Author: danleeth

Industrial Tourism

Maybe it’s a symptom of being a travel journalist for over half my adult life, but I have this psychological need to rank things – best this, favorite that.  I repeatedly found myself doing that on this journey to Zion. 

How does Zion National Park compare with the other members of Utah’s “Mighty Five?”

When it comes to just plain scenic grandeur, I put Zion right at the top.  The cliffs and canyons here are absolutely awe inspiring.  Only Capitol Reef comes close.  At Bryce, non-hiking visitors look down on the scenery.  One must drop below the rim to feel engulfed by the environment.  It’s much the same for Arches and Canyonlands.

While Zion may offer the grandest grandeur, it’s in fourth out of the five when I rank my favorite Utah national park to visit.  Only Arches, in my book, comes in lower.  That’s because I hate crowds.

Zion gets around 4.5 million visitors each year, making it the third most popular national park in terms of visitation.  Only the Great Smokeys and Yellowstone see more visitors. 

Zion is way too small to handle that many people.  Cars line up for blocks at the entrance stations waiting to get in.  Campsites and lodge rooms are tough to find.  Visitors cram into shuttle buses to get into the Virgin River Canyon.  Trails and sites are crowded.  We’ve been told that folks sometimes need to wait hours in line to complete the ascent of Angels’ Landing.

Arches has the same problem.  As Ed Abbey warned in “Desert Solitaire,” it’s industrial tourism at its worst.

Fortunately, winter at Zion offers nature lovers like me a chance to get away from the madding crowds.  When we checked in, there were still rooms available for drop-in guests at Zion Park Lodge, and there were many empty spots at the park’s Watchman Campground.  We had no trouble finding parking spots at trailheads, roadside pullouts or in the neighboring tourist trap of Springdale.

The downside of winter visits, of course, is the weather.  It’s cold and snow is always possible.  Trails, especially those on higher or shaded ground can be covered with snow, ice or thick, gooey mud. 

While the visitor center was open, most of the park’s museums were not open.  In town, we found many restaurants and other businesses closed for the season, making it harder to find $30 souvenir t-shirts for sale.

Personally, I’ll give all that up for the opportunity to see a place this beautiful in the raw.  Besides, I already own one of those $30 t-shirts.

Devil with a White Dress On

When we signed up for a Colorado Masochists Club hike up Devil’s Canyon, temperatures were above freezing and the ground was dry.  That changed. 

The Fruita area, which some have referred to as the Icebox of the Grand Valley, got well over eight inches of snow followed by a week of subzero temperatures. 

No worries, we thought.  It will warm up and melt before our hike. 

It didn’t.

The leader was not going to let a little of that angelic white stuff keep us from experiencing the Devil’s very own canyon, so the trip was a go.  We packed our hiking stuff, and in 14-degree temperatures under overcast skies, we made the 2.4-mile drive to the trailhead where we met the other seven members of our upcoming hike.

We put traction cleats on our boots, and after the usual introductions, we headed up the main trail, which was well packed by the footprints of numerous other hikers.  At the appropriate junction, we broke off on the D3 trail that would take us up Devil’s.  It, too, had been previously hiked and was easy to follow. 

“Red hair and black leather, my favorite color scheme,” Richard Thompson sings in his tale about a 1952 Vincent Black Lightning motorcycle.  We’ll, I’m kind of partial to red rock and white snow being my favorite color scheme. 

When the sky cleared, the sun came out and the cliffs lit up.  It was absolutely beautiful.  It’s a good thing I only had my iPhone to record the scene.  If I had a real camera with me, I’d still be up there snapping images. If it snows again, I’ll come back armed with the good stuff.

We trudged up the trail to an old cowboy line shack at the end of the loop.  After lunch on the rocks, we headed back down the canyon past a hoodoo pillar that looks very much like an Easter Island moai. 

The trip ended with a slog down through the canyon with numerous crossings of the half-frozen stream.

While the hike was only a bit over seven miles, walking on snow takes a bit more energy.  We were pleasantly fatigued.  Dianne and I sat on our folding chairs and took off our traction cleats. Finally, exerting maximum willpower, we eventually got back into the car for the long (2.4 miles) drive back home.  Back in the trailer, I stripped to jammies, poured some wine and treated myself to a healthy dose of Morphine.

A long, long hot shower comes next.

Finally Skiing Again

It’s been over two years since Dianne and I last hit the slopes.  We lost the 2019-2020 season due to surgeries – rotator cuff for me and knee replacement for Dianne.  We lost the 2020-2021 season due to the Covid lockdowns.  It’s now 2022 and the slopes are beckoning.

For about a third less than what Dianne was paying for her Vail Resorts Epic Pass (I always got mine for free), we bought annual passes to Powderhorn Mountain Resort, our local ski area.  At 1,600 acres, it’s small with only four chairlifts, one of which is a beginner lift, and another is a Magic Carpet conveyor belt for the youngsters.  The two remaining lifts service an array of intermediate groomers and host of black diamond runs.  Being our first time out, we agreed to stick to the easy stuff.

