Driving Day & Antelope Island State Park

Wednesday June 14, 2006

Sage had two major conditions for our trip this summer: 1) She would not backpack in Glacier National Park (she thinks the grizzlies are man-eaters there), and 2) She would not camp if it was going to be less than 40 degrees. This second stipulation came about from a camping trip a couple of autumns ago when we camped up in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland. It went below freezing that night, and I ended up having to give up my sleeping bag (a bit warmer than hers) so she could get through the night without dying of exposure. Her sleeping bag is only rated to 40 degrees (and even that is generous, I think), and the option of getting a warmer bag didn’t appeal to her. (I think she realized this was one way of always having a veto on camping if it was too cold, so she was keeping that trump card no matter what.)

So when we went to bed last night our plan was to sleep in a bit, drive the 3 hours to
Great Basin in Nevada, hike and camp for 1 night, and then start the long drive up to Jackson, WY and Grand Teton. We woke up this morning a little later than usual, and when we checked the weather for Great Basin there was a problem. The forecasted low was 35 degrees. We discussed our options. Because Great Basin is in the middle of nowhere, the option of going, seeing how cold it was, and then getting a motel if it was too bad wasn’t really viable. We also discussed driving out for the day, and then driving back to Utah for a hotel, but the 3 hours each way would give us hardly any time at all at Great Basin. So that’s how Great Basin National Park became a casualty of the trip.

(An interlude about Great Basin: Most people have never heard of the Great Basin area, found almost entirely in Nevada, but it’s most interesting. Most people know of the Continental Divide that runs the length of the Rocky Mountains. As it states on the sign that I had my picture taken in front of, water that lands to the east of the divide flows to the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. Water that lands to the west flows to the Pacific Ocean. However not all water that lands to the west of the Continental Divide flows to the Pacific. There is an area that encompasses most of Nevada, a lot of Utah, and some of California, Idaho, Oregon and Wyoming in which water flow never makes it to the Pacific. All drainage in this area flows into the Great Basin (think of it as a really big sink that has no drain) and simply evaporates. At Bryce Canyon in Utah the rim of the canyon is actually the dividing line between two drainages: Water on top of the canyon flows into the Great Basin; water in the canyon flows into the Colorado River to the Gulf of California. Speaking of divides, we passed the Appalachian Divide in Maryland on our first day driving. The road signs called it the “Eastern Continental Divide, but that really makes no sense. While it does separate water that flows direct into the Atlantic (i.e., the Potomac River) vs. water that flows into the Gulf of Mexico (i.e., the Ohio River), it’s still all going to end up in the Atlantic. There’s another divide in North America, and that’s for the Arctic Ocean. In fact, within Glacier National Park there is Triple Divide Peak. The top of the peak has drainage into either the Atlantic, Pacific, or Arctic Oceans, the only place on earth, I’m told, where water can flow into 3 different oceans.)

We had some options to consider with Great Basin left out, but we decided to drive up to Salt Lake City, stop at Antelope Island, and then find a National Forest campground in the northern part of the state for the night. We finally left Cedar City around 10:30 pm for the 3 ½ hour drive to Salt Lake City. On the way we stopped for lunch where I was able to grab a replacement set of sunglasses at a Target (on sale even!) right next door. We got to Antelope Island State Park around 3:00 pm. Antelope Island is a large island in the middle of the Great Salt Lake and is also home to pronghorn antelope (thus the name) as well as a herd of free ranging bison. It’s also a great place to view the expanse of the lake. We did go down to the lake’s surface for a quick bit, but it’s so shallow (we could have walked 200 yards out and it still wouldn’t have covered our ankles) it’s kind of a non-event. We then drove the length of the island where we did actually spot some of the bison as well as a few antelope. After the quick tour we headed up past Logan, UT and into the Cache-Wasatch National Forest. We got stuck in some traffic, so by the time we entered the forest it was about 6:30 pm. We stopped at a couple of campgrounds along the way but they were overgrown and right next to the road. After about 45 minutes or so of searching we took a flyer on a road that wasn’t marked and happened to find another campground about ½ mile from the road on the side of a mountain. It only had 10 sites, but was completely empty, and while it was overgrown as well, it had the solitude we’d been looking for and our site we picked was right next to a rushing stream that adds that great “backcountry” touch.

We set up camp and got a nice fire going as the temperature started to drop. (So you know about Sage’s 40 degree rule. Well, since we had no weather report for the mountains we had no idea how cold it was going to get. But Sage decided to rough it no matter how cold it got. So I guess there’s a loophole to every rule. But no way will I get her backpacking in Glacier.) We cooked up some dinner, did some reading until it got too dark (about 9:30 pm), and then stoked the fire to keep some sense of heat.

Tomorrow we’ll probably head up toward Grand Teton, but we’re not sure where we’ll be staying. Our cabin reservation doesn’t start until Friday, but after a night in the woods I’m sure we’ll find a warm bed and hot shower somewhere along the line.