Car Camping Epic

This was not going well. We had just been shut down by the third place we had tried to find camping outside Saint George, Utah, after arriving in town a little after 12:30 am. The first campground was full, the second had a big rave going on, and the third was closed. We again consulted the book, which mentioned a promising spot near a resevoir with both pay and free camping. Ok, that’s our zone, we thought, until we turned off the highway and were promptly greeted by a large orange sign: Bridge Out, Road Closed 6 Miles. No way, we thought, as a I consulted the map to see if the reservoir was further than six miles. Yep, further than that. $%^$#! We swore, cursed and wondered at our twilight-zone-like predicament. Maybe we just weren’t meant to sleep that night. It was now after two in the morning, so we decided to head back to town and just throw down for a hotel. We didn’t care about money at this point, I just wanted to go to bed. I vowed over and over again on the drive back to town that I was going to buy a van in Las Vegas the next day so this would never happen again. (Unfortunately I can’t lay down in the back of our Outback.)

We found ourselves back in Saint George and headed for the cheapest hotel. No vacancy. Drove to a couple more. No vacancy. Are you f$%#$# kidding me?!?! Finally went to one last place and the woman behind the counter called other hotels for me to no avail. I got back in the car completely defeated. We couldn’t believe our luck. Assessing our meager options, we settled on two things. Drive to Mesquite (40 miles) and get a room, or drive to Gunlock Resevoir, which we could now get to since we were back in Saint George and on the other side of the closed road. We opted to try the resevoir, despite the 18 mile drive, since it was closer to where we wanted to climb in the morning. The drive was dark and winding until finally we came to the place. I triumphantly pulled in to an empty spot, set up the tent and we crashed hard. The clock read 4am.

Rest assured, despite sleeping in the next day until noon, we still had fun checking out the climbing in Snow Canyon, and are now chilling in Vegas, looking forward to a week of long trad climbs. But what a start to the trip!