Lone Rock Campground North of Page
We drove to Utah to Lone Rock CG just outside of Page, Arizona, and arrived in the early afternoon. This is one of our favorite camp spots. Great views of Lone Rock and Lake Powell; big flat place to park; dump; all for $7 per night. We arrived in time to take a walk down to the water and let Chica go swimming. We do not like to park by the water because we are so heavy and there is a lot of sand, but there are always a lot of campers by the water's edge.
The next day we drove thru Knab and north to highway 14 and then west to Cedar City, Utah. This road is steep (8% grades) and windy (25 mph curves). But the scenery is spectacular.
We arrived at our chosen campground around 2. We picked Cathedral Gorge campground from my brother's recommendation. And we were not disappointed. This is a Utah State Park so it was a little pricey for us ($27 per night). But we got a very nice spot and we had electricity, fire ring, cabana over a picnic table, and a place to barbecue. It was a little warm so we were thankful for the electricity.
Because it was in the low 90's during most of the day, we decided to hike early each day. We walked over to the Cathedral caves area which is also the picnic grounds.
There are some structures remaining from the 30's when the CCC developed this area for recreation. One is the water tower and the other is the toilets. Neither are in use today.
The spires and buff-colored cliffs are the result of geologic processes occurring over tens of millions of years. Explosive volcanic activity caused layers of ash to be deposited hundreds of feet thick. Block faulting, a fracture in the bedrock that allows the two sides to move opposite each other, shaped the mountains and valleys. Over time the area filled with water forming a fresh water lake. Continual rains eroded the exposed ash and pumice and the streams carried the eroded sediment into the newly formed lake. As the landscape changed and more block faulting occurred, water drained from the lake exposing the sediments to the wind and rain.
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On our first day, we hiked through Cathedral Caves and up a canyon to the lookout called Miller's Point. This is a beautiful area with lots of side cannons and caves.
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| Cathedral caves |
We both took flashlights so we could look in the caves.
Dean on the right in an opening of a cave with our campground in the background.
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| One of the caves. |
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| View from inside a cave looking up at the spirals.
The next day we tried to hike Juniper Trail which is a 4 mile loop. We made the mistake of taking Chica since this was a flat trail. But we also made the mistake of not staying on the trail and got a little lost. After an hour an a half we did find out way back to the campground. It was a pretty hike but we worried about our 11 year old girl.
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| Here is the trail map. We missed the East side of Juniper trail. |
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| Home sweet home after a tough hike!
Our last day of hiking at Cathedral gorge we explored the caves south of the picnic area. We spent almost 2 hours poking into caves and climbing up areas to look into caves. It was like being on another planet.
    
I took a picture of our shadows when we were climbing up to see one of the caves.
 We would definitely recommend this area to hike and explore. We went to the other campgrounds in the area but none compare to Cathedral Gorge. |
