Saturday Sep 23, 2023 - Great Basin National Park to Kanab UT

I think the park ranger was right when she said this is the most beautiful campground in the entire National Park system. We woke up to another sunny day which we deserved after yesterday morning’s snow. We are on a streak of high altitude camping. This one was 9,886 ft. Our heater ran last night more off than on as it was not as cold. I need to look up the information about Wabasto heaters at high altitudes.

So coffee & tea this morning and kind of hanging around and soaking in the vista. We have poor cell connection up here, making it hard to research where we’re going next. We packed up, chatted with the young New Hampshire kid (sleeping in his Subaru, ski bum working this winter at a ski area, the good old days…) and then went down the 12 miles to the lower visitor center where the website said there was a cafe. The nice volunteer there said the cafe was 5 miles back up the mountain at the upper visitor center but she said there was a truck stop 6 miles away which was good. We really were looking for WiFi but a truck stop sounded good. The truck stop is exactly on the border between Utah and Nevada. They had a casino of course, but they had a good breakfast and great WiFi. 

What we decided on was to head toward the Grand Canyon’s North Rim and stay somewhere in-between. Deb was able to reserve a Grand Canyon campsite ($9!!) for Sunday night, and there were lots of options for tonight as far as campgrounds. More wonderful, empty Forest Service ones.

The morning consisted of a long barren dry stretch and then a mountain pass, then another long barren stretch followed by another mountain pass. This repeated until we got to Beaver, UT where we stopped and uploaded the blog and got coffee.

We started south to go to Cedar City, which is big enough for a decent grocery store, and while heading there the weather turned gray and it looked like rain approaching. We got our groceries and filled up with gas and then decided to get a comfy motel in Kanab, which is a quaint tourist town about 80 miles from the Grand Canyon. We had a lot of Wyndham credit card points so we scored a free room at LaQuinta. It did indeed rain off for the rest of the day but the forecast for tomorrow is for sun and clear skies which would be perfect for the Grand Canyon.

We found a restaurant down the street (Wild Thyme) and had tasty impossible burgers and salads, then walked back to the hotel for hot showers and just about due laundry.