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Southern Utah

(MS)


by acrowley

Grand Gulch

In April of 2021, my family decided to travel from Montana to Southern Utah for 9 days and stay in a cabin for 3 days and then camp for the rest. At first, I was not a big fan because I would miss out on string mountain biking with my friends and I would not get to ski on the very last day of the season. 

I decided to try and convince my parents to let me stay with some friends or grandparents but despite my best efforts, they would not budge. 

 The day finally came for us to pack up and go to Utah, I had dreaded to be in a car for hours at a time but when we arrived to our cabin I was very glad that I went on the trip. I had not known that it was right next to some of Utah's best mountain bike trails. My mom and sister where not to stoked on that but for me and my dad it was a dream come true. Luckily, there were other activity's in the town down the road for them.  

That night in the cabin we ate Pizza and went to bed early so we could have fun the next day. In the morning I woke up, had some mocha coffee and got ready for biking. When I had all my gear on I got on my bike and started the big climb to the top of the trail. After about an hour of hot sweaty climbing I had reached the down trail. With all the big resort built berms and jumps I was having so bunch fun but that all ended when a came around a corner and a family was having a lunch picnic in the middle of the trail. I pulled on my brakes and came to a stop right in front of them. I got of my bike a little shaken up and in the kindest way possible I told them that it was really stupid to be having lunch in the middle of a downhill bike trail where people are zooming down it. I got back on my bike and went back to our cabin.  

When I got back my family had already packed up all our stuff into our car and where ready to go to our next stop in Utah. We loaded all our bikes on and head out. We were headed to Bluff which is 20 miles away from 4 corners where Arizona Utah Colorado and New Mexico meet. When we got to Bluff and opened the car doors It was a heat blast we were not used to the 80 degree weather yes to all I wanted to do was go into our hotel where there was air condition. Later that night we had dinner and me and my dad went for a bike ride around the small town. The whole town is built around highway 191. There was 3 hotels, a gas station, restaurant, and a car shop that also sold ATV’s.  

That next day we packed up all our stuff yet again and headed 10 miles down the highway to a old dirt road. We would have to drive 10 miles out into the middle of nowhere and fine the friends that we would be camping with. After about an hour of slowly driving down that dusty road we found an orange flag that they had set out for us to find them. About an hour after that we had gotten out huge 6 person tent set up. I decided to go off and explore by myself and what I found was incredible. I had found a slick rock patch that was all smooth except for the roiling mounds of solid red rock. I immediately went back to our camp a to tell everyone what I had found. Not to mention that there where 50 foot tall slabs of rock everywhere you looked.  

That night we had a fire and roasted marshmallows and had hot dogs. We set up our tent and went to sleep. In the morning we had hot coco and breakfast burritos. Then we got ready to do a hike into a canyon across the road from where we were. When all of us finally got ready we piled into a truck and drove there. When we got there we were surrounded by 10-15 foot tall sage brush and every direction you  looked it was all sage brush and dry grass. We started onto the trail and within about half an hour in we came upon this patch of slick rock. We climbed up that and then found the trail again when it turned to dirt. WE came on to a clearing and the rock looked like amphitheater and underneath it where ancient Indian ruins. The ruins where amazing. Every direction we looked there were just more and more. On a wall inside one of the ruins there where hundreds and hundreds of hand prints on the wall. And then we saw the carving, thousands of them it was amazing. 

That next day we decided to go into a canyon and go through it to find more ruins. That day we found many old Indian ruins.  Sadly the next morning we packed up all of our stuff and headed west to the mokey dugway. After about 2 or 3 hours of driving we got to our next campsite. We got there and immediately set up tents and chairs so we could relax. We slept very well that night, in the morning we loaded up our water bottles and set out for the days adventure. We decided to go to grand gulch and hike up the canyon to our campsite. We were in that canyon for 7 hours and in total we hiked 10 mile and when we got back the first thing I did was grab a nice cold soda from our cooler. I will never forget this trip. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grand Gulch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SUBMISSION TITLE
Southern Utah

IMAGE LOCATION
southern | Utah | United States

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acrowley

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