Zion National Park

I survived my second night in temperatures in the 30s in Bryce Canyon without much difficulty. The plastic bags on my feet made a huge difference! One of them came loose during the night and it didn’t take long for my foot to become so cold it woke me up, but I re-secured it and was back to sleep in no time. Once I awoke for the morning, I packed up camp as quickly as possible so I could find refuge from the cold in my car with the heat cranked up.

The drive from Bryce Canyon to Zion was only around an hour and a half. Once I got close I started looking for campground options. I had tried to reserve a campsite in the park online but it said they were all already booked, so my hopes were not high for finding anything inside of the park. My route was going to take me through the East Entrance; where as most of the “attractions” were closer to the South Entrance, which would also be my route of departure. There was a campground right outside of the East Entrance that I considered staying at, but I pulled into and got a bad vibe, so I decided to take my chances on the other side of the park. The drive through the park was very windy as I descended into the canyon. I also had to go through a mile long tunnel, which was kind of neat. Prior to reaching the South Entrance, I came across one of the campgrounds and surprisingly it did not have a “Campground Full” sign up. I promptly drove in and secured a spot. As I was setting up camp, I heard a rustling in the tall grasses nearby. I apparently had chosen a campsite that also served as the home of an unusual little critter. He looked like a gerbil, but I didn’t think they were wild animals. According to this website they are but not in the US, so who knows. I tried to get a picture of him, but by the time I got back with my camera he was gone and not to be seen again.

Zion National Park doesn’t allow private vehicles into the main section of the park during the peak season, so you have to take a shuttle instead. I really liked this because I didn’t have to move my car or find parking the entire time I was at the park. After setting up camp and eating lunch, I jumped on the shuttle at the visitor’s center and headed to the back of the park – a place called The Temple of Sinawava. You’ve got me. The shuttle drivers did all sorts of talking about the Biblically named places in the park and about the Mormon pioneers who named them, but this one, nada. I’m guessing something Native American. Anyways, the Riverside Walk trail is back there and at the end you start wading through the river towards a place called The Narrows. I took my time getting to the back and did a couple of river crossings but soon became nervous about falling over because of the current and ruining my good camera. I decided that perhaps I would come back later with my cheap camera in a plastic bag and go further.

A cheeky squirrel along the Riverside Walk trail. The squirrels and chipmunks were even bolder here than at Bryce Canyon.

The trail to The Narrows

After that hike, I headed to another area called Weeping Rock where I hiked both the Weeping Rock trail and the Hidden Canyon Trail. The former was short but steep, but the latter was longer, although still only a mile one way, as well as steep. It also came with a warning against people with a fear of heights attempting it. I do have a fear of heights but I can generally get past it in most situations. I figured I could always turn back if needed. I did make it to theHidden Canyon although there were a few scary moments for me. I ate a snack there before heading back out.

Hidden Canyon

It was still relatively early in the day at this point, so I decided to hike yet another trail. This time I created a 3 mile loop by combining the Middle Emerald Pool Trail, Upper Emerald Pool Trail, Kayenta Trail, and an unnamed trail along the river. It was another nice hike, but the “Emerald” pools weren’t anything too spectacular. I would hesitate to call them emerald. Since this hike began and ended at the Zion Lodge where there is a café, I treated myself to frozen yogurt. It was quite tasty, especially after being outside in the sun and heat all day.

Zion Canyon and the Virgin River from the Middle Emerald Pool Trail

The Lower Emerald Pool

It was full of tadpoles

Upper Emerald Pool

A butterfly I encountered along the Kayenta Trail

After my break, I got back onto the shuttle to head back to my campsite. On the spur of the moment I decided to jump back off at the Canyon Junction stop and walk the rest of the way back on Pa’rus Trail. I was so tired by the time I reached my campsite. I had hiked about 10 miles that day. I quickly ate dinner and got ready for bed. I read until it was dark enough to sleep and then zonked out.

