After the brutal heat of Nevada, cooling off for a couple of days in the mountains felt wonderful. Kodi especially enjoyed hiking up by Buffalo mountain on Saturday. There was water, cool air, warm sunshine and squirrels! Needless to say he thought he was in doggie nirvana.
Sunday morning I left Kodi with his buddies John and Uncle Mike in Boulder and headed for Sedona. I love making the drive on I-70 from the foothills all the way west into Utah. Driving this route always gives me an appreciation of how beautiful the variations of topogr
aphy are just in Colorado. From foothills to snow-capped peaks to the beautiful orchards and wineries of Palisade all the way to the desert by the time you reach Utah. This is really just a small picture of the west in general. Beautiful mountains, harsh deserts, bucolic farmland, we've got it all out here.
Since it takes around 13 hours to drive from Boulder to Sedona, I decided to make this leg of my journey in 2 days. The destination for my first day was an area called Cedar Mesa, just south of Natural Bridges and north of Valley of the Gods in southeast Utah. This area is one of my favorite places to camp anywhere. I try to go there every year in either the spring or fall for a week or so, but the past couple of years have slipped by without me making it.
It was almost 9pm by the time I pulled into my campsite on Cedar Mesa so I didn't really get to do much more than spend the night. The sunset was incredible as I made my way down to where I pull off. I've been blessed to see a lot of beautiful sunsets from this area. I found a great spot to park under what might be the biggest juniper tree I have ever seen. What a beautiful place to camp! Not another human being for miles! I was surrounded by cedar, juniper and a variety of cacti and desert flowers (just past their peak). I made myself a small fire with dead cedar branches I gathered from around my campsite, relaxed and spent a couple of hours enjoying the beautiful silence of this remote place. Let me tell you, one of the greatest smells on earth has to be a campfire made of cedar logs!
It was an interesting feeling camping totally alone like this. For the past 7 years Kodi has been my camping buddy on almost all of my trips. The only time I have camped without him, I was in a campsite with other people. Being totally alone in the middle of nowhere was unique. At first it was a little uncomfortable, but then I started to relax into the feeling of aloneness, noticed the beautiful silence and enjoyed myself.
Monday morning I headed out of Cedar Mesa bound for Sedona. Yet another wonderful drive. I started off going down the Moki dugway. This is about a 1 mile section of gravel switchbacks that drops from the top of Cedar Mesa, about 2000 vertical feet down into Valley of the Gods! Fun times. Once I hit Arizona, I was in the Navajo Nation and going through Monument Valley, then Flagstaff with it's beautiful Ponderosa Pine forests. Driving south on I-17 you drop down from evergreen forests to the desert south of Sedona.
I camped for 2 nights at Beaver Creek campground in the Coconino National Forest. This campsite wasn't really that great. There was a little swimming hole, which you needed because this area is HOT. A little too hot for me. Tonight I am going to try camping up above Sedona off of Schnebly Hill road. The road goes up pretty high, into Ponderosa pine forest, so it's nice and cool. No campgrounds, just primitive car camping. Perfect!
That's the west for you though. Desert, evergreen forest, whatever pleases you, all within a small area. Beautiful.
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