The route this day took us from Bryce Canyon City, via Little Sahara Sand Dunes, to Salt Lake City. Another great day on the road!
Approximate time on road/out caching: 15 hours, 20 minutes
Total miles driven: 314 mi / 505,3 km
Total caches found: 40
Total DNF: 12
States visited: Utah
Famous places visited: Bryce Canyon National Park, Little Sahara Sand Dunes
Most memorable cache: GC5FW6V Little Sahara Sand Dunes
Biggest surprise: The new earthcache along the way in Bryce Canyon NP
Weather: Sunny, some clouds
Highest temperature: 97°F / 36,1°C
Lowest temperature: 54°F / 12,2°C
Up before sunrise
Since we wanted to be at Sunrise Point before sunrise, we had to get up early. Really early. It was completely dark when we arrived, but it didn’t take long for the colors to appear. As with so many other places, you really can’t see these colors during the day – you have to be here at sunrise.
It was, as all the other times we’ve got up early to watch the sunrise in a National Park, so worth getting up early for!
A few stops along the way
We’ve visited Bryce Canyon every single year since 2013, so we’ve also driven the roads here many times before. So we didn’t have a lot of stops planned, but we did find a couple caches along the way.
To the dunes!
The next destination was Little Sahara Sand Dunes. We just had to find some caches along the way first. We eventually arrived at the visitor center, after a stop at the old GeoTour cache.
It was a bit disappointing that the interagency annual pass didn’t work here – even though we didn’t have a buggy or trailer (which is what people usually pay for here). But we figured it would be worth it anyway – and it was!
One of the coolest earthcaches on planet
The first cache we found (and only, since the other two ended with DNF) inside the park, was GC5FW6V Little Sahara Sand Dunes. This is one of the coolest earthcaches we’ve found ever! If you’re ever in the area – do this one!
The two other caches we attempted in the park, ended with DNFs both of them. Really annoying.
DNF, DNF, DNF
As if the previous two DNFs wasn’t enough, we ended up with a lot more…. We decided to find some of the caches in the Shakespear trail, along Utah Lake. Some of them was easy enough to find, but way too many was either missing or simply too hard for us to find. So we ended up with almost more DNFs this day, than the rest of the trip combined up until now. The view along the way made the detour worth it anyway.
A quick virtual
We had to do a quick stop at GCE444 Utah Veterans Memorial, since we love finding virtual caches. We didn’t really know how close to closing hours we got there, so we made sure to be very quick – to avoid getting locked inside :O And that was the last stop we did before heading directly to Salt Lake City.
A proper event
We didn’t have a lot planned in Salt Lake, only GC8BCC5 Proper Greeting for Our Norwegian Friends. It’s always nice meeting the local cachers here, and the awesome burger was a nice bonus! We stayed until the end, and then joined HikingSeal and daphm for some ice cream – what a perfect way to end the day!
Pictures
