For many years, my family visited the Utah Shakespeare Festival every summer. It was our annual vacation. As an adult, I have returned to this event more than a few times but never as a primary destination with the bulk of my family along. That all changed as life briefly became almost ordinary last summer, and a large portion of my relatives traveled to Cedar City to appreciate drama, some neighboring attractions, and each other. Now that I have set the stage for this excursion, let us dive into the plot.
Panning for fool’s gold entertained the kids much longer than the wise expected.
Jason and I attended three performances during this trip. Comedy of Errors, Shakespeare’s shortest work, was our first. This lighthearted romp makes a good introduction to Shakespeare. Two of the younger members of our group, and Jason, welcomed that. The next afternoon, we saw the heart wrenching but hopeful musical Ragtime. On our final day, we watched Pirates of Penzance, which is always a crowd favorite with its catchy tunes and silly banter. The Utah Shakespeare Festival does a tremendous job with their quality productions, and these were no different.
The Concord coach was designed to carry up to 12 people with each allocated a whopping 15 inches of space.
In addition to our bardly devotions, we spent a morning at Frontier Homestead State Park. Frontier Homestead is dedicated to Cedar City’s early days as a mining town. It contains antique buildings, historic artifacts like stagecoaches, hands-on activities, and replicas such as a blast furnace. We lingered until our sweat slicks were charted waterways.
There are many photo opportunities at Frontier Homestead for those so inclined.
Another day, after stuffing our faces with as many types of pizza as possible, a group of us went on a hike up the Timber Creek Overlook Trail in the Kolob Canyons portion of Zion National Park. The Kolob Canyons don’t get the traffic the main section of Zion does, and the views from the Timber Creek Overlook Trail, which extend all the way to the Grand Canyon, are more than worth the mild one-mile effort.
Frontier Homestead’s collection includes Cedar City’s oldest surviving brick home, a working sawmill, and several train cars.
Being at the Utah Shakespeare Festival took me back to my teenage days. The nostalgia was potent though a lot had changed. It was strange to see the old Greenshow area and the Adams Theater, a replica of the Globe Theatre, shadowy and quiet, but my family’s presence made their silent shapes seem less like ghosts. Those relatives continued to make up for the months of separation by chatting in the hotel’s firelit courtyard until midnight or 12:30 every evening.
The Kolob Canyons are finger canyons hedged by brilliant 2,000-foot cliffs.
Although Cedar City was uncomfortably hot throughout our stay, we relished this wistful and entertaining return to a familiar tradition and familiar people.
The following day, also our last full one in the area, we decided to spend the greater part of the afternoon in Antimony since we didn’t anticipate being in its vicinity again soon. We rented kayaks and headed out on Otter Creek Reservoir. Otter Creek Reservoir is just over six miles long and a popular place to fish for rainbow trout. According to locals, the water gets packed on the weekends. As it was not a weekend, it was quite unpopulated. We kayaked nearly half its length, or what I’d like to think was “nearly” half its length, in the three hours we had boats.
We made it about halfway down the shores of Otter Creek Reservoir to Tamarisk Point.
After we got used to paddling, we found kayaking has a rhythm to it like running or hiking. Once that rhythm is established, your mind can wander. It was quite relaxing and a much different experience than kayaking in churning sea caves, which no sane being would describe as relaxing. The wind picked up close to the end of our voyage, apparently something that happens almost every afternoon on Otter Creek, and we had to work hard to propel ourselves back to the dock. Still, a repeatable experience.
Chimney Rock is a scarlet finger jutting out from the Mummy Cliff.
Following kayaking we had a choice, mosey around our silo or take the one-hour-and-20-minute drive to Capitol Reef National Park just to do a few hours of hiking before dark. We opted to do that of course as we are not avid moseyers. We hadn’t been to Capitol Reef since 2009. Dumb us. While this national park gets less love for who knows what reason, less love means less people and that means more love from me. Capitol Reef, you don’t care if everyone loves you just as long as I do, right?
It’s easy to get wrapped up in the geological marvels that surround you atop the Mummy Cliff.
