Center of the Desert - Kanab, UT
We're here on a tip. Back in Mayhill, NM we met a full-time tent camper who had stayed all over the American West. We asked about her favorite places and immediately she named Kanab, UT. Said she could have stayed there a long time, weather permitting. Well! We figured she would know. We'd never heard of the place, but we looked into it and sure enough, it's a major destination. An hour from each of 4 of the major parks around southern Utah - Bryce, Grand Staircase - Escalante, Zion, and Grand Canyon (North Rim). These form the "Grand Circle Tour", with Kanab at the center. Kanab itself is no slouch for attractions either, though the best way to see them is in a Jeep or ATV, as they can be pretty remote. Kanab the town is adorable and fairly old, full of people who have sort of landed here or fallen in love with the place. Tourism forms much of the economy here, with all the ups and downs that brings.
We're here for two weeks in a park called Grand Plateau, a newer park and one that I underrated at first. The park itself is kind of bare but it has a nice pool/hot tub situation and all the services work. It's just outside of town and the weather is good. We were very comfortable.
What we can see here is mostly limited by time and budget, not lack of destinations. You could spend a LOT of time exploring here and not run out!
Our first excursion was Bryce Canyon, two hours north and a world apart from Grand Canyon, though it's part of the same formation. It was an overcast day at Bryce and overall we weren't feeling super great, so the experience was a bit muted. The elevation change was a lot, and it had been a busy week. We had to take the bus around to the viewpoints as Sheila is too big to park in the little viewpoint lots. It was fine, though the waits were a bit longer than at Grand Canyon. We started at the furthest point and worked our way back to about 3 of them before we ran out of energy and just rode back to the truck.
The Red Canyon cliffs - much like Bryce, but rising above instead of below.
I'd love to come back to Bryce, but stay in the Red Canyon Campground just outside of it. Red Canyon itself has lots of mountain biking and other activities and is beautiful in its own right. Next time!
Our next trip was to a nearby slot canyon, and for this we needed a guide. The slot canyons around southern Utah are formed by rushing rainwater eroding away a weak spot in the thick sandstone formations that are everywhere here. Once a little groove forms from the rushing water, it becomes a low point and the water just keeps rushing through there to erode away a skinny little canyon. They're absolutely a special thing to see here, but nearly all require driving through fine sand or down long unpaved roads to reach. Sheila might be the queen of the road, but her territory ends as soon as the asphalt does. Driving her down these sandy trails would just end up with us in a Matt's Off Road Recovery video, and those are much more fun to watch than experience.
So we hired a guide, and rode their squishy-tired Suburban through the sand to reach Peekaboo Canyon (the one just north of Kanab). These canyons are really special places, and also photograph exceptionally well, making them an Instagram hot spot. This is where we can all be thankful for the sandy roads making them harder to access. A similarly Instagram-famous location called "The Wave" is easy to walk to from the trailhead, but it’s become so crowded that it now requires winning a BLM permit lottery and attending a safety briefing to see.
We had it easier than that, and our wonderful guide treated us to a quiet Sunday tour up the canyon and back, with plenty of time to photograph, ask questions, and play around. It was a very special treat and a reminder of how rich these places are when you can spend real time in them with someone who knows.
We came due (well, overdue) for our second COVID dose while here, and it turned out trickier than I expected. Utah is about as easy-going as Arizona when it comes to giving out doses, but for whatever reason has an abundance of Moderna and J&J and scarcely any Pfizer, which we require. I spent several hours trying to scare up two Pfizer doses somewhere near Kanab, with no luck. Finally I found some at an Albertsons in St George, 80 miles away. It was our best bet, but meant taking a day off to make the drive. (One nice thing about a real pandemic, it makes taking time off to get care a no-brainer.)
So we took a Monday and drove west to St George. At least it was a pretty drive!
While in St George we were sure to stop at this incredible playground/water park, which the kids didn’t quite enjoy as much as we expected, but it was also packed with kids from the local schools who seem to have made a day trip of it.
Then onward to get shots! It was super simple to get them right in the grocery store. They had plenty and really, it was a lot easier than the first dose since we could go in the store.
Also in St George - which is clearly the big city in the area - we hit up Costco, since they’re rare. Thus loaded with vaccines and Costco goodies, we got some coffee and realized… Zion National Park is on the way back… we should see that!
So we did. And it was spectacular. Rising out of the landscape like a cathedral of stone, Zion looks like it’s There On Purpose even from far away. Since we didn’t make bus reservations or anything, and we had frozen food melting in the truck bed, we couldn’t stay long and mostly just drove through with a couple viewpoint stops. It was just enough to whet our appetite for a return trip someday.
Our last stop here in Kanab was the Moqui cave, a tourist trap with an interesting little history of being a rowdy speakeasy for the actors from the many westerns filmed in the area in the 1950s. It also houses a lot of artifacts, minerals, and fossils collected by the original owner. It was cute, and an easy stop. Just down the highway is the sand caves, the remains of a failed salt mining effort that left some fun caves to explore if you can scramble up to them.
Kanab was fun, but if I came again I’d make a point of staying not only here but camping some nights in the surrounding destinations. It makes a good adventure hub to reset and regroup after exploring the area.
Onward!
