Vacation Pt 4: Eastern NV State Parks

After leaving Cedar Breaks, it truly was just road tripping! We took the long way back to 15 from Cedar Breaks, going into Nevada and down on all these state and US highways, instead of just getting on 15 at Cedar City. Neither of us had ever been in that area of the country, so decided to see what was there - planned the trip just looking at the map, seeing if there was anything interesting to stop at on the side of the road (scenic overlooks, historical monuments, etc.). Once we crossed into Nevada, we found that there were several state parks all pretty conveniently located near each other.

The first park we stopped at was Cathedral Gorge. Much fun! There's a whole series of slot canyons at Cathedral Gorge that they refer to as caves. The "caves" really aren't - most of them don't meet at the top. They are really very narrow, very steep canyons which are VERY fun to play in. :) They'd make great chimneying, if we'd had the equipment for it. Was fun to just play in too - closest I've been to caving in a while!

We spent the night at Spring Valley, a little further north and little higher elevation. Not much there in the way of hiking - most of the park activity was centered around the resevoir there - lots of focus on fishing instead. You could tell that we were at a higher elevation, though - it got COLD that night!! It was 12 degrees when we woke up in the morning! There was ice all over our tent!!

We actually went for an early morning drive so that we could sit in the heat of the car and thaw. Made me realize I might need a warmer sleeping bag if we keep this up - my 30 degree bag just doesn't cut it when it's 12 out! :) We eventually took a hike as the weather was warming up. Had to peel off tons of layers by the time the hike was over - walked back to the car with an armful of clothes!

The third state park we stopped at was Kershaw-Ryan, just a tiny one, but good for stretching the legs. Had some gorgeous trees changing color, too - bright, bright golden in the sunlight. Just a tiny little park, really, but it was nice place to have a break and a walk on the drive back down to I-15 (this was our last park of the trip).

An interesting side note, we were just south of NV Hwy 50, which has the dubious honor of being "The Loneliest Highway." Back in the day, it was a big stretch on the Pony express route. One of the fliers we picked up at Cathedral Gorge had a bunch of info and stories about riders from the Pony Express - very interesting, actually. The best part was a reprint of an ad used to recruit riders - included a line about "Orphans preferred" (translating to "we don't want to have to notify lots of next of kin"!) Not what you want to see on a job ad!!