2017 Grand Circle - Last Day in a National Park (Zion Day 2)

Today park 5 of 5 will be complete. We've done a LOT of walking in the last 12 days!

When we woke up this morning it was quite overcast - the temperature was in the high 60s - it felt great! For as long as it would last today, we would take it.

After breakfast we made our way into the park. We went directly to the park shuttle to take us to the stop for the Weeping Rock trail - "steep but short", was the description. A round trip of 1/2 mile. I've heard this before. Typically both the steepness and the length are underestimated. Or at least feel that way.

But it was an accurate description - it was very steep, but I made it up to the top in 10 minutes, even at my barely-faster-than-a-snail pace.

Weeping rock is a spot where a spring drips over a rock ledge:

Coming down steep paths is often worse than going up - much harder on the knees. This was no exception.

Next up was a 2+ mile round-trip easy hike on the Riverside Trail, a paved pathway that follows the Virgin River to the Narrows.

In addition to the overcast skies and relatively low temperatures, much of the path is covered with trees generating a lot of shade. This was great! A beautiful walk in the not-heat! Took about 40-something minutes to get to the end of the path, and where the Narrows trail begins.

People who were going to tackle the Narrows trail wore rented rubber boots. The river trail this time of year apparently is not as high as during the spring - we got the impression the boots would be enough. But it is still a tough trail and flash floods are always a danger.

Andy went out a short distance into the Narrows.

I waited in the shade while spotted rock squirrels scavenged for food. This little guy actually climbed into my lap for a second, and then jumped off when he realized I had nothing for him

It took us a little over 30 minutes to walk back. By this time, the trail was super crowded.

We went to the lodge again for lunch for our last meal in a National Park.

We decided we'd do one more hike, and then get in the car to explore the overlooks on the road in the eastern part of the park.

The last hike was another piece of the "Pa'rus" trail that we did the day before. We started in the same place (stop 2 on the bus line - the museum), but walked in the other direction towards the Visitor's Center.

This is a super easy trail - it's paved and even wheelchair accessible. But there is virtually no shade. Walking along the sidewalk in the afternoon blazing sun made it more difficult than it needed to be. By the time we dragged ourselves into the Visitor's center courtyard, assorted body parts were telling me in no uncertain terms that I was done walking for the day.

We re-grouped back at the hotel for a little bit, and then got in the car and started driving. Now that we sorta knew what we were looking for, we had a clue as to what we were doing.

We drove through the tunnels again, now understanding why we were waiting and watching for RVs and buses to come through.

We also now understood the signs about "Checkerboard" - a mountain that had a checkerboard scored into its surface. No idea how it got that way.

By far the highlight of the drive was getting to see Desert Big Horn Sheep

It was great to drive around in an air conditioned car!

We went to dinner at Blondie's Diner in Springdale. I had an elk-burger that tasted pretty much like a hamburger.

Tomorrow - we rejoin civilization! No, wait, forget that - we're going to Vegas.

2017 Grand Circle Day #11 - Zion

One thing we noticed really quickly about this hotel - the walls are paper thin. You can hear everything everybody is doing. Yey.

Breakfast is ok - there is a waffle maker! (This makes Andy happy). And skim milk! (This makes Amy happy).

Our first morning at Zion - first we have to figure out the shuttle bus situation. Similar to the town outside the Grand Canyon, there is a free shuttle service to the Visitor's Center. Unlike our experience in the Grand Canyon, the front desk person at the hotel makes it very clear that the bus stop is right next door in front of the Mexican restaurant. We ask if we need a park pass to get on the bus - she says, "you need a park pass to get into the park".

So with that little puzzle left to figure out, we go up to the bus stop - Andy held the bus for me as I toddled up the sidewalk.

Turns out the reason why we don't need park passes to get onto the bus is because the bus doesn't actually go into the park. It stops right our front, and we get to walk into the park with our individual passes.

We went into the Visitor's center assuming that's where we will find the requisite "Welcome to Zion" movie. Turns out it is at shuttle stop #2, the museum. 
After the movie, we discover there's at least a 15 minute wait to get on the shuttle - one comes every 5 minutes or so. Might have been faster to walk it.

We get there just in time for a Ranger talk about - you guessed it! The geology of Zion National Park. They are really big on geology at National Parks.

The movie (in the super air conditioned theater) tells us that there's lots of references to the "Old Testament" (in case you are wondering why I use quotation marks - it's because Jews call it Torah; "Old Testament" is not a Jewish concept). "Zion" apparently is a "quiet sanctuary" (and the Jewish homeland, but never mind). Other references include "The Patriarchs" - Abraham, Issac, and Jacob. 