It didn’t take long to realize how out of shape I was.  With Covid closing our gym, we lost that for workouts.  We did buy a rowing machine and a Total Gym for home, but they proved to be a poor substitute for a good workout center. 

Then came the move.  We spent a month just packing and preparing the house for sale.  Exercise was limited to lifting and lugging boxes.  We tried to get some exercise by walking around Strasburg for the month we were stuck there, and we’ve hit the trails out here in Fruita when we could.  Our diet hasn’t been too good, either, with a lot of dining out.  Then came the snow and bitter cold, causing us to be cooped up in our trailer.  Some days, we never even got out of our jammies.

Then we headed out to the slopes.  After two runs down on a cold, windy day, I was ready for the cafeteria.  We rested until it was time for lunch, bought some pricy, ski-area food (and brews) and rested some more.  We finally headed back up the chairlift.

After three more runs down the mountain, I called it quits.  I was suffering a fifth-stage case of TB (thigh burn).  I limped back to the car like I’d just come off one of our 50-mile, Rim to Rim to Rim hikes in the Grand Canyon. 

Back home, I kicked back on the couch while my in-house nursing staff medicated my pain with soothing cups of hot mulled wine.

Snow on the ground, drywall going up

We drove past the new house this afternoon. It’s been snowing for three days now, so the ground was covered with Colorado’s famous white stuff. That’s good because the snow covers the mud. Concrete for the driveway can’t be poured until the ground dries and thaws.

The wood covering the door has been screwed shut for the day, so we couldn’t go in. We did, however, get to peek through the dining room window.

The building crew has been busy nailing up drywall. Progress is being made!

Meeting the Developer

After a few days of rain and cold, we headed out to the property to check on this week’s progress.  About the only new thing we see is that workmen are starting to nail up the foam insulation that backs the siding. 

As we were scoping the place out from another angle, we saw a man clad in a bowler hat walking through the property with his dog.  He was obviously not one of the workers.

“Are you John?” Dianne asked. 

John is the property developer.  After identifying ourselves as the folks who would be purchasing the back unit, we chatted about construction progress and asked when we might be offered an actual contract to buy the place. 

You see, while we have spec’d out all of the house layout, features and appliances as well as modified electrical and plumbing features, we have never been given a contract to actually buy the place. 

The hang-up has been determining a completion and closing date.  Between Covid delays and winter weather (can’t pour concrete on frozen ground), John cannot firmly determine a completion date.  Although the contract closing date can always be extended, he says he doesn’t like to do that. 

We explained to him that we have a trip planned from March 1st through April 15th.  If the place cannot be finished by mid-February, we’d like a mid-April closing.  He said that using that as a completion date would not be a problem.  He’ll get with the realtor and a contract should be coming our way soon.

Of course, that means we’ll need to pony up some earnest money and perhaps need to pay for some of the out-of-pocket upgrades (like our 48-bottle wine cooler) we ordered.  But at least we’ll finally have a house legally on order, and that’s encouraging.

Who is Dan Leeth?

Dan Leeth was a full-time travel writer and photographer whose words and images have graced newspapers, magazines and books across the United States and Canada. 

Growing up in the American West, Dan developed an early love of the outdoors and wild places.  He has hiked, camped, backpacked, floated, crawled and climbed into and out of wilderness canyons, deserts and mountains around the world.  In the winter, Dan is an avid downhill skier.

Dan was bitten by the travel bug early as a child.  As a teenager, he put 60,000+ miles on his first new car in less than two years.  Since then, he has visited, photographed and written about travel experiences on all seven continents.  His specialties include Antarctica, adventure, skiing, city walks, historical sites, natural places, road trips and sharing the lighter side of travel.

Dan has nurtured a love of photography since he was knee high to a lens cap.  Largely journalistic in style, his work has graced nearly every article he has had published.  His stock images may be purchased through Alamy.com.

Escaping from the Denver metropolitan area, Dan and his wife, Dianne, now reside in Fruita, Colorado.

Time to take a break

After 26 years of full-time, freelance travel writing, I’ve decided it’s time to finally hit the brakes.  Instead of researching stories, I’m going to visit places just for the sheer joy of being there.  No more interviews to schedule.  No more copious notes to take.  No more casting for storylines. 

It’s been a good life.  I’ve sailed all five oceans and visited all seven continents.  I’ve taken a 127-day voyage around the world on a World War II-vintage ship, sailed on a luxurious private yacht through the Greek isles and ridden an icebreaker into the southernmost navigable body of water off the coast of Antarctica.  I’ve rubbed shoulders with famous people and bunked in countless four- and five-star hotels and resorts.  My stories and photographs about these adventures have been published nearly 2,000 times across the U.S., Canada and beyond.

While the travel opportunities have been dazzling, transcribing notes, outlining storylines, crafting openings and pounding out progressively improved story drafts on the computer is pure drudgery.  To that I say, “good riddance.”

Okay, I’m not going to totally go cold turkey on the travel journalism.  I’ll still be photographing sites and submitting them to my stock agency.  And maybe, just maybe, I’ll finally get around to writing a fun narrative about my around-the-world cruise on the “Ship of Peeves and Thieves.” 