Views from the Pa'rus Trail

My plan for my second day was to hike the Angel’s Landing and Watchman Trails before heading back to the Riverside Walk trail again. The Angel’s Landing Trail was to be my longest individual hike of my stay at Zion (5 miles round trip with an elevation gain of 1488 ft). It also came with a warning against people with a fear of heights doing it but since the Hidden Canyon Trail had gone as well as it did, I figured I’d give it a go. This was despite the fact that I had heard that there was a section with some odd hundred feet drop on one side and an even larger some odd hundred feet drop on the other. Things started off well. The first two miles went by fairly easily given the elevation I was gaining. I made it through the section called Walter’s Wiggles and soon came upon the final half mile. It looked daunting, but I was determined to at least give it a try. I started up but eventually reached a point that I just couldn’t go any further. I knew that physically I could easily reach the top but my mind was saying no way. I was to the point that my fear was making more unbalanced so I turned back. At the time I turned back I thought that I was really close to making it to the top and was so disappointed in myself for giving up, but after I got a further back and gained that perspective I realized that I had barely made a dent in the final half mile by the point I turned around. That made feel a little better, plus I saw what was waiting for me further down the trail and knew I never would have made it. I spent a bit of time hiking another trail that was up there before heading down, so I did get to enjoy the scenery from the top of the canyon.

Walter's Wiggles looking up

Walter's Wiggles looking down

A sign I encountered right before beginning the last half mile of the trail. I did not encounter one of these at the Hidden Canyon Trail...

Looking down from where I decided I could not go any further

Looking up from where I decided I could not go any further. To me it looked like it ended just around that bend and I still couldn't make myself go any further.

There is someone in this photo in jeans and a pink shirt just below my turn around point.

All of Angel's Landing - I still had such a long way to go.

Views from the Angel's Landing Trail

View of the Court of the Patriarchs - the three white peaks are called Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob

Compared to the Angel’s Landing Trail, the Watchman Trail was a piece of cake and I flew through it in nearly half the time the trail guide had estimated it taking.

View from the Watchman Trail

After completing the Watchman Trail, I did swap out my camera and head back to the Riverside Walk Trail. I quickly made my way through the first mile back to the water section of the trail and headed up the river. I was quickly past my turn around point from the previous day, but my progress slowed once I rounded a bend and saw people in water up over their waste. I hadn’t been prepared that. The depth of the water in and of itself didn’t bother me, I just hadn’t dress appropriately to get my clothes wet since everything I had encountered on my first trip was at most knee deep. I was wearing quick dry items, but they weren’t going to dry fast enough for me to get back on the shuttle to my campsite. Had I known, I would have brought something to change into. I also learned that trekking poles would also have been handy because the number of times I came close to getting wet from losing my balance on the rocks in the river. Ultimately, I turned back again but with the resolve to return again someday completely prepared to make my way up river.

By the time I did make it back to the shuttle, I was starving. I had once again hiked at least 10 miles. I didn’t feel like the peanut butter and honey sandwich waiting to be made back at my campsite was going to make a dent in my appetite, so I decided to treat myself by getting a burger and French fries at the café at the Zion Lodge. It was so good, although I think anything that wasn’t peanut butter and honey at that point would have tasted fabulous. Even though I had devoured a large quantity of food, I was still hungry and capped off my meal with a vanilla ice cream cone. Yummy! Then it was back to my campsite. It was still fairly early, but I got ready for bed and passed my time reading until it was dark enough to go to sleep. I was so tired.

Bryce Canyon National Park

Along my route to Bryce Canyon, I encountered a sign on the highway that said “No services next 106 miles.” That one really made do an assessment of what was going on in my car. Plenty of gas – check, water – check, food – check, okay, good to go.

I arrived in Bryce Canyon around 1:00 in the afternoon. Prior to entering the park, I obtained a campsite, set up camp, and ate lunch. I stayed at a place called Ruby’s Campground. Basically, this person Ruby has a monopoly on the entire town. She seems to own the campground, the majority of the hotels, the restaurants, the horseback and helicopter tours, and even a little old fashioned village with ice cream shops and such. The campground itself wasn’t anything to write home about, but it did have hot showers. It seems to me that the nicer campsites don’t have access to running water and showering facilities, so there is definitely a trade off. I like that I have been able to experience both. It is allowing me to stay in some nice places without going too long without a shower.

Once I entered the park, I headed towards the visitor’s center in order to try and figure out my plan of attack. I wanted to know where the best locations for viewing the sunset was (turns out Bryce Canyon is a better sunrise place, so I changed those plans) and where and what time the astronomy thing on Tuesday night I had read about in the little paper they hand out when you enter was. I decided that since I still had the better part on Monday to work with that I would drive all the way into the park and stop at each of the viewpoints and I came back out and save the hiking for Tuesday. Also, the majority of the hiking trails are in the front of the park.

