Escalante, Utah - September 28th to October 2nd, 2024

There are times when things don’t go exactly as planned. Part of traveling for long periods of time is learning to go with flow. To explore the Escalante area, we camped in Escalante Petrified Forest State Park. It was not where we planned to camp, but the state park turned out to be pretty nice.

Saturday was a short travel day, from Bryce Canyon National Park to Escalante, about an hour away. On the way out of North Campground, we stopped to dump and fill our tanks. Then, another stop in Bryce Canyon City at the laundromat. That should be our last laundry day for Season Six, as we’ll be home in twelve days.

In Escalante, we stopped for groceries at Griffin Grocery. We stopped there at the beginning of the season on our way through. It is a small, independent grocery store, but it has a surprising variety of goods. From there, we walked over to Nemo’s for a shake and an ice cream cone. That was another place we discovered earlier in the season (Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park, Utah - May 7th to 10th, 2024).

Our destination for the next four days was Escalante Petrified Forest State Park, just outside the town. Our original plan was to camp at Calf Creek Campground in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. However, Calf Creek was closed for construction. Luckily, Ann looked up the campground a week or two earlier and noticed that it was closed. So she snagged the last open campsite in Escalante Petrified Forest State Park.

The campground sits on the Wide Hollow Reservoir. The water level of the reservoir looked really low. Ann walked the campground loops a couple of times to get her steps in for the day. A lot of birds were hanging out in the shallow water at the far end of the reservoir. There were a couple of sand hill cranes that caught Ann’s attention with their distinctive calls.

Sunday we were both feeling a little under the weather, so we just hung out at camp. Ann walked the campground loops a few times and Keith joined her for one of those times. Otherwise, we were just sitting at camp, trying to rest and give our bodies a chance to recover. While we sat there, a couple of bald eagles flew overhead to keep us entertained, at least for a short while.

Another EKKO set up camp in the site next to ours for the night. The owners, Ken and Marie, were from Grand Junction. This was their maiden voyage in the new EKKO. We chatted with them a short while, keeping our distance, so as not to infect them with our colds. We wish them happy trails and safe travels!

Monday Keith was feeling better, but Ann had no energy. So we hung out at camp again. However, we did pack up and drive into town for lunch. We heard that Escalante Outfitters had good pizza, so we wanted to give them a try. We sat at tables outside, trying to keep our cold germs away from other people. And the pizza was pretty tasty. We had our usual toppings on ten inch pizzas, Ann’s with sausage, bell peppers, and red onion, and Keith’s with pepperoni, tomatoes, and pepperoncini. The sourdough crusts were nice and crispy.

For dessert, we went back to Nemo’s. Keith had his usual vanilla shake and Ann opted for just one scoop of grasshopper on her waffle cone, since the scoops were so large. Then we headed back to camp to lounge around the rest of the day.

Tuesday we were both feeling better, so we hiked the trails in the state park. There are only two hiking trails which are just over two miles when combined together, the Petrified Forest Trail and the Rainbow Trail. It is a popular trail. We could see the trailhead from our campsite and had been watching the almost constant stream of people hiking the trail, from morning to evening.

As the name of the park and trails imply, the highlights of the trails are the petrified wood along the way. However, there are also some nice specimens at the trailhead, no hiking required. There is a nice, long, broken log in front of the bathhouse and another long tree trunk laying in an elevated area next to the parking lot. A short path leads to a group of petrified pieces. One of them had beautiful, sparkling crystals in it.

When we entered the park on the day we arrived, they handed us a sheet of paper with the nature trail guide. The numbers corresponded with the signs along the Petrified Forest Trail. The guide helps in understanding what you are looking at.

We hiked both trails, following the Petrified Forest and Rainbow Loop route in AllTrails. By the time we finished our hike, we had gone 2.2 miles with an elevation gain of 495 feet in an hour and a half. A very enjoyable little hike.

Wednesday was a short travel day, from Escalante Petrified Forest State Park to Fruita Campground in Capitol Reef National Park. So we took our time leaving. There was a dump station at the state park, but they charged $15 to dump and fill (or $5 to just fill). That seemed a little pricey to us. Plus, there were two water spigots next to the dump and it didn’t look like they were labeled as to which one was for rinsing out your sewer hose and which one was the fresh water fill. No thank you. We decided to wait until we got to Capitol Reef to dump and fill.

We stopped in the town of Escalante for several things. First, we went to the Griffin Grocery for groceries. This should be our last grocery stop for the season. There are only eight days left before returning home. Then we walked over to Nemo’s, this time for lunch instead of ice cream. Ann had the bison burger with sweet potato fries while Keith had the spicy chicken sandwich with fries. Our food was pretty tasty. However, we both thought the pizza at Escalante Outfitters was better. So our recommendation is to go to Escalante Outfitters for a meal, then over to Nemo’s for ice cream.

After our lunch, we went to Escalante Outfitters, not for pizza this time, but for beer. Griffin’s Grocery did not sell beer, but Keith remembered that Escalante Outfitters did.

Since it was such a short drive to Capitol Reef, we stopped along the way to do a short hike. There are several wonderful hikes to choose from in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. However, Ann was not feeling up to a long hike, so we opted for the 100 Hands Trail, which was less than a mile round trip.

The trail climbs up to some petroglyph panels. It was more of a scramble than we realized we were getting into. Nothing too bad, but we didn’t bring packs with us. That meant that we didn’t have both hands free for scrambling, since we were carrying our water bottles and camera.

We followed the route on AllTrails, or at least tried to. We got off route on the way up, so we unknowingly missed one of the petroglyph panels, but we found it on the way back down. However, we never did find the 100 Hands panel. The trail is not maintained, so there isn’t much signage to help you out. There were two other small groups of people also looking for the panel. None of us found it. One person said they had even been there before and found the panel, but they couldn’t remember exactly where it was. So we all gave up.

By the time we returned to Red Tail, we had gone 1.7 miles with an elevation gain of 361 feet. Part of the additional distance was due to parking along the side the highway instead of in the parking lot with the rest of the extra distance from wandering around trying to find the 100 Hands. We spent over an hour and a half on the trail. So much for a quick stop.

We’re glad we listened to our bodies and didn’t try to do too much too soon. Even though we didn’t explore as much of the Escalante area as we would have liked, it is better than feeling miserable and missing more activities down the road because we didn’t give our bodies a chance to recover. It’s also nice to have an excuse to come back to Escalante later to check out the things we missed the first time.

Check out our related video: Escalante, Utah

(Ann)