Sunday after church meetings, my wife Nancy and I decided to take a drive to see what Spring looked like this year in the high Utah valleys.
We drove up through Heber Valley and then northeast through Francis and Woodland.
We then continued east on State Highway 35 over Wolf Creek Pass. Spring came late to Utah this year and the pass was mostly melting snow fields.
As we dropped down into the North Duchesne River drainage, we turned north along the river. Here I could make out several natural arches in the high Castle Cliffs on the east side of the canyon.
With no roads coming in from the top, the only way to get a better look at these arches would be to just climb from the road.
From the road, it was easy to find Stone Face, also on the east side of the road and canyon.
Further up the canyon were several campgrounds before the road ended. One was a private campground called Defa’s.
The North Duchesne River was still running high and muddy at near flood levels.
We finally turned around and headed back to the highway where we continued southeast through Hanna. I was sad to see that the old Hanna Post Office had been decommissioned.
Further down the road we found the Tabiona Utah community. By then the wind was roaring.
We then took the Golden Stairs Canyon highway which is a cutoff road that quickly took us to Fruitland Utah with a return trip to Heber Valley and home in Utah Valley.
That was a nice drive to take on a Sunday afternoon.