We jumped on the Chimney Rock Loop after noticing good reviews on AllTrails and its nearness to the park’s entrance. Wasting any of our limited hiking time was unacceptable. We expected Chimney Rock, a column of sandstone visible from the road, to be the main attraction of this trail. Not so. This path heads up about 300 feet onto the top of a plateau. As you tread across that mesa you can see Whiskey Flat, the Henry Mountains, Miners Mountain, the Navajo Knobs, the Fluted Cliffs, Fruita, Boulder Mountain, and Meeks Mesa, plus the silver, sage, and sienna confusion of the Waterpocket Fold. This is supposed to be an amazing trail near sunset. We didn’t know that beforehand, but, yes, it was amazing. Moreover, we only saw one other group during our entire trek. Gorgeous terrain set afire by the departing sun and no people? It was my favorite activity of our trip of course.
The Waterpocket Fold, Capitol Reef’s defining feature, is a 100-mile-long buckle in the Earth’s crust caused by a fault.Erosion of the Waterpocket Fold has created domes, arches, buttes, cliffs, and ravines out of the colorful Navajo, Chinle, Wingate, and Moenkopi Formations.
The next day, we planned on just making a straight dash for home with one little detour to the Butch Cassidy Childhood Home near Circleville. This led to us taking a different route back, which led to us driving near Fremont Indian State Park, which led to us spending five hours looking at ancient rock art. It was a vicious cycle.
The term badlands applies to wrinkled, severely eroded, plant-less regions. The name seems inappropriate for something so beautiful.
Fremont Indian State Park is at the site of the largest Fremont village ever found with at least 60 pit houses, 19 granaries, and 26 other building. Sadly, it was only discovered on Five Finger Ridge shortly before half of it was scheduled to be destroyed to make way for I-70. Still, many artifacts and an abundance of rock art survived the highway and can be viewed at the park.
Capitol Reef will hit its 50th anniversary as a park this month.
Although contemporaries of the Ancestral Puebloans, the Fremont were a unique group. Crops were their main form of survival, unlike the cultures that came after which focused on hunting and gathering. What became of the Fremont? Apparently, we know even less on that topic than the mysterious disappearance of the Ancestral Puebloans.
The Indian Blanket pictograph is 16 feet wide, four feet high, and has its own legends.
At Fremont Indian State Park, for the first time on this trip, we did not luck out with the weather. It was miserably hot our first few hours there until clouds and a sprinkling of rain eased our roasting. We just accepted the streams of sweat flowing through every crevice as we inspected Sheep Shelter Trail, Indian Blanket Viewpoint, Parade of Rock Art Trail, Cave of a Hundred Hands, Arch of Art, Newspaper Rock Viewpoint, Jedediah Smith Interpretive Site, Canyon of Rock Art Trail, and Skinner Canyon. Does that sound like a lot? It was only a fraction of the places to see rock art in the park. The rock art was almost overwhelmingly prolific spanning about 3,000 years.
The Parade of Rock Art Trail passes twenty rock art panels ranging from 1,700 to 150 years old.
Thus ended our trip, but what were our conclusions about Antimony and our unusual accommodations? The silo we stayed at, which used to store grain for cattle, was small, but its good design utilized all the available space. Notwithstanding the awakening we got in the middle of the night when the combination of rainstorm and metal roof made it impossible to sleep, we’d still recommend this uncommon structure.
This petroglyph was carved in the late 1800s by Paiutes. It may look like a spaceman, but it more likely represents a traditional headdress.
And Antimony itself? The people of Antimony are friendly and proud of their little town. I’m not sure they should be proud of their cellphone service, but we thought it a nice spot anyway. On a side note, if you go to Antimony, make any reservations you need ahead of time. I’m talking ATVs, horseback riding, boat rentals, etc. Otherwise, owners will give you a number to call to make a reservation, a number you can’t call because your cellphone doesn’t work. We found the predicament both frustrating and fairly humorous. You may be thinking this information is irrelevant because you will never find yourself in Antimony, but who knows, someday it might be the unexpected answer to your would you rather.
Skinner Canyon contains two rock art panels; one has been the victim of human idiocy.
And that is how our outing, which started not with a destination but an accommodation, ended up being an ad lib frolic in multiple national parks, state parks, and ghost towns. There are endless possibilities for discovery if you are willing to go even where your cellphone service cannot follow.
What is antimony? A notion, an element, an antidote to Billy Idol? It is an element, but it is also a small town in central Utah with about 100 residents and proximity to multiple national parks. How did we end up in this tiny settlement? And how did the ending up end up? Those elemental answers await you.
