My introduction to the National Park System came during my teenage years when me and a few buds would hitch-hike from our town in southeast Michigan to the Smoky Mountains National Park which straddles Tennessee and North Carolina. We made such excursions during “Spring Break,” when other kids were heading to the beaches of Florida. It would take us a few days to get down there and back and the rest of the time we spent camping and/or backpacking in the shadow of Clingmans Dome.

Even in those days, the Smokies were heavily visited and full of hokey, touristy kitsch. But they represented a youthful adventure to us and, I must say, one of these days I hope to get back to see how much things might have changed (not the mountains themselves, of course, but rather the degree to which the Park has been over-run by tourism).

When I graduated from High School and moved out West to attend the University of Montana, I started my new life by taking a summer job with the United States. Forest Service (USFS) in the Shoshone National Forest, in northwestern Wyoming -- not too far from the legendary Yellowstone National Park. My boss -- a wiry 5’6” cowboy named “Butch”-- told me that now that I lived in the West that I would be better off spending my time in the National Forests and not the National Parks. Butch had a point, as I was soon to discover based on my visits to Yellowstone and Glacier Parks.

True, I was astounded by the natural beauty and grandeur of those two Parks but, as I spent more and more time in the nearby National Forests (the Lolo, Bitterroot, Flathead, Clearwater and others), I soon realized that the Forests provided a much, much greater bang for the buck (both the currency and the critter). Now, all these years later, while I have visited plenty of our Parks, I have spent vastly more time in our Forests (and on the Bureau of Land Management public lands). I have also come to the conclusion that comparing the National Parks and the National Forests is somewhat like sizing up the differences between emeralds and rubies -- why bother?

Of all the states that I have been to, Utah is perhaps the one I return to the most. And here again, while I have camped in most of National Parks found within Utah, I have spent much more time in the National Forests found within the “Beehive State.” Recently though (this past September), I had the chance to finally visit one of the National Parks in Utah that I have missed all these years: Canyonlands National Park. And it’s funny, because my original plan was to visit Wyoming’s Wind River Range (part of the Bridger-Teton National Forest) but the fates intervened and, due to a 50 degree (F) drop in temperatures and a freak snowstorm predicted to dump nearly a foot in the higher elevations of the northern Rockies, my friend Fran and I decided to explore Canyonlands instead.

Fran and I have known each other since High School and we still manage to periodically get together for camping, canoeing and backpacking trips. Fran had suggested Canyonlands because, about 10 years back, he and his family of four had spent several days hiking and camping in the “Needles District” of the Park and the whole lot of them had been amazed by the place.

When Fran and I discussed the change of plans from the Wind Rivers to Canyonlands, he mentioned that his wife and daughter would also like to join us for at least part of the trip. While we had originally planned to backpack for four days in the Wind Rivers, we knew that our last-minute change of venue would mean that backpacking would be out (due to the perpetual scarcity of back-country permits in Canyonlands) and that we would need to content ourselves with car-camping and day hikes. This was fine by me as my decrepit old knees always make carrying a heavy backpack something of an ordeal.

After Fran and I had ironed out the details of our new plan, he casually mentioned that he and his wife (Frankie) had recently been going through a “rough patch” in their marriage of 30 years but that he predicted that it wouldn’t be noticeable to me and that he hoped, in fact, that a trip like this might help to reveal to them both how vital their relationship was and how essential it was that they remain together. For a moment, I was struck dumb by this revelation (Dr. Phil, I ain’t) but, after a very pregnant pause, I finally stammered out a: “Hey, yeah, whatever man, you guys know what’s best.”

Now I must say, one of the many reasons I am a life-long bachelor is that, quite simply, I have a very low tolerance for drama or interpersonal tension. So, while my initial reaction to the switch from backpacking to car-camping was one of quiet elation, I was now beginning to get a queasy feeling that I might be stepping into a four-day outing with Burton and Taylor in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” Only time would tell.

