runner.  When I got to the trail I found it to be much improved and in quite good condition.  A dirt road that could easily sustain 40 mph.  I had recently had a light bar added to my front bumper so I was interested in trying it out so I decided to continue driving for a while.  The new lights were excellent and they lit up the trail like it was daylight.

Camp spot for the night, Hole in the Rock Trail

I ended up driving 50 miles in the dark almost all the way to the Hole in the Rock.  I stopped 5 or 6 miles before the end of the trail and settled down in the back of the 4Runner ()on my new sleeping platform.  I was well pleased with my new drawer/bed system in the back of the truck and I had an excellent night's sleep.

The Hole in the Rock

The next morning after breakfast I drove the remaining miles to the end of the trail and the Hole in the Rock.  The Hole in the Rock is a slot or gully or ravine down which Mormon Settlers back in 1880 lowered their wagons and livestock down the 1 1/4 mile trail to the Colorado River in order to cross to the other side.  It is a narrow and steep trail and it is just inconceivable to me how wagons and horses and livestock could be lowered down such a difficult trail.

Not an easy path

The view down to the Colorado River

Bottom of the Hole in the Rock

I scrambled all the way down to the Colorado.  It is a steep and tortuous rocky trail that is a slow climb over one boulder after another all the way down to the river.  At the water level the beach was covered in tiny shells.  It looks like the water level is down this year and these molluscs were left high and dry.  

Climbing back up the trail was also quite an effort.  Some parts required some rock climbing skills - it certainly was not a trivial route even without a wagon and horses.

Dance Hall Rock

I drove back out the same way as I had driven in the previous night.  This time appreciating the scenery in the daylight.  There were a couple of things that were worth examining.  The Dance Hall Rock is a natural rock amphitheater that was used for music and dance by the settlers.  I bet the acoustics were good and the setting is just beautiful.   

Chimney Rock

The next stop was Chimney Rock.  In the middle of a relatively featureless area stands one isolated tall spire of rock.  Quite remarkable.

I also read about an awful accident in the 1960s at a place on the trail called Carcasse Wash - a truck full of boy scouts on their way to the Hole in the Rock stalled on a hill and suffered a brake failure.  The truck rolled over and down hill and 13 scouts and adults were killed in the accident.

The Devil's Garden

The Devil's Garden

Finally just before getting back to the main road in Escalante there is an area called the Devil's Garden.  It is a little pocket of land just off the trail that is full of very weird and wonderful rock formations - beautiful eroded sandstone pillars balancing on top of sandstone bases.   A delightful little area that can be walked around in an hour with simply amazing rock formations.

The Hole in the Rock trail exits onto the main road just east of Escalante.  In the late afternoon, I drove back towards Kanab through all the villes - Henrieville, Cannonville, Orderville, and then on to Mt Carmel Junction and down to Kanab once more.  I had a meal and then decided to go out to the Wire Pass Trailhead where I would sleep for the night. 

It was dark when I turned off the tarmac onto House Rock Road.  Now that I was comfortable with driving off road in the dark I continued for the 10 miles or so to Wire Pass Trailhead where I set up to sleep in the 4Runner.  

The hike into The Wave

The hike into The Wave

Another comfortable night's sleep before awakening at dawn to prepare for the hike into "The Wave".  I thought there would be a lot of other folks wanting an early start on the trail but no.  Just a couple of other parties were early starters and that was it.  The Wave is a rock formation in the North Coyote Buttes area.  It has become quite popular, especially since one of the versions of the Windows OS had a picture of it as a screensaver.    The trail is maybe 4 miles in and while some of it is well marked in other places it just traverses expanses of rock and sand with no definitive trail.  Fortunately the phone with the GaiaGPS app kept me on the right path.

The Wave

Arriving at the "Wave" was quite a wonderful experience.  There is a little scramble up the side of a canyon and you pop into this area of multi-colored sandstone layers that have been contorted since deposition and then polished by flows of water.  Simply one of the most amazing formations that I have ever seen.  

