LEE’S FERRY, Ariz.— As a pandemic ravaged the world, Mark Malchoff was preparing to drop off it for a while.
The Plattsburgh, N.Y., resident’s group of 11 departed Thursday morning for 22 days on rafts, deep in the Grand Canyon, where they would have no contact with the outside world. On the eve of their launch, they weighed excitement and nervousness.
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On one hand, there is no better quarantine than complete isolation in the wilderness, they said. On the other: What will the world look like when they re-emerge? Will they be able to get home? What if one of them is already sick with Covid-19 and doesn’t know it yet?
Around the country, as Americans were hunkering down in their homes to help slow the spread of the new coronavirus, some were setting off into the wilderness to avoid civilization. Many national parks waived entrance fees, even as they closed their visitors’ centers and more crowded attractions.
Some local communities, however, urged people not to visit national parks, afraid of the toll on rural health facilities if tourists brought the virus to the small towns around them.
A group of rafters return to land on Wednesday at a pickup point near Pearce Ferry Rapid in Arizona, after a 28-day expedition.
Five members of Mr. Malchoff’s group backed out, afraid they could contract or spread the virus while traveling from the Northeast to Arizona. But Mr. Malchoff was unwilling to cancel the long-planned chance to raft the Grand—an opportunity awarded to private rafters only through a high-odds lottery that most enter for years without winning.
“I’m 65 and I had to go through two airports to get here,” Mr. Malchoff said, acknowledging some nervousness. But, he said “I’m not getting any younger. This opportunity may not come around again.”
His group was among the last to make it. Friday, the National Park Service said that it would suspend Grand Canyon river-trip launches, beginning Tuesday, until May 21.
In Moab, Utah, the base for exploring Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance urged visitors not to come for fear of spreading the virus in the town and overwhelming a tiny local health system.
Some small tourist towns, such as those in Colorado’s ski country, have been hit disproportionately with coronavirus cases from visitors who flock from around the world. The wilderness alliance noted that hotels and camping in many areas of southeastern Utah have already been closed.
“Rural communities at the doorstep of America’s red rock wilderness face serious challenges to providing health-care services to residents,” the organization wrote. “There are few resources to care for sick people in rural hospitals, including Moab…which has only two ventilators and 17 hospital beds. Please, stay home.”
John Montgomery’s group of nine emerged from the Grand Canyon on Wednesday.
Tom Martin, founder of River Runners for Wilderness, emphasized the distinction between crowded sights or trails and wilderness experts setting out on self-contained trips.
“Wilderness is about small groups traveling together in a world that can kill them,” Mr. Martin said.
Near urban areas, city dwellers escaped being locked in with some fresh air.
In San Francisco, local residents took a break from an area-wide home lockdown Thursday to visit the beaches and trails of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
As group of rafters came off the river there was still no cell service.
For Sarah Bertram, 38 years old, it was a space where her children, ages 6 and 4, could get out and run, she said. Patrick Moore, 37, hiked up from the beach to take a break from working from home as a salesman, saying he is trying to stay emotionally well. Dru Cronin and Grace Martinez thought a national park would offer more space away from other people than a city park.
“It’s just more open and easier to keep a safe distance,” said Ms. Martinez, 24, on a bluff above the ocean. “Plus, the view is better.”
As some prepared to go into the wild, others came out of it with no idea what they would be meeting back home.
Ann Montgomery’s group of nine emerged from the Grand Canyon on Wednesday after being on the river 28 days, since Feb. 20, when the virus had made little impact on U.S. soil. On Day 18 of the trip, growing curious, Ms. Montgomery used an emergency satellite device to send a message to her 87-year-old mother in Anacortes, Wash., asking for news from home.
“My mom said, ‘Everything’s changed now,’” Ms. Montgomery said.
As the group came off the river and de-rigged their rafts, there was still no cell service and no one to greet them with news but an unexpected Wall Street Journal reporter and photographer.
Jay Kenton, 62, from Corvallis, Wash., was full of increasingly incredulous questions.
The virus had spread across the country? Schools were really closed in more places than Washington? They couldn’t go out to dinner in Flagstaff? Grocery stores were running out of food? Was the stock market OK?
“Well, you’re just full of good news,” he said.
A view of the road and desert about an hour away from Pearce Ferry Rapid in Arizona.
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—Jim Carlton and Ben Kesling contributed to this article.
Write to Elizabeth Findell at Elizabeth.Findell@wsj.com
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