reposted: Toroweap, Coyote Buttes, Wahweap, Bryce, and Zion.
please delete the other thread... my op disappeared when I tried to edit it.
I had 5 days to do some exploring in Southern Utah on my way to a wedding in CA. I've been in the area 3 or 4 times previously so we had a general idea of where to go but decided to just 'wing' the details (I did let someone back home know my itinerary as we left pockets of cell phone coverage). A friend tagged along since we are going to the same wedding and his wife was stuck at a conference in Vegas.
Day 1:
Travel to Vegas and drive to St. George. We stopped at Valley of fire in the late afternoon and saw Atlati Rock, Arch Rock, and a quick stroll to Mouse's Tank. It was interesting and fun looking for the petroglyphs and will probably return to this park someday.
Day 2:
Headed to Toroweap. We stopped at the BLM office in St. George just to poke around and found that the road over Mount Trumbull was in decent shape so we headed that way vs. heading toward Fredonia. We stopped at Little Black Mountain at the start of the drive and spent 45 or so minutes strolling around the rocks looking at the petroglyphs.
Next we stopped at the Mount Trumbull School. As we browsed the photos hanging on the wall I was amazed at the number of people from the town that served in WWII.
We continued over Mount Trumbull, stopping near the trailhead at the top to gather some fallen sticks and small pieces of wood (we had already purchased some firewood at a gas station in St. George) and continued to Toroweap. We did not go to Nampaweap since I'd been there on a previous trip.
We setup camp at campsite 9 (the last one) in about 8 minutes and headed to the rim. I love the solitude and lack of fences here and we spent some time roaming the rim and taking photos. A quick hike up the Saddle Horse Canyon Trail and back to the rim for sunset. In hindsight it may have been better to stay at the rim of Saddle Horse Canyon for sunset. We enjoyed a good meal and had a fire for a little while but the winds were kicking up to 40-50mph so we dowsed the fire and had to put the fly on the tent (a lot of dust was being driven through the mesh.
Up early to break camp and get some sunrise photos at the rim. As we headed out to Fredonia we debated about trying to find Shaman's Gallery. I had some vague directions to the turnoff and after spending an hour on two different turnoffs, and down to 1/2 tank of gas, we decided to return another time.
Spent the rest of the day driving to the Paria Station to gather some information and check on conditions. We picked up a permit for South Coyote Buttes for the following day and took a quick hike down Wire Pass to Buckskin. We stayed the night in Page and had a great meal at Fiesta.
Day 3:
Tried for a Wave permit with no success so we headed out to South Coyote. I believe we went too far for Cottonwood Cove but we've received conflicting information. The last 1.5 or so miles was through very deep sand and mostly downhill so we were slightly worried about the return trip but once we entered this area I didn't want to stop until we hit solid ground so turning around didn't seem like a good idea either. (we did make it out but it was very close
