Rose-Gold Canyons and Dive Bar Dramas

The American west is ... big. Very big. And there is a whole lot of amazing between a whole lot of nothing, as we noticed driving away from the Arches. Not like Canadian prairie nothing, but close to it. I have to give it to Americans,  though, there is a lot of free camping available if you can manage the roads and navigate the four-wheelers.

Driving down the dirt "Main Street" towards our dispersed camping site

First stop outside of the Arches, we got ourselves a dispersed camping site in Gooseberry Mesa, managed by the Bureau of Land Management. It rained briefly, though most of the weather passed us by, leaving rainbows and beautiful sunsets.

Full rainbow from the back of the van after the rain

Doing cactus by a cactus!

Our camp on Gooseberry Mesa

Sunset view

 Next day we headed to Zion national park, and if we thought the Arches were busy we did not know American-park-busy until Zion. With no fees, and no timed permits required owing to the government shut down, the park and rides were full before 9 am. We and the other "late risers" had to shuttle in to town to jostle up and down the steep switchbacks among hordes of hundreds.

But we lost the crowd after Scout Lookout and snuck off onto a ledge where we were practically alone. There, a massive condor flew just 100 m across from us, at eye level. So close, we could hear him fly towards us. Ivan likened to the sound the ocean makes, dragging sand out to sea after the waves crash. 

The climb up: switchback after switchback

The condor, flying away

The view across the canyons

View from near the top

At the top!

Next day we decided we'd do a route called the Narrows, which is basically wading through glacial streams up a narrow canyon bed. We rented sci-fi dry suits and boots, were handed a Gandalf-thick walking stick and sent with the multitude into the canyon.

I have to admit, the beginning was not fun. Clad as we were in uniform grey rentals, marching rank and file along the river into the canyon, it was like we were part of a thousands-strong Welsh miner's strike, rather than the intrepid explorers we (all thousands of us) imagined ourselves to be.

Wading upstream

But once we hit the canyon, it was magical. The light was rose-gold. Everyone looked dusted pink. And the way the light hit the walls, it was like they were made of pure gold, streaming with molten silver water. The light shot laser beams through what cracks it could find, and the stream gurgled melodically.

Pink and rosy glow!

Ivan trying to capture the magic, but I'm eating

Still eating...

 and STILL eating...

So Ivan just gave up and took a photo for you guys

Sharing a well deserved beer at the Zion pub

Goodbye Zion, hello Nevada! From on high, to on low - in many ways of speaking. We made our way to the much anticipated Death Valley, the lowest point in North America, only to discover that the roads were closed and the main roads were shut down owing to major flood damage - which was not what I was expecting in the Mojave desert. 

So instead, we took in the lauded attractions that we discovered in a pamphlet: the ghost town of Rhyolite and the nearby (literally next door) Instagram-famous Goldwell museum. 

Let's start with the ghost town, Rhyolite. The town literally blew up at one point, having three trains servicing the area, a full school and three banks, only to practically disappear two years after its peak. Usually, in famous ghost towns, there are roads and remnants of buildings side-by-side, carefully preserved. But this is the desert, and wood and other building materials are scarce. So much of the town's buildings were scavenged or picked up and moved elsewhere. Only the station and a few other buildings remain.

Abandoned building

Abandoned chimney near a fenced-off mine shaft

Faded "Closed" sign on the station wall

Just down the road from Rhyolite is the Goldwell museum, an outdoor art project created by Belgian artists. Seven huge art installations perch on the hill in the middle of nowhere, and an obscure memorial plaque to "Rhyolite's District of Shadows", a fictional alternative version of the actual town. Check out the link. I still don't quite understand what it means - if you do, please let me know. 

Below are some of the other installations. I will let them speak for themselves.

Best part of the trip? Driving by the "crazy" steampunk, yet-to-open Exchange Club in "the middle of nowhere" (read Beatty). I so want to go there when it is open!

Historic Exchange Club in Beatty

In keeping with enjoying only the best Death Valley has to offer, we stayed the night at the Harvest Host's self-described dive bar, the Hubb Bar and Grill. It was literally the last stop before Death Valley. 

The bar was full of locals and the occasional stranger. One couple came in with the woman dressed as an alien in a silver jumpsuit, silver wig and flashing antennae, and her partner dressed as a masked, curly mustached man with a cape. (We were very close to Area 51.)

The bar filled the room and at every seat was a gambling station, though I never saw anyone play. Spots at the bar were few. Drinking, it appeared, started around 5. We got great food, though the waitress (with some hesitancy) told me that the chef had put "the purple stuff" in my coleslaw, after hearing how much I loved coleslaw. She waited for me to taste it to make sure I didn't want to exchange it for the macaroni salad - she did not seem a fan of purpose cabbage, though I loved it.

We watched a live band, the BipolarXpress, who took requests from Patsy Cline to Ozzy Ozborne. Altogether, and some pretty fun people-watching, followed by a remarkably quiet star-filled night by the horseshoe pits.

Inside the Hubb at 5 pm - already full at arrival

Band, the BipolarXpress

We're now in Sequoia (will save that for the next post) and can report that we are finally getting a bit warmer... Mexico is getting closer. Have a great night!