April 19, 2014 Escalante to San Rafael Swell, Utah

We left Escalante and headed toward the San Rafael Swell.

This is the where the trailhead to Escalante river is, we drove by, drove over miles of slickrock. Then in the Dixie National Forest which is high mountains we had a herd of deer start to run in front of the bus. John blew the air horn and artfully dodged the ones that ran across. 

Drove through Capital Reef National Park. We have stayed here before, lovely park. Then in the Cainville badlands we found carpets of yellow flowers.

Then carpets of purple flowers. Approaching the swell we came to these formations. Goblin Valley is very close to these guys.

In this first shot there are kids sledding down the sand slope near the highway. We drove though all of this in about 120 miles. Very scenic drive. The bus at Temple Mountain BLM camp area. There is a fence around it, a few fire rings and two bathrooms. That is it, and it is free.  It is still paved road to here.

We drove into the swell in the car. There were hundreds of camps  of people camped in every available place.  Many with ATV’s. John read later that you should never come here on Easter weekend because it is so crowded. And it is Easter Weekend, so after tomorrow they should all leave. Lots of beautiful secluded camp spots. We may move tomorrow. A cool ridge and Temple Mountain.

Meanwhile back at the bus a rain storm moved in. There was a 50% chance of rain. We had high hopes, we have not seen hardly any rain since we came to the desert.

A huge wind came up, blew clouds of dust. Everyone who was thinking of leaving, left then. There was a light rain, enough to settle the dust. Then there was a rainbow.

John was jumping with joy above camp. Cool lines in the rocks before sunset.

The view from the ridge above camp of the plains to the east  from after the storm. Beautiful area. The San Rafael Swell, is also called the Water pocket fold and part of it is Capital Reef National Park. It is a huge long fold in the earth crust that is eroded into fabulous rocks with lots of colors and narrow canyons. We are going to hike some of the canyons before we go.