Our first hike is the walk along a trail that is mostly flat and paved like a sidewalk. The actual round trip is 3.5 miles and 2 hours, but we only go 1/4 of the way - from Shuttle bus stop 2 to Shuttle bus stop 3. Even though it is a very easy walk, it is out in the blazing sun with rare rest stops in the shade. The heat is enough to slow me down, even though we are down to 4,000 ft elevation from 8,000 ft.

However, we made it to shuttle stop 3. And then it's time for lunch, so we take the shuttle two more stops to the lodge.

There's a "cafe" for the outside seating, but it is a zoo. We go to the indoor restaurant instead. Good air conditioning!

After lunch we walk the Emerald Pools Trail to the "Lower Pool". It is a beautiful walk, but the heat is unrelenting. So I just take my time.

Here is proof that I made it:

After completing the round trip, we came back to the lodge - I got a soda and Andy spent a bit too much time waiting his turn to get a fruit cup.

I know at this point that I am done with longish hikes for the day. We decide to take the shuttle bus and get off and on to see what there is to see.

We realize the only easy off/on stop is Big Bend, which is a little hard to see why it's called that from this photo:

We decided we were done for the day. We made our way back to the Visitor's Center; we stopped off at the market to buy bananas. We had a bit of a wait for the shuttle back into town. All in all the shuttle concept worked very well.

We had dinner at a restaurant called "The Spotted Dog" with this to look at while we ate:

Our next door neighbors are having a great time. Fortunately, they honored the "quiet time after 10:00 pm" rule.

Tomorrow - our last day in the last National Park of the Grand Circle

2017 Grand Circle Day #10 - Bye Bye Bryce!

Bryce Canyon Day 2

We had breakfast and checked out of the motel, not sad to leave it behind. Today is a travel day, but first a few things in Bryce to finish up.

On the way to the park is the trail to the Mossy cave and waterfall - on the "easy" list, which I have learned not to trust. But, in fact, this trail was not that bad. It followed the Virgin River and led to a mossy cave:

Back in the car, we drove into Bryce Canyon and headed to the Sunset Point overlook. There is a rim trail that starts at Sunset Point and ends at Sunrise Point (or vice versa). At Sunset Point is also the beginning of the Navajo trail that descends to the bottom of the "canyon". One look at the steepness of the path, and we knew it was a no-go for me, but Andy went down on his own.

Here's his photo of the formation called "Wall Street".

His round trip took about 20 minutes; in the meantime I took photos of chipmunks and squirrels (so far the sum total of the wildlife we've spotted, plus ravens).

We walked the super easy rim trail to Sunrise Point - a paved sidewalk!

We were in time to listen to ranger talk about the geology of the park and how it was formed.

The Queen's Garden trail starts at Sunrise Point. We had hopes of doing some part of it, but one look at it was obvious that was not going to happen - somewhat less steep than the Navajo trail, but that's not saying much.

So it was time for lunch. Turns out the lodge was a short walk away. We finished our visit to Bryce Canyon National Park with food.

The drive to Zion was a couple of hours - the challenge, as always, is figuring out the pit stop. Good news! The last turn before Zion is at the "Mt Carmel Junction" with a marvelous selection of gross gas station bathrooms to pick from!

We didn't actually figure this out till the next day, but we drove through the eastern section of Zion National Park on the way to Springdale to find our hotel. The mountains are spectacular

Plus we went through 2 tunnels. The second one turned out to be the Zion-Mt Carmel Tunnel, which is 1.1 miles long - completed in 1930 before huge trucks, buses and RVs were invented. So, when one of these huge things has to pass through the tunnel, they have to pay an extra fee and the Rangers stop all traffic in the tunnel to allow the behemoths to drive down the middle of the two lanes. All this we learned later; in the meantime, we sat waiting our turn for quite some time.

This is a glimpse of what we saw coming out of the tunnel:

Since we were passing by it anyway, we stopped off at the Visitor's Center to get a jump on the Ranger questions. Stepping out of the car, we noticed the rather dramatic difference between Bryce Canyon and Zion - about 20 degrees hotter.

It didn't help that the Ranger was not helpful - the first truly non-helpful Ranger we've met. He basically repeated the info in the newspaper handout we picked up at the entrance to the park. This being our 4th park, we've gotten quite good at reading these things. It's a matter of - are these "easy" trails actually easy? What are the most important things to try to see if we only have 2 days? Zippo. No help.

Except that now we know that we MUST use the park's shuttle bus - no cars are allowed in the center of the park. So how did we just drive through what we thought was the park? Ah, that's the East section. Of course.

Never mind. It's the end of the day, it's hot, and we have a hotel to find.

The parking lot is confusing, and we make a wrong turn somewhere and end up entering a campground. At least the Ranger at that point was helpful - turned us around and heading in the correct direction.

Springdale is a small National Park town, slightly bigger and somewhat more commercial than Tropic, UT (thank goodness!). We are looking for the Quality Inn - what's confusing is that it is also an RV/tent camp ground. Interesting combination.

