Utah's 'Big Five' parks in winter

On the road to Zion, Edward Abbey's "Desert Solitaire" pours from the car speakers, an adamant narration to my five-day, one-man tour.

The well-known author-environmentalist, however, almost certainly would decry my ambitious plan to hopscotch Utah's Mighty Five parks - Zion, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Canyonlands and Arches - and label it an example of all that is wrong with "industrial tourism" and the passive "nature lurkers" who barely get out of the car, no less explore nature's wonders.

I make no excuses, however. I wanted to see the parks in winter, when the day's angled light, often accompanied by snowfall, colors nature's portrait more with pastels than with oils. And I prefer empty parking lots. Barely 5,000 of Moab's 2.7 million annual visitors pass through the outdoor recreation hub in January.

A few closed roads and dormant campgrounds and trails might impede deeper exploration, but it seemed like a small price for more of Abbey's "Solitaire" solitude. (And just try photographing the North Window free of human silhouettes during July.) Would it be enough - touring one of the planet's most astounding winter landscapes while listening to this desert apostle's sermon - to reignite a traveler's devotions to the natural world?

Springdale, Zion's gateway settlement of motels, lodges and RV campgrounds, sits mostly vacant, if not exactly spectral, in winter (although I have to wait for a table at Oscar's Cafe that evening). I join a local photographer and head to the Angels Landing trail to capture the canyon at dusk.

Just 5 miles round trip, the walk demonstrates why length rarely indicates a hike's intensity as much as topography and temperature. Among the trail's features are Refrigerator Canyon, a segment so devoid of sunlight that temperatures drop more than 10 degrees, and Walter's Wiggles, a series of 21 switchbacks that makes Lombard Street in San Francisco look like a stretch of Nebraska highway.

Angels Landing's notoriety has nothing to do with steep temperature drops or the 1,488-foot serpentine climb. What inks this hike into the "most dangerous hikes" almanac is the narrow neck, 4 feet wide with sheer cliffs on either side, that leads from Scout Lookout to the spectacular viewpoint.

A fixed chain guides the surefooted for the final half-mile, while newly converted acrophobes make a hasty retreat down the trail. How sharp is the knife's edge? Clint Eastwood shot portions of "The Eiger Sanction" off the West Rim Trail that connects to Angels Landing. We pause before entering Refrigerator Canyon, set up tripods and sidestep any decision to tiptoe across the neck.

Zion at first light

If sharp drops exist above Pine Creek on the Canyon Overlook Trail, I don't see them the next morning during my predawn scramble to photograph Bridge Mountain at first light. The half-mile path, though iced over along the initial staircase, leads to a wide vista to watch the canyon and East Temple rock warm to the sun's glow.

I return to the canyon floor later that morning, gear up in Zion Outfitter's dry suit for a hike from the Temple of Sinawaya up the Narrows, a section of the Virgin River that sets course between 10-story walls rarely more than 30 feet wide.

Frozen tears form upon the weeping slot canyon walls. I slosh against the knee-high current, occasionally testing my dry suit sealing technique to wade waist deep in quiet side pools that disappear behind 5-foot-tall ice sculptures. I'll save the 16-mile descent into the Narrows from Chamberlain's Ranch for a considerably warmer day.

A visual ambush

After returning to Springdale to grab my gear from the Cable Mountain Lodge (and a Thai chicken wrap from Cafe Soleil), I re-enter Zion and travel Route 9 toward Bryce Canyon National Park, less than two hours east.

Most often, the first impression of Bryce is how the chasm appears out of nowhere. Visitors first enter a ponderosa pine forest, followed by pinyon pine and juniper stands. Then they ascend the Inspiration Point Trail and, damn, the earth sharply falls 10 stories below, revealing a 36-square-mile amphitheater lit in shades of red and orange.

Hoodoos and fins, weathered forms chiseled from the 50 million-year-old Claron Formation by rain, wind, flood and extreme freeze/thaw cycles, populate the valley. I approach the Bryce rim four times during my visit, and each encounter surprises me. Geologic time conquers all comers.

The Bryce Canyon rim sits 9,000 feet above sea level, the only park of the Mighty Five that receives reliable snow in winter, setting up a morning of Nordic skiing along the rim from Bryce Point to Fairyland Point. While perfectly safe for an intermediate cross-country skier, skiing on the rim 1,000 feet above Fairyland Canyon stirs some of the adrenaline I usually associate with downhill.

Fairyland and Paria Point Roads remain unplowed during winter to provide habitat for skiing and snowshoeing. The 2015 Winter Festival (Feb. 13-16) celebrates outdoor adventure with snowshoe hikes, astronomy workshops and a roster of other outside activities. No festival is required to enjoy another of Bryce's assets, one of the darkest night skies in the United States.