The Wave

The Wave

Once at the Wave there is a loop trail around the area that takes in some other nice features - a less spectacular Second Wave, an Arch, a beautiful sandstone wall, interesting shaped pillars of rock, 

The Second Wave

The Second Wave

I walked around the area, taking so many pictures, and then eventually made it back to the Wave itself where it was now quite busy.  There were quite a few people wandering around and of course they all wanted pictures without any people in them.  Everyone was waiting in anticipation for a quiet time when no one was in the scene - something that required a lot of patience.

Lots of interesting rocks just outside The Wave

Having seen everything that I had wanted to see, I left the site just after lunchtime and made the hike back to the car.  It was such an amazing site that everything else after that just paled into insignificance.

Back at the car I drove out to the road again and then decided to explore more carefully the burning coal beds that I had missed a couple of days earlier.  This required driving back to Big Water and taking Smoky Mountain Road to the north.

I had hoped that I didn't have to go all the way to the top of the plateau before finding the Coal Seam Fire road but that was not to be, I had to get all the way up to the top of the Kelly Grade once more.  Still, it is a dramatic and steep road so it makes for a fun and interesting drive.  

On top of the plateau it was 4 or 5 miles to the turn off for the road to the burning beds.  I went all the way to the end of the road looking for them but I saw nothing.  Wherever they were they were not very conspicuous.  I met another couple up there also searching for the same thing and neither of us were successful.  Perhaps, maybe, there was one area where there was a slight smell of tar but no smoke.

Back in Kanab I took a hotel for the night.  In the evening I had to wait for a table at the restaurant and in doing so I walked the length of the town looking for a bar where I could kill time with a drink.  Kanab is in Utah and bars are not so common.  There was nowhere to have a beverage.

Ho-Made Pies in Mt Carmel Junction

The next morning I set off early for my drive back to California.  I took the route to the north, to Ely and then Highway 50 towards Reno.  It wasn't the most direct route but one that took me over some roads I had not traveled before.   I didn't stop for the Ho Made Pies in Mt Carmel - next time.

Near Cedar City

I drove through Mt Carmel Junction, the over to Cedar City where there were some wonderful views, then over into Nevada near Panaca, and then north to Ely.  In Ely I picked up Highway 50, the Loneliest Road in America, and drove across Nevada to Fallon and ultimately Reno where I stopped for dinner.  From Reno it is only a couple of hours to Sacramento so I decided to continue on, arriving home around 10:00 pm.  A long day's driving - 750 miles - that is too far for one day.

Here are some more pictures.

Svalbard, Tromso, Oslo - September 2022

In an effort to use my soon to be expiring Norwegian Air miles I arranged a trip to Svalbard at the end of my UK holiday.  While I did use up my $750 flight credit , in the end I spent significantly more on hotels and tours and the flight to Norway.  But I didn't waste $750 and I had a great trip to a place I had always wanted to visit.

I flew from Manchester to Oslo on SAS.  It was a nightmare drive to the Manchester Airport, what should have taken 50 mins took nearly 2 hours.  The Rental Car and airport security checks didn’t make the day any better either but I did arrive safely in Oslo.

I stayed in a hotel at the airport as I had an early morning flight the next morning to Svalbard.  When I eventually found the right colored airport Radisson all was well (it was the Red one and not the Blu one). 

Floating Saunas

In the evening I caught the train from the airport into Oslo.  A wonderfully modern well designed system - clean, prompt, fast, not too expensive.  In Oslo I wandered around for a while checking out the floating saunas on the quayside - what a great idea.

The Oslo Opera House

I wandered over to the Opera House where there was a lot of activity going on and I found out there was a ballet that evening.  With nothing else to do, I bought one of the remaining tickets. I had a good seat and while I am not a huge ballet fan I really enjoyed it.  When the females go “on point” I found it almost uncomfortable to watch - it looks so painful.  The dancers are certainly amazingly fit athletes and they do move so gracefully.  The ballet, Giselle, is a bit twee and corny - cad of a prince woos a peasant girl but he is already betrothed so she dies of a broken heart, etc, etc.  For me a really unexpected fine evening of culture.

At the Ballet - Giselle

I got a bite to eat at the station before heading back on the train to the airport hotel (trains every 10 mins for most of the day).