The silo we stayed in used to house grain for cattle. The grain is gone, but the cattle remain.Osiris’ creamery was built in the 1920s but was soon abandoned due to unfavorable weather and farming conditions.
For Valentine’s Day this year, I gave Jason a “Would You Rather?” gift. Apparently, he would rather stay in a silo than a treehouse or a giant glamping tent. That silo was in Antimony. Did we know where Antimony was when I reserved the silo, or what was in Antimony beyond a silo? No.
The Woodard House is one of two historic structures remaining in Widtsoe. The other is a one-room schoolhouse.In the 1920s, Widtsoe’s population peaked somewhere between 365 and 1,100. It had two hotels, a confectionery, a church, four stores, a schoolhouse, and a post office.Extended drought, erosion, and an overabundance of rodents eventually made Widtsoe one of the most impoverished towns in the state.In 1935, the 29 families remaining voted to accept a resettlement package from the federal government. By 1938, the last of them were gone and Widtsoe was no more.
It turns out, Antimony is a place where cellphone service cannot be found for almost an hour in any direction. That’s what isn’t in or around Antimony. So, what is? Bryce Canyon National Park, Capitol Reef National Park, Otter Creek State Park, Piute State Park, and Kodachrome Basin State Park. Yes, near Antimony you can experience much but tell no one.
The famous photographer Dorothea Lange came to Widtsoe in 1936 to document the federal government’s resettlement plan.Dorothea Lange’s photos of Widtsoe can be found easily on the Library of Congress’ website.
Our first full day in Antimony, Bryce Canyon National Park was our destination. On the way, we wanted to commune with the forsaken at two ghost towns. We stopped at Osiris, which seemed more like a building than a town, and visited Widtsoe. We had explored Widtsoe last time we were in the area almost 10 years ago and were surprised to find that during the last decade people had begun to move back to this long-abandoned settlement. While the original one-room schoolhouse was still there and the ever-interesting Woodard House, the scattering of brand-new structures amongst these seemed to dematerialize the spirits of the past. We even returned to the Widtsoe Cemetery, a location we thought strange and slightly unsettling last time, only to find it just a somewhat unconventional, peaceful spot.
A century after Widtsoe’s apex, it’s hard to imagine a thriving town in its dry, solitary spot.
Although Jason and I had both been to Bryce Canyon National Park at least three or four times prior to this visit, we had not investigated many of its trails. On this outing, we inspected one of the unfamiliar, the Fairyland Loop. The Fairyland Loop is 8.3 miles long and considered strenuous. Its path passes points of interest like Oastler’s Castle, Chinese Wall, and Tower Bridge. Figuring out which hoodoos corresponded with which titles was often unachievable, but we saw it all even if we didn’t know what we were looking at.
Throughout the Fairyland Loop, windows, fins, hoodoos, plateaus, and pinnacles of crimson and rust form abstract structures and fantastical creatures.Bryce Canyon experiences freeze/thaw cycles every day for nearly half of the year. Those are the most significant source of weathering in the park.
We had read conflicting reports of this path’s busyness and were a little puzzled about what to expect. The proclaimers of emptiness were right; it was much less trafficked than other trails in Bryce. We saw exactly zero people after we passed Tower Bridge, suggesting hikers were just going to the bridge and not doing the complete loop.
Both form and color surprise at Bryce.It takes limited imagination to envision these fanciful shapes and dazzling colors the workings of nymphs and goblins.
Beyond a lack of hominoid clusters, we also lucked out on weather. Due to its high elevation, Bryce is typically about 10 degrees cooler than the surrounding region. That placed its temperatures somewhere in the low to mid-eighties on this particular afternoon. Even with elevation considered, after experiencing the hottest day on record in Utah right before our trip, we were still expecting some sultry misery in the canyon. However, thick clouds came in, and a breeze sprung up early in our expedition making it mighty pleasant. The sun didn’t show itself until about five o’clock. By then, it could only blast us briefly before hoodoos shadowed our way.
Hoodoo is a fitting name for a strange spectacle.Someone must have told Mother Nature to think outside the box.It’s not hard to visualize a ship sinking into this sea of vibrant sand and wavy stone.
Were all the paragraphs above devoted to just one day? Umm… yes. That leaves the rest of our Antimony escapades to next week’s recount. Don’t worry, it will be longer than a fifth-grade book report but shorter than a dissertation… probably.
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