Utah Day 6: Rt. 95 and beyond

SE Utah is a maze of scenic highways and byways. No way do we have time to see them all, but we are doing our best. This morning we headed south from Monticello on 191 to Bluff, a lovely little town between cliffs with a visitor's center/museum, which was closed (being Sunday morning) but the bathrooms were open and there was a guy walking around answering questions. Also the outdoor displays including a mineature conestoga wagon that kids could climb on and "drive", a life-size Ute teepee and a Navaho hogan you could go into. From Bluff we turned west on Rt. 163 through Mexican Hat and on to Monument Valley. (I took a picture of the rock shaped like an upside-down Mexican hat that gave the town it's name, but it is pretty distant and blurry so I won't bore you.) I did NOT stand in the middle of the road to get this shot like the bus load of teens or college students were trying to do.

We drove to the Arizona border and then retraced our route to the turn off north of Mexican Hat on Rt. 261. A few miles up is Goosenecks State Park--$5 for the overlook, some picnic tables in the sun and a long drop, but worth it. That's the San Juan River down there, twisting its way through eons of time.

Steve talked to a couple people at Goosenecks who recommended the Moki Dugway. It was already on my itinerary for the day, and I had asked at Bluff about the suitability of a Camry on 2.2 miles of 10% grade gravel with switchbacks. "Your car can do it." However, Steve was not excited about stopping for photos. What we are climbing is the same long escarpment as you see in the background.

Next stop: Natural Bridges National Monument. (Our National Parks card gets us in for free.) Mom took the 200' paved walk out to the first bridge overlook, but it was uphill coming back and she declined to hike to others. We had to pull the walker to help her up. (Bridge is just below the center of this picture.)

A little further on was a trailhead. Steve walked with me as far as the ladder, but then I went on alone, under the overhang out to this vantage point for a bridge view from the opposite direction. Really cool hike.

There are two more bridges. A hike in the canyon goes under all three of them, but temps were in the 90s, and I decided I needed to have camped there and started early if I were going to do it.

By going south through Bluff and Mexican Hat, we missed the stretch of Rt. 95 between Blanding and Natural Bridges. Steve was starting to wonder if with all our wandering we had enough gas to make Hanksville, so we headed back east to Blanding--an awesome road well worth doing in both directions the same day. The highlight was the long diagonal up the side of Comb Ridge, another escarpment similar to the one we did on gravel earlier, but this one bigger. Not a national park so only one overlook which we didn't see until we were passing it, so no pics.

Rt. 95 from the Natural Bridges most of the way to Hanksville is also not to be missed, but again no pics except in the memory.

We did stop at Hike Overlook down on the Colorado River and what is supposed to be Lake Powell, but they must be having a drought because it didn't look like a lake to me. Still beautiful.

Tonight we are in Hanksville, Utah, most of which you can see in this picture. There is another gas station and a couple more restaurants, but Stan's Burgers and Shaks were fine by us. Our motel is that row of huts, but our room is in the two-story part to the left.

Tomorrow is Capital Reef National Park.