(Bryce Canyon City, Utah – Moab, Utah)

29 November 2022

I stuck my hand out of the door at sunrise, to get a photo of the lake. It was cold. There was snow on the ground. I made coffee and retreated back to bed. Checked the weather app. -9C with a ‘feels like’ of -21C…The wind was gusting and blowing the snow around in the air.

After breakfast, showers, re-packing and checking out we were on our way by 1040. We passed firstly through Red Canyon and then the town of Panguitch.

Then it was northwards again through the Sevier Valley. The blue sky and sunshine, combined with snow on the mountains, was stunning and there was the perfect amount on the fields and rocks to create contrast and highlight the shapes. Even better, there was no snow on the road, just a large amount of salt.

The snowy scenes continued as we drove on I-70 eastbound, culminating with large amounts of snow at Salina, where we stropped at Denny’s for lunch and fuel. It was so beautiful I could have taken a photo every minute of the way. As it was, I restrained myself to just one every 135 seconds…

After lunch I took over driving. The snow continued up through the Fishlake National Forest, and the temperature dropped to-9 as we reached the summit. Eventually, though, the snow started fading and the scenery turned to the more usual desert, and 15 miles short of Green River, as we descended through the San Raphael Swell, the temperature finally reached positive numbers, although only just.

As we turned south down to Moab, the snow -capped La Sal mountains came into view, before we passed down through the red rocks north of the town.

We checked in, then took a walk down through the town, seeing what has changed and what has stayed the same. After watching the sunset on the mountains, we decided to get an early dinner. As often happens on our first night here, we ended up in Zax. Now that Thanksgiving weekend is over, it seems that we are definitely in the off-season, and the restaurant was quiet and relaxing. After a leisurely meal, we walked back, temperatures once again below zero, to our hotel for the evening.