The next morning I was up early for my Norwegian Air flight to Svalbard.  The airport was very busy and to my surprise it is all self-serve automation.  You check in at a terminal to get your boarding pass and baggage tags, you put your own tags on and drop them off on a conveyor - no airline personnel involved and while there. must have been some somewhere to resolve problems I didn’t notice any.

The flight to Svalbard stops in Tromso where everyone had to get off the plane and go through customs before re-boarding the plane.  Apparently Svalbard while being administered by Norway it is a visa free zone that allows entry from other countries (like Russia) so you have to go through customs going in and coming out.

Longyearbyen

We landed in a grey, overcast and drizzly Longyearbyen where there were buses waiting to take us into the town.  After the last bag came off the plane the buses left and we had a 5 min drive into town where we were dropped off at the various hotels.

The hotel bar

My hotel, the Radisson Blu, was just fine - nice room, a good location (it's a small town so all locations are pretty good), the most northerly bar in the world and a fine restaurant.  After checking in I got a brief intro to the town from the front desk and then set off to explore.  I visited the Svalbard Museum which had a nice presentation of the history of the area - whalers, seal hunters, trappers, coal miners, arctic researchers and lately tourists.

Svalbard is the name of the archipelago while Spitsbergen is the name of the island, Longyearbyen is the name of the city, named after John Munro Longyear, an American from Michigan who developed a mining operation on the island.

The North Pole Expedition Museum

The other museum in town, the North Pole Expedition Museum is just down the street so I visited there too.  This museum was devoted to the race to be the first to reach the North Pole.  While there were many that tried the first accredited persons to reach the pole were Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian, and Umberto Nobile, an Italian.  They set off from Svalbard in an airship, flew over the pole and landed in Alaska.

Colorful houses in Longyearbyen

I walked around the rest of the town center before retiring to the hotel.  The town is not that large and the central area is an easy walk - there is a supermarket, a couple of coffee shops, a pharmacy, several cold weather clothing stores, several gift shops and a few restaurants.  In the evening I had a fine meal in the hotel’s restaurant - venison.  

The Polar Girl

The next day I had arranged for a boat trip to the Soviet mining town of Pyramiden.  I, along with a few other folks, were picked up at the hotel and taken to the dock where we boarded our boat, the good ship Polar Girl.

Isfjorden

There was a perfunctory safety briefing and we were off sailing out of the bay across the Isfjorden towards Pyramiden.  I had purchased sea sick pills the previous day and had taken them so I was feeling fine even though there was a bit of a swell.  Unfortunately a young lady next to me was not looking so good and likely not feeling so good either.  She sat grim faced and didn’t move for most of the crossing.  

We saw whales off in the distance - puffs of spray or distant black shapes as they breached.  Apparently they were either Minki or Fin Whales.

Every now and then there were small cabins on the coast.  Signs of a hard existence of a trapper or miner or someone who liked to be alone.

The dock in Pyramiden

The town of Pyramiden was in a small sheltered inlet called Billetfjorden.  We sailed up to the dock where once coal would have been loaded onto ships.  The mining operation was abandoned after the fall of the Soviet Union and the town was abandoned.  Now there are 6 or 7 residents that are caretakers and guides for the tourists.  

Armed Guide

We were met on the dock by a couple of guides.  They were armed with rifles and carried flares to protect us from the polar bears.  Apparently there have been bears in the area and one actually broke into their building a couple of weeks ago.  Or perhaps they tell that to everyone just to make things more dramatic.

Pyramiden

The mine was quite active in the 70’s and 80’s and the town was quite large - there were several residential buildings, a canteen/kitchen, administration buildings, a swimming pool (the most northerly one in the world), a gym and a community center.  It was sort of a model Soviet community where everything was provided for the miners and their families.  It was abandoned fairly quickly when the mine closed and the whole area has a "Chernobyl feel" to it.

The most northerly swimming pool in the world

Mr Lenin

The main avenue was probably quite attractive in its day.  It even has a bust of Lenin top of the avenue.  We finished the tour in the coffee shop/gift shop area and were given plenty of time to look around before being bused back to the boat dock.

