Our next goal was to head up to the area of The Goosenecks State Park in southern Utah. We found our new home site at said park for a mere $10 per night fee for boondocking only. The very tiny park only offers a few covered picnic table sites, some scattered garbage cans, and a couple of pit toilets. Other than that, there is a considerable amount of open space along a pretty rough dirt road to pick your poison from. The big plus is it is all along the bluff top looking down into the canyons of the meandering (in “gooseneck” formation – get it, “Gooseneck State Park”?!) San Juan River. The “park” tended to nearly empty out early each morning, but by dinnertime was increasing in population quickly. The scenery here was spectacular, as is usual in Utah.
We loaded up Woodrow Wilson and day tripped out of the park to check out Natural Bridges National Monument, about 45 miles away. Hwy. 261 took us up over the steep bluffs with only about a 3 mile gravel road section with hellacious switchback turns against sheer granite cliffs. No, Rosie will never make that trip, Jeep only… Natural Bridges Nat’l Monument has a small visitor center and then about a 9 mile one-way loop drive to access the 3 big natural bridges. Each had a parking area/trailhead with short (less than a mile) trails to their scenic overlooks and down to the bridges themselves. Horse Collar Ruin is the remains of an indian dwelling area of sorts and is also visible from the trailhead viewpoint. If one had no dog to have to deal with and was feeling a little frisky, there is an unimproved trail through the canyon floors to access all 3 bridges, at least 8 miles worth anyway. Unfortunately, we were limited to the short versions – Woody rules.
A quick trip (5 whole miles!) outside Goosenecks S.P. found us staring up at Mexican Hat Rock in the “town” of, you guessed it, Mexican Hat. There is actually a boondocking campground surrounding the rock, they want you to register/pay on-line, I haven’t a clue as to the fees they ask.
Our grand finale for the area found Woody, Jeanne, and I on another day trip back into Arizona to Monument Valley and the Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park. The stretch of Hwy. 163 leading into the area was famous for a scene in the movie “Forest Gump” with Tom Hanks jogging down the middle of the deserted highway with some of the monuments in the background. Go ahead and try to recreate that one if you ever visit…there were all sorts of us tourist/sightseers parked along that stretch getting our own pix on the highway whilst dodging cars. The entire valley is vast and scenically rugged, but you can get a little more up close and personal if you pay the $8 per person fee to enter the Navajo Tribal Park. There is a hotel, visitor center, numerous offers of tour guides, and the 15 mile loop dirt/gravel nearly 4WD road that wanders through numerous “monuments” with cheeky names such as the Mitten Buttes, Elephant Butte, Camel Butte, Three Sisters, Merrick Butte, etc. It was pretty spectacular. I would say the area is a good pre-cursor to some of Utah’s other N.P.’s just a bit north of here. I’ll try my best not to screw up too many names on these pix.
That’s all for now, until next post…