Mystic Hotsprings, Monroe, and Green River Utah - October 7 th & 8th

Today we left St. George after spending a week touring around. It's been getting really warm at 90F. A little too much for me. Unless we went into the hot tub at 8 pm or 8am, it's too hot to soak. We did manage about 4 times though. Gaining elevation, so should be a comfortable 75F. 

The drive today is only 2.5 hours and apparently check-in is not until 3pm. Ray chose this place because of the pictures on Google. It looked interesting, so here we go.

As usual we left around 8:40 am. Once we hooked up the car and stopped off the freeway at a Maverick station for diesel, we were finallly on the road at 9:30. 

We stopped on I-70 for this picture ... snow on the mountain top from the storm they had a week ago. We climbed from 3000 feet elevation at St. George to the highest of 7200 feet and then down into Monroe at 5400 feet.

With only a short drive, we arrived shortly before noon, so we dropped off the MH and carried on to some spots Ray found on Google.

The first destination is the drive down Highway 89 to Big Rock Candy Mountain along the Sevier River Canyon. Absolutely stunning.

The vivid colors that one sees at Big Rock Candy Mountain are the direct result of this mineralization. The yellow, orange, and red colors are from the presence of iron minerals, such as jarosite, hematite, and pyrite. The white color is due to the presence of alunite and kaolinite, minerals rich in potassium. Wikipedia.

They even had a Caboose Village to stay at.

After stopping for a bunch of pictures we ate lunch at the Big Rock Candy Mountain Resort, which was delicious and very reasonable.


About Big Rock Candy Mountain

Since 1928, visitors from all over the country and world have made Big Rock Candy Mountain Resort their premier vacation stop! This relaxed western resort boasts over 2,000 miles of ATV/UTV Paiute Trail access, river rafting and floats, bike trails, hiking, zip lining, camping, RV’ing and much more! With so many fun adventures to chose from it’s no wonder that guests return year after year to experience magic and memories at Big Rock Candy Mountain.

They have some big deer around these parts!

We noticed a nice paved bike path that went for miles on the old rail grade along the highway. We stopped at one of the little pull-outs beside the river and there was a guy fishing. There is fish .... he had caught 24 small trout fly fishing today. 

Back in the car driving back towards I-70, stopping to take some pictures along the Sevier River Canyon. The fall colours are stunning.

We carried onto the I-70 for a short distance and then got back off again to see the Fremont Indian State Park. We drove in from the west end and drove down the access road to the east entrance before getting back on the I-70.

I happened to notice a marker when we turned onto the frontage road and it said "Newspaper Rock Viewpoint". 

Newspaper Rock is the largest petroglyph panel in the park. It contains over 250 elements carved into the sandstone.

Unfortunately some guy named Mike defaced this art.

This is the view their small campsite tucked into the surrounding hills.

Next up is our exit for Monroe a short distance down the highway. It's now 2:30 so I dropped Ray off at the coach and drove. This place is quite disappointing, expensive and their "RV sites" are all really unlevel and you are surrounded by junk! We only hooked up to the 50amp power and nothing else.

The guy next to us had a dog that shat everywhere on the ground between us.... couldn't open the windows on the passenger side from the smell.

The pools are smaller than it seemed with the google images, but were nice and warm. Ray took a hike up the hill to see the bath tubs they have, but they were very hot so he didn't stay long. 

This is the pool I spent my time in. This picture from google.

Unfortunately it was not a very "peaceful" soak due to a family of 5, with an 11 year old boy that needed a good kick in the butt. He kept the cold water on splashing everyone, so he was lowering the temp in that pool and it was the only one Ray could actually sit down on the bottom in. Needless to say our 2 hour soak ended up being 40 minutes and we came back to the coach. They kind of told him to stop but that was it. I would have removed him if he belonged to me.

Back to the coach to "cool off". We both were not hungry for dinner after eating late. Ray went out at sunset to take some pictures of the old rotting Pioneer Cabins across the road from us.

Well this was an adventure coming here. The other areas we saw driving around made up for the so so experience. Unfortunately it's quite expensive for nothing for a 40 minute soak.

Ray went out at first light to take a few more shots. These old buses look derelict and they rent them for $100 per night. I'm so surprised to see most of them rented out overnight! Hippyville for sure!

This was right in front of us.

This was beside us... it's holding tanks are laying on the ground underneath.

Sunrise at the Pioneer Village

Sunday morning I started to close up the slides. Pulling in the big kitchen slide I heard a "crunch" .... oh oh. Turned out that because we were so unlevel and tipped to the rear. The slide moved about an inch in that direction and the handle of my spice  cupboard caught and ripped the door apart. Yikes! I had to get Ray and we put the slide back out and he took off the handles of the cabinet on both doors and we were able to bring the slide in all the way without it pinching on the cupboard. Another probably $200 for this awful campsite.

Finally we were on our way on I-70 to stop at all the lookouts between here and Green River, Utah. Something on Ray's "list" for some time.

The drive down I-70 is absolutely stunning. The only downside is there were quite a few long steady climbs uphill. Looking at them seemed ok but when the MH switched in to 2nd gear and 35 mph you know it's a long uphill. This happened twice. Most of the highway is pretty straight but there are some long windy downhill sections coming in to Green River as well. My guy is great with his shifting and engine exhaust. :) Came down the hills nicely.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The San Rafael Swell is a large geologic feature located in south-central Utah, United States about 16 miles (26 km) west of Green River. The San Rafael Swell, measuring approximately 75 by 40 miles (121 by 64 km), consists of a giant dome-shaped anticline of sandstone, shale, and limestone that was pushed up during the Paleocene Laramide Orogeny 60–40 million years ago. Since that time, infrequent but powerful flash floods have eroded the sedimentary rocks into numerous valleys, canyons, gorges, mesas, buttes, and badlands.

The swell is part of the Colorado Plateau physiographic region

Here is a picture of it from high up from a paraglider.

First viewpoint is Sand Wash Viewpoint, both sides of the highway. Absolutely stunning.

Next stop Devil's Canyon.

Here is a short video Ray took while I was looking for him. lol Wait for it ....

Third stop is Ghost Rock. I took the picture from google as Ray would have had to do a lot of walking to get far enough back to take the picture as it's actually in the parking lot.

Chimney Rocks on the other side of the highway.

Our final stop the Spotted Wolf Viewpoint. This shows only a small section of downhill (8 km/5mi at 6%) to the plains below. We passed one semi with smoke billowing off his brakes.

Across the highway from this viewpoint are these wonderful mesas.

After our tour of four viewing areas over 60 miles, we arrived in Green River for a late lunch. I 'd picked out a place called "Ray's Tavern" lol. Apparently you can stay overnight in their gravel lot if you wished. We did not like the bumpyness of it, especially after yesterday's trouble, so we decided to carry on after we ate lunch. It's a good thing we like good burgers, because that's the only thing on their menu :) and they were delicious. Lots of other people coming in after their weekend of ATV'ing so the place is hopping.

With full bellies, we went back to the other end of town for propane and fuelled up the MH and the car so we are good to go for the next few days.

After looking on Freecampsites.net we chose Crescent Junction BLM 144 to stay in overnight. A short drive after the busy day we've already had. Somewhat off the main highway, and lovely views. A great overnight spot. We would not want to be here if it rained though, as it definitely would be very muddy, judging from all the tire tracks. Only 3 other trailers in our area a good distance away.

Once set up, I turned on the generator and got the A/C running as it was pretty warm in the MH from all the driving with the sun shining in. With all the long uphill grades we were unable to have our A/C on.

Here are some evening shots of our spot.

Another great day.