The ruins of the coal mine, Pyramiden

 

Welcome to Pyramiden

Back at the ship they had prepared quite a tasty lunch on the back deck - salmon, rice and salad - really good.

The Nordenskioldbreen Glacier

We then sailed up the valley towards the Nordenskioldbreen glacier.  The ice was quite beautiful - white and ice blue with lots of crevasses.  We came as close as we could to the front of the glacier and floated around for a while before turning away.

We headed back but out of Billetfjorden and then stopped to pick up some students who had been camping near the glacier for some time (who knows how long).  There were about 25 of them and it took quite a while to ferry them and their gear back to the boat but eventually we got them all on board and we continued toure way back to Longyearbyen.

Svalbard at Sunset

We arrived back in Longbearbyen around 7:00 pm so there was little time to do any more.  A dinner of reindeer tenderloin in the hotel restaurant and I was off to bed.

The next day, Sunday, I had arranged for a tour of the Longbearbyen area.  The taxi guy showed up and there was only me and one other guy (a Jamaican working for the UN in Geneva) on the tour.  The taxi guy was quite informative and humorous.  He was the second oldest guy on the island.  

There are only 2,500 people on Svalbard and yet there are 52 nationalities.  Anyone who is a native of one of the countries that signed the post WWI Spitsbergen Treaty is allowed to live there provided they have a job or resources and a place to live.  We also learned that you cannot be born or die on Svalbard unless it is by accident.  There is no prenatal care on the island, and no social care for the elderly.  So if you are pregnant they make you go to your home country.  If you need end of life care or assisted living then you are also sent off.

Svalbard Church

The Old Cemetery

Satellite Dishes outside the town

Our taxi tour took us around the entire town - the old Governor’s House, the original town location that was burnt down by the Germans in WWII, the graveyard on the hillside, the second location for the town (post WWII), the original airport, the sled dog kennels, the last remaining coal mine, the satellite antennas on top of the hill.

Beware of the Polar Bears

Back at the hotel and with the rest of the afternoon free, I set off to walk around many of the places I had been in the morning tour.  With one addition, I walked all the way out towards the airport and up the hill to the Global Seed Bank.  You cannot enter the Seed Bank but you can see the entry into the mountain repository.

The Global Seed Bank

The old coal tub lines to the port

I walked back to town by a different way on the trail above the coal tub lines that ran from the coal mines out to the port.

Sled Dog Kennels

Back in town, I walked out of the other side of the town to where there were a lot of sled dog kennels.  Apparently you cannot keep your sled dogs in town so you have to kennel them outside town.  The kennels looked kind of sad with those wonderful dogs cooped up in them for most of the time.  It was feeding time at one of the kennels and it erupted into a cacophony of yelps and barks.

Statue of a Coal Miner

The next morning I walked around the town again.  It was overcast and occasionally spitting with rain.  For each flight leaving the airport there are buses that pick up from all the hotels and it is a short 10 minute ride back out to the airport.  The airport departure lounge was the busiest location I had seen in all of Svalbard.

We took of just after lunch and it was a short 90 minute flight to Tromso.  In Tromso we then had to go through customs to get back into the real Norway.  I had around 3 hours for my flight on to Oslo so I took the opportunity to visit the city of Tromso.  I caught a bus from the airport into town and walked around the quite beautiful little town.  

The Arctic Cathedral

Tromso is on an island in one of the fjords in northern Norway.  It is connected to the mainland by a couple of dramatic bridges.  One is close to the city center and I walked across it to visit the so-called Arctic Cathedral.  This beautiful church sits on the shore opposite the city of Tromso.

Roald Amundsen

From the Arctic Cathedral I caught the bus back to town and wandered around some more.  There are a couple of statues of Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian who was the first to reach the South Pole and the first to float over the North Pole, pretty much a local hero.  The town is quite attractive but you can walk around it in an hour.

Tromso Cathedral

The road system is quite impressive.  To and from the airport to the town center the road goes underground in quite a long tunnel system.

Back at the airport I boarded my Norwegian Air flight back to Oslo.  I stayed again at a airport hotel and left early the next morning for London.  A nice little trip.

There are more photos here.