Northeastern Utah

This blog post was supposed to be about a quick stop at a place called Fantasy Canyon. But what we found when visiting this area of Northeastern Utah, is that there are many other amazing things to see. We had an action packed day and a half for sure.

Everyone is familiar with southern Utah since that’s were the five Utah national parks reside. However, this less visited area of Utah has some amazing sites to see as well. We set up camp in the town of Vernal at a… well not so great RV park but it fit our needs, and we still get to sleep in our own bed at night.

We first decided to make a visit to Dinosaur National Monument on the way into Vernal. Although there is a lot of backcountry to this park, there are two primary visitor areas: the Quarry, where the dinosaur fossils can be seen, and the Canyon area. Both have their own entrance and the two section do not connect from within the park. We went to the Canyon Visitors Center and parked the coach and explored with the Jeep. The Harpers Corner Road traverses 31 miles through the park with stunning views along the entire way. There are many overlooks, boardwalks and hikes to explore. It was an awesome drive with the exception of the massive amounts of Mormon crickets lining the road. I truly believe they are descendants of the dinosaurs. The Jeep was coated with the squashed remains and the fish smell was horrid. The Jeep got a well needed bath after we got settled in at the campground.

We were tired from the long day so we didn’t visit the more popular Quarry section but wish we had. Next time.

Our next day was our only full day in town so we had to make the most of it. Since Fantasy Canyon was our primary reason for being there we got an early start and headed 55 miles to the south down gravel roads and past an extensive natural gas mining area. Fantasy Canyon reminded us somewhat of Goblin Valley State Park near Capitol Reef National Park, but the sandstone structures here are much different. These were formed from a ancient river sediment, eroding over time. They are much more rugged and climbing on them risks some serious road rash. However, it was fun exploring the area and the dogs had a blast.

We heard of a place nearby called Flaming Gorge that peaked our interest so we backtracked to the location which is 54 miles to the north of Vernal. This was a much more scenic drive then the one we were just on. The Flaming Gorge National Recreation areas is a series of scenic byways around the Flaming Gorge Reservoir. The reservoir, formed by a dam on the Green River, stretches well up into Wyoming and stores 3,788,900 acre-feet of water. This is a hidden treasure with unbelievable beauty. We did a lot of driving around with specific attention to three areas:

The dam area is very scenic and is a popular place for boating and fishing. We also found it to be a great place to let the dogs take a dip. We hung out there for a while and went to the dam viewing platform, then drove the road past the dam for several miles to an amazing overlook

The Red Canyon visitors center is further down the road the other direction and adjacent to the Red Canyon Lodge. Behind the visitors center is a short hike to an overlook. The overlook was breathtaking and definitely a top 10 view in my book. If you do nothing else while you’re there, go to this overlook.

The third area we visited was the Sheep Canyon Geological Loop. This 15 mile loop road follows the visually dramatic Uinta Fault with some amazing rock formations of odd shapes and beautiful colors. It was like something made up in a fairytale book.

So our quick stop along the way turned into so much more. Yes, we could have easily used another day, but we were able to cover a lot of ground in the day we had. But we were tired and tomorrow was a travel day so it was time to get some rest.

Be sure to check out the other pictures from this beautiful area of Northeastern Utah.