As for travel plans, I’m hoping to make a fourth, expedition-ship cruise to Antarctica with a stopover on South Georgia Island where my hero Ernest Shackleton lies buried.  I want to visit some dark-sky setting in the Southern Hemisphere where I can photograph the southern Milky Way, and when Covid allows it, I’m hoping to use my arsenal of frequent flyer miles to book first-class tickets on a flight across the Pacific to either Australia or New Zealand.

Beyond that, I will be traveling across the country with my wife in our travel trailer, relishing the fact that I don’t need to write the place up for some publication.

Kodel’s Canyon Loop

It was sunny and a balmy 28 degrees outside, perfect conditions for a winter hike in Colorado’s canyon country.  Our goal today was to explore the Kodel’s Canyon section of trails in the McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area.  We started from the Devil’s Canyon parking lot.

The B.L.M. designates trails out here with letters and numbers, with the letter identifying the area.  We followed Devils Canyon’s D1 trail to its intersection with Kodel’s Canyon trail K1.  The K1 was easy to follow as it wound its way up shallow canyons and over soft ridges.

As I’ve probably mentioned before, there are a plethora of unofficial, “social trails” out here that look just as well trodden as the official pathways.  The BLM hasn’t done a very good job at marking and signing trails, so knowing just where to go sometimes can be a challenge.

Not long after turning onto the K1, we came to fork in the trail.  Both options were equally well covered with footprints.  One side dropped down into a small, cliff-hemmed wash.  The other led across the flats toward more distant cliffs.  We went that way.

The path led us onto long rib of sandstone, dotted with rain-catching water pockets.  A toadstool hoodoo stood at one end.  While the route provided a delightful diversion, this was obviously not our trail.  We hiked back and took the other fork. 

We continued along that trail to another unmarked fork where we met a man hiking with his dog.  There are a lot of official side trails that intersect with the K1 trail, and we figured he was on one of those.  We continued onward.

The trail upward from here showed signs of recent trail maintenance with new freshwater diversion channels added.  At the top of a small ridge, this nicely improved trail seemingly stopped.  We could find no sign of a pathway beyond.  With Highway 340 visible below, we knew we wouldn’t get lost, so we started bushwhacking our way down, figuring we’d cross the trail somewhere below.  We didn’t.

I’m a map guy.  I prefer to use 7½-minute topo maps, not a GPS in the field.  Lacking a 7½-minute topo, I decided to make an exception and use 21st century electronics to see just where we were.  I clicked the CoTrex app on my phone and discovered we were nowhere near where we were supposed to be.  Wrong Way Corrigan could not have gotten us more off route.

We pointed ourselves in the right direction, crossed a barbed wire fence and continued cross-country to where we wanted to be.  There we caught the series of trails that would lead us uneventfully back to Devil’s Canyon and our parked car.

We now have a goal for our next McInnis outing.  Next time, we’re going to start at the opposite end of the trail and hike the K1 back toward Devil’s Canyon.  I want to see where we went wrong.

Wedding to Monument Canyons Loop

Today, Dianne and I repeated one of our favorite loop hikes in Colorado National Monument.  Accompanying us were a fellow Colorado Mountain Club member, whom I met on the Sunset Rocks hike, and his girlfriend.  She’s a nurse and my wife was a nurse.  As we proceeded up the trail, the women got to talk for miles about injections, bedpans and other nursing topics.

The hike begins at a trailhead near the base of the Colorado National Monument cliffs.  From there, one trail goes up Monument Canyon, passing the towering rock formation known as Independence Monument before continuing onward to Rim Rock Drive. 

Another trail goes up Wedding Canyon to Independence Monument where it connects with the Monument Canyon Trail.  The loop up one canyon to Independence Monument and back down the other is about five miles long with around 1,000 vertical feet to ascend.  It would be a nice, relaxing day of hiking.

Last time we hiked the loop, we started up Monument and returned via Wedding Canyon.  This time, we did Wedding first.  The first part of the hike requires traversing the flats close to the park boundary. 

The morning was cool and the skies clear.  Unblemished sunlight spotlighted the ruddy cliff faces across the canyon. I love this country.

The Park Service considers Wedding Canyon to be a “route,” not an official trail.  There were places that required ascending and descending steep, baren ground.  Needless to say, we all did quite well.

After a brief snack stop near Independence Monument, we started back down the Monument Canyon Trail.  An official National Park Service trail, it is much wider and has rock slabs serving as stairsteps in the steeper places.  Ahead, we looked down the canyon at the city with the Book Cliffs and Grand Mesa towering behind.

Bighorn sheep are common in this canyon, and at one point I spotted a flock of female bighorns dining on the flats below.  For the benefit of our nurses, I pointed them out by announcing, “I see ewes.”

Down at the bottom, the trail parallels the park boundary for a half-mile or so, with a wire fence blocking us from the backyards of a few high-end homes.  While the views from their patios would be stunning, I’d hate to have to put up with riffraff like us constantly hiking by.

Back at the car, we said goodbye to our hiking companions and drove back home to our trailer where the beer awaited.