Because my drive from Pinetop to Canyonlands was approximately half that of my friends’ drive down to the Park from their home in Montana, I expected to be the first one to show up at the rendezvous. As it turned out, when I got to the campsite that Frankie had booked a few days in advance (a gorgeous solitary site by the name of “Split Top,” so named because the campsite’s dominate feature was a somewhat shallow cave with a natural slab roof that had a narrow fracture running its entire 75-feet length), Fran and Frankie’s daughter, Eva, was already present (having driven solo in her own car) and her parents were still en route.

While I hadn’t seen Eva since she was in Elementary School, about 15 years ago, she was instantly recognizable as being Fran and Frankie’s offspring, given the obvious physical resemblances. Since both of us had endured long drives, we immediately agreed that we should take a hike over to the nearby Cave Spring area -- an ancient site of habitation by native peoples and then, much later, by Anglos -- as evidenced by a still intact, historic cowboy camp (complete with corral and a rustic outdoor “kitchen”).

By the time Eva and I had finished our hike and exploration of the local ruins, Fran and Frankie had shown up in camp and we all exchanged COVID-approved elbow knocks and fist bumps. We all did a quick catch-up of how our respective drives went and then put ourselves to setting up our camps. After tents were pitched and cots unfurled, we commenced to setting up a group kitchen underneath the cloven “Split Top.” Since the storm that was bringing snow to the northern Rockies had also sent a tentacle of clouds that extended as far south as Canyonlands, we thought it prudent to have the kitchen situated in a place that was naturally protected from any potential rains. The cave was also the place where the Park had put in a fire-pit (complete with a swiveling grill) and two picnic tables.

While Fran and Frankie took the Cave Spring hike, I busied myself unloading and splitting firewood (oak and aspen I had brought from Pinetop and which had been lying in my woodpile for enough years that references told me it no longer posed a threat of spreading bark beetles or other parasites and pathogens). Before long we had a bit of an early evening drizzle and were all happy to be sitting around a big fire inside the cave and feeling like a tribe of troglodytes. This mood was eventually given a welcome change of pace when Eva brought a guitar from her vehicle and proceeded to play and sing one of her own compositions. The song was so beautiful that I was utterly dumbstruck that she hadn’t already been signed by RCA to begin a long and successful recording career. But then I remembered that the recording industry was in tatters and that nobody short of Tyler Swift was making it as singer/songwriter anymore.

The next day dawned cloudy and cool enough for sweatshirts. We had a leisurely breakfast and eventually drove the few miles to a popular Trail Head and set off on our first full day hike (a route that took us along Big Springs and Squaw Canyons, which, including short side trail explorations, wound up being a 12-mile day). When evening came, it was dry this time but cloudy and threatening rain so once again we were the Clan of the Cave Bear sitting around a primeval fire. During the evening’s pickin’ and strummin', Fran’s whole family sang along together and passed the guitar around amongst them. It was uplifting to see a family, cozy around a campfire, playing and singing well- known songs and originals. All three of them possessed such amazing musical skills and talents that I wondered to what degree a musical gift is “nature versus nurture.”

On our third day, we hiked the 11- mile loop known as Peekaboo Springs and Salt Creek Canyon. As with the day before, the terrain was varied and included hiking some very steep grades (some requiring Park-installed ladders); traversing large, sandstone boulders; skirting several precarious cliff edges; slithering through a couple narrow slot canyons; walking along a sandy, rain-refreshed riparian corridor and, virtually everywhere, being amazed by bizarre rock formations (some with a few aboriginal pictographs).

Since this concludes the full group part of our Canyonlands trip, I will save the backpacking part of the trip that Fran and I did until the second and concluding part of this story in next month’s edition of “Outdoors Southwest.” If ever there was a quintessential southwestern landscape, the area where Fran and I backpacked in the Park’s Elephant Canyon and Chesler Loop Area certainly qualifies.