Glen Canyon - Hite Recreation Area (July 25)

Today we made our way from Hanksville, UT to Hite Rec Area.  We knew this would be a remote stop but Wow was it remote!!  It was a little more than 50 miles from Hanksville and over 70 to the next town Blanding.  There was only one camping option and it took some serious research to find it.  Lake Powell Resort and Marina still runs a campground, general store and cabin rentals at this location (as well as several others on the lake), however the water has been too low for 3-10 years (I've heard various numbers) to even launch boats.  The place is a ghost town.  There isn't even anyone at the ranger station!

Here is the "lake" where you can see the boat landing not even close to the water. This is from an overlook a few miles west of the area.

Apparently many years ago the water was this low and there was a small town down there.

Here is a photo at the rest area between Hanksville and Hite.  Sort of iconic for our trip...bikes and full rig.

We have been crossing paths with many others the last week who are making the same journey as us only east to west.  Most don't have a camper, car or kids along too.  In any case, we ran into 2 men from Northern California at the Hite Rec Area and one of them is a Rotarian.  We invited Steve and Brad over to our camper for dinner and had a great time sharing stories.  

About the campsite, it had full hookups but I was told by 3 different sources that it only had 50 amp not 30 amp (we run on 30).  So I was planning to run the generator for the night...one of the hottest yet.  I got there and it was a ghost town.  I finally found a spot that wasn't overgrown with weeds and was mostly level.  I still had to back it in over some pretty enormous ruts in the ground.  Turns out they do have 30 amp outlets!!  I was still a bit frustrated that this was one of the most expensive sites yet.  Not that we had a choice.  Here is the site:

We decided to drive around a little after the biking was completed for the day.  The lake forms newly formed boat launch across from the old one.  This should be under water where I'm standing.

Overlook with John this time.  Our campground is just behind the skinny rocks in the upper left corner of the photo.

We took a littl off-road adventure.  Three miles to this canyon area where the lake should be, but turns out us no where close.

The lake should be here.

The kids didn't mind.

Lastly, to make this even more of an adventure none of us had any phone service for a span of 50+ miles from the Hite area.

I'll let John say more about the riding.

It was a great ride. Started early and saw the sun come up over the mountains. The first 15 miles were a gentle uphill. We were struck with how little there was in the backdrop of the ride. We did come across a cool abandoned RV!

After a small chain issue on Andrews bike we started to descend through a beautiful canyon.

This is where we met two other riders. As we continued the decent we entered the Glen Canyon area and the towering red cliffs grew around us. We climbed to a great vista of the Colorado river and then descended into a moon like valley of water worn rocks. The bridges crossing the Dirty Devil and Colorado Rivers were amazing! We had a hot and grueling last climb to the camp ground and were happily done for the day! 50 miles in all.