25.9.-01.10.2006: Kolob Canyons - Cedar Breaks NM - Mt. Nebo Loop - Uinta NF On Monday we got up early to drive back into the Kolob Canyons part of Zion National Park. We went to the Kolob Arch Trailhead and made sandwiches and packed our bags for a 14 mile hike down into the canyon to get to an arch. The first part of the trail was fairly steep downhill with great views of the huge rocks. In 1983 a large piece of one of the rocks fell off, thundering down into the valley. It must have made a hell of a noise! Once down into the canyon there is a 2 mile stretch of trail that is all sand and not easy to walk through. The last half a mile is steep rock climbing and the trail isn't always easy to find. We finally got the arch at 1pm where we had lunch. Although the arch has a span of 95 metres and is therefore one of the largest in the world, it wasn't really that impressive. Maybe we have just seen too much! It's also not easy to spot because it is way above you, through trees. People who arrived after us kept asking us where the arch was! Unfortunately, during lunch, Helen found out it was that time of the month and we had 7 miles to walk back. By the time we got back to the sandy part of the trail, the pain was bad enough to make her physically sick! It turned into the walk from Hell and it took us a long time to make the return journey back to Winnie. Fortunately we made it just before sunset! Then we drove into Cedar City and went for a chinese buffet. On Tuesday we had phone calls to make to sort out insurance and AAA membership. We also did some shopping and sorted Winnie out who also got a new air filter. On Wednesday we bought some new frying pans because the Teflon surface had started to come off - which is a serious health risk! We drove to the visitor centre and then went to a library. Afterwards, we drove up a steep and windy road to Cedar Breaks National Monument. We did a short 2 mile walk to an overlook. The Monument is a lot like Bryce Canyon but on a lot smaller scale. On Thursday, we continued north and stopped at Flying J's truck stop where we dumped, got petrol, and had a shower for $6-50. Then we drove to Mount Nebo scenic route and found a free campground next to a river. We decided to stay another day here because it was so peaceful and we were surrounded by autumn colours. We had a relaxing day and also fixed a few things inside Winnie. On Saturday, we drove along the scenic route and had frequent photo stops because the autumn colours were so beautiful. We tried to take a short cut after we'd finished driving along the scenic route, but we got lost! We finally found the correct road and went to Timpanogos Cave National Monument in the Uinta National Forest. By the time we got there it was already closed but we wanted to check on opening times etc. There were loads of people here - you can tell it is a popular area especially because it is a weekend and a lot of people are here to see the autumn colours. After driving around for a while, we managed to find a place to park along a rough dirt track. There are just too many people around! On Sunday we drove back to the caves but found out that our Golden Eagle pass does not cover us to see the cave. A tour costs $7 each. We have seen a lot of caves and decided that we would give this one a miss. Getting back out onto the road was a problem because there was a traffic jam!! We only did a few miles along highway 92 and then just pulled off to park up at a campground. There was just too much traffic to be able to enjoy the scenic route. At the free campground we did a short 1 mile trail to have a look around and went past a family who were sitting on a hill with their picnic and listening to some kind of religious broadcast on the radio. We found out later that twice a year there is a special Mormon broadcast and today was one of them!