Our plan is to use Kanab as a base for a week or so as we explore some of the surrounding areas. Today our plan is to drive to Cottonwood Canyon and see what we can find. Cottonwood Canyon road leaves US 89 heading north for high clearance vehicles. Road conditions vary widely throughout the year so at times 2 wheel drive is fine yet other times 4 wheel drive is needed. No matter 2 or 4 wheel drive, high clearance is necessary. A few years ago Wells drove it with a Subaru Forester with no issues. Cottonwood Canyon Road is roughly 44 miles long where one hits pavement again and is at the entrance to Kodachrome Basin State Park. Here is where National Geographic intensely explored the area many years ago.
Driving on this road is not a speedy happening. Our speed rarely gets up to 20 mph and more often in the 10 to 15 mph. This is fine since the landscape is stunning and highly variable. You never know what new sights are around the next bend.
Cottonwood Canyon Road
We settle on a hike into a slot canyon and marvel at what the power of water can do. The hike starts with a bit of a scramble down to the stream bed then it’s mostly flat walking on sand. We see that recently it had rained. There’s plenty of wet sand but no visible water. The walls of this narrow canyon extend upwards several hundred feet and the width varies from 8 feet wide to 25 feet wide. This is not a place to be caught during a rain storm. There are few escape routes to get above the water.
After the hike we continue driving north on Cottonwood Canyon Road until we finally hit pavement once again and we head into Kodachrome Basin State Park. We don’t expect to get in since the Utah Governor issued an order yesterday stating that all Utah State Parks are open only to residents of the county in which the state park is located. We drive up to the entrance gate and the person there asks if we are coming in. We reply, “Can we?” to which he responds “ten dollars.” We are in!
It’s late in the day and we have a long drive to return to Kanab so we elect to do two short hikes. The first is a loop that lets us explore two box canyons while the second is a .6 mile nature trail where Marsha wants to read each and every interpretive sign. There are many!
Kodachrome Basin State Park
Now it’s back to the road where we have a two hour drive back to Kanab via paved roads. Along the way we pass near Bryce National Park then Zion National Park. While passing Bryce National Park we see snow along the road side as well as running into a few snow showers. Around these parts temperatures and weather conditions are dictated by elevation.
We arrive back in Kanab as the sun is setting. Our around the block adventure is just shy of 200 miles.
Seeing North America 