An Extended Campground At Fremont Indian State Park

An Early Departure

My original plan was to leave Gunnison at 8 PM, which would allow me to visit Capitol Reef National Park on the way to Fremont Indian State Park in Sevier, Utah. After checking the route in the morning, however, I noticed that Goblin State Park was on the way, so I decided to pack early and leave Gunnison around 7 o’clock. Before leaving town, I got a new belt at Walmart because my pants have been falling down due to the fact I’m not really eating all that much on the road.

Delays and Clouds

I took Route 50 all the way from Gunnison to Grand Junction, Colorado, where I picked-up Route 70 west into Utah. There were long delays at a few spots due to extensive construction. At the longest one, I fired-up the movie Dracula on my iPad to keep me entertained. There was also a lot of fog and/or clouds to drive through coming down from the mountains.

Utah!

Shortly after leaving Grand Junction, I drove into Utah for the fourth time in my life. It still doesn’t disappoint. Though the border between the states is a human construct, you’d think it were a real thing because of how obviously and drastically the landscape changes. I could simply drive around southern Utah, without any destinations or stops, and be just as happy. But I did have two stops along the way.

Goblin Valley State Park

Goblin Valley State Park was a short drive off Route 24. On previous trips, I’d remember seeing the signs for it, but never stopped. This time I made sure to have time. The entire park is beautiful, but the hoodoos in Goblin Valley are the big attraction. To be honest, I kept thinking it would be more accurately named “Goblin Penis Valley” because the hoodoos here looked like giant dicks.

Capitol Reef National Park

After checking-out the goblin wangs, I was back on Route 24 which took me through Capitol Reef National Park. It was fun to drive through here again because I drove through on my first trip, but it was horribly rainy and overcast. Today, it was really beautiful. One of my favorite views was on this drive, but unlike most times it wasn’t as impressive this time around. Maybe it was the moodiness of the overcast environment that made it so ominous. After getting my passports stamped, I headed for a hike that I’d marked-down but ended-up passing and just heading to my final destination because I wanted some light to set-up camp.

Fremont Indian State Park

The final two hours of driving to Fremont Indian State Park were really grueling. I just don’t think I’d understood that I was going to be in my car for ten hours today. There was also a bit of disappointment when it came to missing the hit in Capital Reef. But, I didn’t arrive at the park until 5:30 and the sun was already going-down, so I know it was the right decision. It took a while to set-up camp because, as usual, there was no level ground to be had.

After camp was set-up, I got to making ramen for dinner and got a campfire going. I stayed up for a couple of hours watching scary movies and ended the night with some star gazing.

Coldest Morning Ever

To be honest, I can’t remember ever being colder than I was when I decided to wake-up on Friday morning. I’d put on two pairs of socks because getting into bed and I was sleeping in my freezing rated sleeping bag, but my toes were absolutely frozen. Despite this, I probably slept better in a tent than I ever have, due to the tent cot that I bought for the trip. I wasn’t sure it would be that comfortable but it really was. But, yeah, it was super cold and I did not want to get out of my sleeping bag and didn’t until 8 AM. I ended-up boiling water in my steel cup and wrapping my toes around it in an attempt to warm them up.

Where’s The Sun?

What’s looking like an unfortunate situation is the fact that I’m in a canyon and the sun isn’t going to appear over the canyon walls until 10 AM. Annularity of the eclipse occurs at 10:26 AM so I’ll be able to see that part and the ending, but not the progression which kind of sucks. The fact the sun doesn’t hit my campground until 10 AM also means it stays absolutely frozen until then.

Visiting Fremont Indian State Park

The good thing about staying somewhere for two days, which is a rarity for me, is that I actually get to visit more of the park. I’d only planned on stopping at the visitors center to pick-up souvenirs and ask some questions, but everything was around the center and somehow I’d brought everything I’d need with me, so I just decided to get at it. The grounds had a relatively short but strenuous hike that featured a meditation spiral and countless petroglyphs. And a little driving took me to a place called 100 Hand Print Cave and Newspaper Rock, which was a large area but way, way up on a cliff face. Again, somehow I’d decided to pack my binoculars and had my tripod on me, so I was able to see it all.

Logging Media + Neighbors

After visiting the park, I came back to camp and decided to eat lunch while I logged all the photos and videos from the past two days (so far) and begin this blog, so that I didn’t have to do everything tomorrow. While I was at it, my neighbors showed-up with barking dogs and running generators, so that should make for a good night.

A Final Hike

After I finished logging everything and getting this post started, I went on another nearby hike. The trails in state parks always seem a bit more adventurous because they’re just not as well defined or maintained as the ones in national parks. Despite the ranger telling me that there was no wild life to be concerned about in the park, I still felt wary hiking alone along the trail, getting further and further away from the campground. At the one mile mark, I decided to turn back, not feeling too bad given how badly I crushed my move goals for the day.

Ending The Night

When I got back to camp, I decided to drive back down to the visitors center and fill-up one of my empty water bottles. I was pretty sure I had enough to last through the night, but always feel better when I have an excess of water on hand. Back at camp, I made my dinner of ramen noodles and settled down to watch movies by the fire. Around 9:30 PM, when I thought everything was calmed down, about 10 people showed-up to claim the vacated campsite next to mine. It was annoying but I was so tired it wasn’t very difficult getting to sleep.