The furthest point in Bryce Canyon has Rainbow Point and Yovimpa Point – elevation 9115 ft – the highest elevation in the park. My first thought was okay, nice, but nothing spectacular. Having just come from Canyonlands, the views here were nothing in comparison. I remained hopeful that they would get better. As I proceeded outward, the canyons did start getting a bit more interesting, but it wasn’t until I reached Bryce Point, which overlooks Bryce Canyon, that I saw something amazing. I’m not even really sure how to describe what I was seeing. The canyon was full of these things called hoodoos. My pictures will have to do the describing for me. I finished up my viewpoint hopping and headed out of the park for the evening. I needed to pick up a few items at the market before returning to the campsite for the evening.

View from Yovimpa Point

View of Agua Canyon - I think this rock formation looks like an angry old queen

View of Natural Bridge, allow it is actually and arch

View of Bryce Canyon from Bryce Point

Views of Bryce Canyon from Inspiration Point

Close up of the hoodoos from Sunset Point

View of Cryce Canyon from Sunset Point

View of Bryce Canyon from Sunrise Point

The temperature for that evening was forecast to be in the mid- to upper-30s, I can’t remember exactly what, so I knew it was going to be a cold night in my tent. I was sure to bundle up with layers and enclosed myself inside my sleeping as much as possible. For the most part, this warded off the cold with the exception of my feet. They were the only thing cold during the night, but they were cold enough to make getting a good night’s sleep difficult. I looked at my alarm clock several times wishing morning to come. Finally, at 5:15AM, I got out of bed to head back into the park to catch the sunrise. I was hoping the sun would warm things up considerably while I was out since I was planning to return to bed afterwards.

Like my sunset at Canyonlands, the sunrise at Bryce Canyon was not all that it could have been. There was a lot of cloud cover, so the sun, while it rose, was never given the chance to reflect off of the hoodoos in the canyon.

Sunrise over Bryce Canyon from Byrce Point

When I returned to my campsite, I threw my dirty laundry and extra plastic bags into the bottom of my sleeping bag. I also wrapped a couple of plastic bags around my feet for added insulation. That seemed to have done the trick because I was able to sleep soundly until 9:30. I hope that it continues to do the trick for Tuesday night since it is forecasted to be only 35 degrees.

After breakfast, I headed into the park to complete the first of the two hikes I wanted to do, a combination of the Queen’s Garden and Navajo Loop trails – 3 miles and 580 feet of elevation loss and gain – not too difficult. I was really looking forward to this hike because I had been able to see the trail the day before from the viewpoints overlooking Bryce Canyon. I started at Sunset Point, walked along the ridge to Sunrise Point, and then descended into the canyon. It was spectacular walking among the hoodoos.

Views of Bryce Canyon from the Queens Garden Trail

The Queen Victoria rock formation, hence the name of the trail

Views of Bryce Canyon on the connection trail between the Queens Garden trail and the Navajo Loop trail

A rather bold little chipmunk

Views of Bryce Canyon from the Navajo Loop trail

The Two Bridges rock formations

After completing my hike, I ate lunch in a little picnic area near Sunset Point. I saw this really pretty blue and black bird, but the darn thing wouldn’t hold still long enough for me to take its picture. After lunch I set off for the final two places I wanted to visit during my time here - the viewpoint for Fairyland Canyon, just outside of the park gate, and the Mossy Cave trail, a part of the park not accessible though the main entrance.

It took me longer to drive to the Fairyland Canyon view point than I spent there. I think once you spend enough time in one place everything starts looking the same. Off to the Mossy Cave Trail I went. This trail was just under a mile round trip and there were two separate end points. One was at a waterfall and the other at Mossy Cave. I decided to save Mossy Cave for last because the description sounded quite spectacular, promising ice draperies that last into the summer. The water fall was nice and seemed in stark contrast to the desert surrounding it. The “stream” that the waterfall was part of is actually a man made irrigation ditch that settlers back in the 1880’s dug so that they would have a constant water supply throughout the year. As far as drainage ditch’s go, this is the nicest one I’ve seen.

I then headed toward Mossy Cave and was quickly disappointed. The promised ice draperies were long gone and honestly, the cave isn’t that great either. It’s not even that big. It was a nice hike though, with lots of flowers along the way, and I guess that is the most important part.