Nature and culture

On Scenic Byway 12, the 124-mile route across the Colorado Plateau linking Bryce Canyon with Capitol Reef National Park, I encounter fewer than a dozen oncoming vehicles.

The desolate highway rises to 9,636 feet above sea level, skirts Dixie National Forest and reveals several vistas of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, a 1.9 million-acre landscape of cliffs, mesas and canyons that stretches south toward Arizona's Grand Canyon.

Capitol Reef National Park is the least visited of the Mighty Five because of its isolation and lower visibility. The park received its status for the natural phenomena - the Waterpocket Fold, a 100-mile-long monocline, is among the longest in the world - as well as for its cultural significance. Paleo-Indian, Desert Archaic, Fremont and ancestral Puebloan aboriginals foraged and farmed this region dating back 12,000 years, some producing exquisite petroglyphs.

Light snow swirls above the mesas as I continue along Route 24 to Interstate 70 and Canyonlands National Park. Abbey favored Beethoven, the composer's fortissimo a rare match for the tenor of the wilderness. Cruising I-70 resonates quite differently for me, so I pause "Desert Solitaire" and seek the satellite radio's Grateful Dead channel in homage to the many tours that carried me along this highway.

Ephemeral canvas

Canyonlands National Park, carved by the Colorado River and its tributaries, appears to stretch forever. Unlike hidden Bryce and its visual ambush, these cliffs and canyons, mesas and buttes draw into view many miles before entering the park. I'm adrift in the Island in the Sky quadrant as I tread upon the Shafer Canyon and Upheaval Dome trails of the park.

I'm not sure what, exactly, engendered my ethereal state of mind. Could be my silent day, the seven-hour drive over the plateau, six hours of Abbey, Jerry Garcia's melodies, the vastness of the high desert landscape or, most likely, a cerebral stew containing some dose of each. I watch the setting sun ignite the Green River Gorge, locate the moonrise behind a cloud wisp and crawl off the ledge toward Moab. That night, ineluctable visions of sliding off canyon rims will preclude sleep.

This ephemeral canvas of the Mighty Five teases subsequent visits, nowhere more so than in Canyonlands. I comprehend the previous three parks, but can hardly claim a glimpse into this 337,598-acre wilderness, nearly 100,000 acres bigger than Capitol Reef, the second largest, and almost five times the area of Arches.

Entrance to Canyonlands' Needles section sits 100 miles south of the Island in the Sky portal. In a country where practically every hillock receives a name, sections of the Maze here remain largely unexplored. Even Abbey, worried that early-season snow might bring peril, exited the Maze prematurely.

Stars at sunrise

I wasn't prepared for Arches National Park.

"Desert Solitaire" rarely mentions the other Mighty Five parks; I assumed Abbey's environmental treatise focused primarily on Arches because of his familiarity with the 76,679-acre park. That is, until the sun peers over the La Sal Mountains and focuses its glare upon the North and South Windows as the moon sets behind Balanced Rock. Like a redheaded statuette, Arches seizes my attention in a room teeming with wilderness starlets.

Early morning sunshine flares ignite the rocks, hoodoos, arches and fins that litter the high desert floor, lighting preternatural rouge and dimensions that stretch beyond the familiar three. I can no more glance away when the sun coats Turret Arch than I can arrest my suddenly frenetic shutter finger.

Far from optical illusion, Arches obstructs vision. I force my eyes away from the Windows, but immediately confront Double Arch, more Matisse dance than sandstone impediment. Pushing past Double Arch, I battle between delving into the Cove of Caves and catching the last of fresh light on Balanced Rock. A debate rages: Hike to Delicate Arch or commit a couple of hours to Devils Garden, the 7.2-mile loop that avails the most arches per route in the park? I choose the latter.

Inevitably, I overthink the sunset, craving the capture of more landmarks than is physically possible during the economical winter sundown. I manage to catch soft light on the fins outside Sand Dune Arch, then dash back to witness the last decent rays retreat from the Windows as I enter the parking lot.

Wagered one sunset

My plans to listen to Abbey's final chapter also fade when, for the first time in the 10-CD set, the disc skips. Surely the desert sage would never permit his final sentences to broadcast from within one of these "sand-pitted, dust-choked iron dinosaurs." Chuckling, I pull over in the Garden of Eden, withdraw my softcover backup and begin "Bedrock and Paradox," "Desert Solitaire's" conclusion.

I discover that Abbey's own expectations to see this garden "all lit up in evening light" on his final night also went awry, when a storm strewn with clouds obscured the sun's rays. He'd had months, of course. I'd wagered one day, one evening, one sunset. And a shorter winter day at that.

Feeling foolishly forlorn, I place the book beside me, start the dinosaur and prepare to exit the park. When I look up, I see Balanced Rock black against the pastel sky. On the fifth night in the fifth of the Mighty Five National Parks, I step back into the frigid air.