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.
Once a year, you get a day older but receive credit for a whole year of maturity. It’s not quite right, but the discrepancy comes with some perks. The festivities for my birthday this year took me from my backyard to the top of a mountain and from speeds above 35 MPH to under one. Yes, birthdays can be a beautiful blend of diverse delights… and endurance training.
In 2002, the ski jumping, bobsled, luge, and skeleton competitions were all held at the Utah Olympic Park. It still serves as a main training site.
My birthday occurs during a busy time of the summer. Therefore, it often gets forgotten amidst travel and holiday plans. Those who make it a priority gain elite status in my heart. My sister is one of those. In the days leading up to my birthday, she took me and some of the other family females out to brunch. Then, her clan came over for a backyard meal around a cozy fire.
Kessler Peak is situated between Mineral Fork and Cardiff Fork.
Jason is the ultimate birthday spoiler, though perhaps not the ultimate cook. He bravely attempted to make some sort of cinnamon bun from scratch for my birthday breakfast without any of my help. The recipe was labeled easy online but will never receive that designation from him. They turned out more puck than bun. He consulted his friendly household food scientist afterward, and the problem was quickly deciphered. He had substituted volumetric measurements for weight measurements. I appreciated his thoughtful gesture even if I didn’t consume too much of the outcome.
God’s Lawnmower, a ribbon that runs the length of the entire north side of the mountain, is a notorious avalanche area that regularly claims lives.
Dense buns weren’t Jason’s only birthday plan. He took me to the Utah Olympic Park for a tour of the facility and a zip line tour. I loved learning about the history and operations of this venue, which was built for the 2002 Winter Olympics. Isn’t all new knowledge fascinating?
Mining in the Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons occurred between 1867 and 1976 with silver and lead being the primary minerals of interest. This miner’s shelter is a remnant of those days.
The zip lines at the Utah Olympic Park make use of the gully the park is situated in, zooming seven times across its gap. The first line is the longest at about 1,500 feet and moves fast enough to make your eyes water. Other lines range between 550 and 800 feet in length. My birthday was a busy day for the park. Even though we had a reservation, we had to wait about 45 minutes to get on the first line. After that, the zipping zipped. The zip line system at Utah Olympic Park isn’t as sophisticated as some of the others we’ve been on. You have to grab a rope on the adjacent line as you come in. If you miss it, let’s just say you will feel rather silly about the amount of effort required for the line operator to heave you in. Maybe not high-tech but still high fun.
You pass two mine shafts heading up Kessler, the second of which is a direct drop.
The next day, Jason correctly guessed I’d appreciate a magnificent challenge as part of my annual reminder of our ever-aging state. For what better way to feel like a babe than ascending a 30-million-year-old rock? In Kessler Peak, we thought we had a short trek. Kessler Peak is one of the most prominent mountains in Big Cottonwood Canyon at 10,403 feet, but the trail to its apex is only 2.3 miles each way. An online guide we read said this journey takes 5-7 hours to complete. We got a good laugh out of that. Seven hours to hike 4.6 miles? What a joke! It took us six hours and 55 minutes. I guess the joke is on us. Fortunately, since we started at 2:45 PM, we only had to use headlamps to light the last 10 minutes of our expedition.
The top of Kessler Peak supplies ample views of the Uintas, Hidden Peak, Mount Raymond, and Clayton Peak.
Why the dawdling pace of less than a mile an hour? This path climbs over 2,900 feet. With a grade of 79% for long stretches, it takes more time to go down in some places than up. The last 1.5 miles are particularly sheer and unforgiving.
If you can conquer a peak on your birthday, you aren’t older than dirt yet.
What did we think of the hike? The view from the summit is remarkable and our favorite of the peaks we’ve climbed in Big Cottonwood Canyon. However, although the trail is easy to follow, there are no signs indicating you are on the right path. I’d not recommend this hike without a downloaded map that includes GPS as some offshoots are more worn than the main route. A branch 1.8 miles from the trailhead, which leads nowhere, baffled us. Without the help of a map, we might have been wandering the hillsides clueless for quite a while.
Kessler Peak was by no means the most daunting mountain we’ve summited, but we still had a few nervous moments on its exposed edges.
My birthday this year held memorable activities, people, settings, and workouts. Many thanks to my considerate and adventurous husband and thoughtful family members for the assorted commemorations of another obligatory trip around the sun.
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.
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