Fairyland Canyon

Views from the Mossy Cave trail

Waterfall near Mossy Cave

Mossy Cave

The day has been overcast and chilly, so my plan for the rest of the day is to stay warm, which likely means spending as much time indoors as possible. At least it gave me time to catch up on my blog writing. Given the clouds, I do not have high hopes for my star gazing this evening, so I may try to head to bed early and get an early start towards Zion National Park in the morning.

Canyonlands National Park

When I arrived at Canyonlands National Park there was no “Campground Full” sign looming in the ranger station window, but I was still sure to ask about it.  I was given a 50/50 chance of one of the 12 campsites still being available, so I headed straight back to the campgrounds.  When I arrived, I was delighted to see that there were several options to choose from.  I let myself be picky and chose what I thought to be the prettiest, and it may just be the prettiest campsite I’ve had the entire trip.  I quickly set up camp and ate lunch so that I could set out exploring.  I decided to work my way from the back to the front so that tomorrow I could finish things up on my way out of the park.  Since Bryce Canyon was only about a 5 hour drive away and I already knew that the in park campgrounds were full, I didn’t feel the need to leave Canyonlands first thing in the morning.

My campsite.  I think I got the best one in the whole grounds.

From a bit further away

Pinecone on a tree near my campsite

The road that the campground is on one of the branches off of the main road, so I started by visiting the end of that road.  It wasn’t a canyon per se, but rather something that they called “Upheaval Dome.”  There are a couple of competing theories about how it was formed, one of them has to do with salt and the other a meteor.  The meteor theory seems a bit more exciting to me, but it seems like science is a bit more supportive of the salt theory.  I did the hike up to the rim so that I could look into it and it was pretty neat.  After I returned to my car I started back towards the main road being sure to pull off at all of the view points and sights along the way to take pictures.  The only other “major” attraction along this road was Whale Rock.  I stopped and took a picture.  I also debated doing the hike to the top, but I was feeling pretty tired and wanted to be able to do a couple of other hikes, so I opted against it.

Upheaval Dome - the clouds weren't cooperating for my photo

Whale Rock (from a bit further away than the start of the trail head)

View point between the campground road and Whale Rock

Once I got back to the main road, I drove all the way out to Grand View Point, and it was a grand view.  From here there was a one mile (2 miles out and back) hike along the rim of the canyon out to a point (I don’t know what the technical term is, but it was a peninsula-type thingy that jutted out into the canyon).  The view was well worth the hike.  It was amazing to be nearly surrounded by such a vast canyon.

Views from Grand View Point and the rim trail

After completing that hike, I continued making my way out towards the front of the park.  When I made it back to the turn-off to the campsite I realized that I would likely be able to see the entire park that day.  It wouldn’t include any long hikes, but I was so tired at this point that I was totally okay with that.  I decided that I would head out to the front of the park and start working my way back towards the campground turn-off.  There was one more hike I wanted to do and it was near the turn-off, so I figured this would give me a bit of a rest.  

Buck Canyon

Schafer Canyon

The last hike I completed was approximately a half mile loop that took me out to Mesa Arch.  Yes, another arch.  It was a nice arch, with a view of yet another arch through it, so that was cool.  The second arch was called Washer Woman Arch and, as I’m sure you have surmised, it looked like a woman doing the wash.

Cactus flowers along the Mesa Arch Trail

Mesa Arch

Washerwoman Arch

Me in front of Mesa Arch with Washerwoman Arch visible behind me

A deer along the Mesa Arch trail

After that, I was pooped and ready for bed, but it was only 5:00.  I headed back to my campsite to relax for a bit.  I ate dinner and read my book all the while trying to stay out of the sun.  It was hot, and I had been out in for the past 10 hours.  I really wanted to go to bed, but I knew that if I let myself go to sleep, I would not be able to sleep through the night.  I kept myself busy in order to fight off the drowsiness until it was nearing sunset.  I then headed out to the Green River Overlook near the campgrounds with the hopes of taking in a spectacular sunset.  I did see the sunset, but it was unfortunately less than spectacular.  It was a bit too cloudy and the skies never turned any magnificent colors.  Oh well…

Sunset at Green River Overlook

I went immediately to bed once I returned to my campsite and had the best night of camping sleep ever.  I guess getting up at 6:00AM and hiking nearly 10 miles will make you not notice the hardness of the ground.  I think I slept close to 10 hours before awaking the next morning.

The ritual of tearing down camp proceeded as usual and I set off in the direction of Bryce Canyon National Park.  Again, with a gas station in my sights in which to brush my teeth and purchase some coffee since there was no running water at the Canyonlands campsite.