The front desk person has all the personality of a robot - with minimal interest, she gives me directions to where our room is (around back in building "A"), where breakfast will be (around some other corner), and the wifi info.

Finding building A is easy enough - right next to the RV and tent camp. Our electronic keys seem to require a special touch or something. One of our keys doesn't work on the front door, and the other's key doesn't work on the room door.

BUT - it is freezing in the room, which is very good news (considering our luck with A/C in hotel rooms. BUT - the TV listings has no HBO! Oh no! When we call to the front desk to confirm, once again they are not particularly helpful - not seeming to be able to say "No, we don't have HBO". This means we will be watching Game of Thrones on Andy's computer again.

After plopping down our stuff, we get back in the car to find dinner. Google brings up a Chinese restaurant - when we find it, it is confusing as to what is going on: is it in fact the restaurant for the "Pioneer Lodge and Restaurant"? But the restaurant is called "Bamboo". Never mind, we figure it out and have a some really good Chinese food.

We watch GoT as soon as we get back. Then plan our our hikes for the next day.

Our last National Park!

2017 Grand Circle Day #9 Bryce Canyon Day 1

So. We're staying at a motel. And motels are motels. Unfortunately (or fortunately), our hotel in Moab was just awesome (Homewood Suites by Hilton). This motel (America's Best Inn and Suites) is a bit anticlimactic, at the very least.

Not the best night's sleep - too cold, too hot, the mattress is way too soft (even for me), plus the toilet randomly gurgles at inconvenient times (e.g. just as you're finally dozing off).

Really nice flat screen TV - but we are struggling to figure out how to control the volume. This should be fairly obvious, even on the most complicated of remote control devices, but for some reason it is not.

Anyway.

Breakfast is a motel breakfast affair - which is fine, but somehow disappointing that there is no waffle maker. There is a pancake maker, yey! Except it seems to be malfunctioning. We also noticed that we are the only English speaking people in the room - everybody else seems to be chatting away in Italian or French.

After breakfast, we continue on to our first day at Bryce Canyon, doing what is now our routine "first day at a park" thing - show up at the Visitor's Center and talk to the Ranger because we don't have a clue.

Good news! Unlike the Visitor's Center at Canyonlands, this one has actual flush toilets. And unlike Arches and Canyonlands, there is a lodge and restaurant that is easy to get to, so we don't have to bring lunch with us (lunches in the last two parks have been leftovers from dinner the night before). Plus since it's not un-G0dly hot out, we don't need to bring a gallon of water - we still need to stay hydrated (we are now at 8,000+ feet), but no need to chug 2 quarts of water by noon.

First on the list is a Ranger walk at 10:30 a.m., which turns out to be the same walk we would have taken ourselves - Bristlecomb Loop Trail to Rainbow Point. The Ranger described the kinds of trees in the area - the bristle comb pine trees can live up to 5,000 years; many of the trees in the park are 1,200 years or older:

I'm able to keep up with them for a while, but the second half of the loop seems to be 100% uphill and we lose them. We catch up with them literally at the end of the walk. We chatted with the Ranger about other things - I wanted to know the reality of 2 hikes listed as "easy". She confirmed that in fact they were not, and gave a couple of other suggestions instead.

Basically what we did was to drive to the very end of the park (18 miles) to do this walk. We then headed back in the direction of the Visitor's Center to stop at every viewpoint along the way.

All of them were great - not quite as spectacular as the Grand Canyon (I don't think anything will top that), but still gorgeous. Our "plan" (if you can call it that) was to stop at over looks until we got to the lodge, where we would stop for lunch.

Here are highlights of the many overlooks:

Natural Bridge (which is technically an arch)

What we thought was the amphitheater, but was not:

Then suddenly a thunderstorm blew in and the skies opened, just in time for lunch. Fortunately I had brought along rain ponchos, so we were somewhat less wet than everybody else huddled in the lodge until the rain stopped.

We made a couple more stops - two of them were blocked off because the parking lots were full. Our alternatives were - try to take the bus to see these stops and then not make it in time for the Ranger program at the Visitor's center at 5:00. Or just drive back to the Visitor's center for the Ranger program and kill some time.

Which is what we did. We watched the "welcome to Bryce Canyon" movie.

The Ranger talk was supposed to be outside, but apparently she had heard thunder when she went to the venue, so the program had to be moved inside to the theater. 

Turns out the Ranger is not a Ranger - she is a college intern in astronomy here at Bryce Canyon for the summer. She talked about how to use a planisphere and she did a great job. This is the planisphere we used:

Miller Planisphere

After the program, we drove back to one of the blocked off stops - Inspiration Point - which was now open. 

By the time we got there, the skies had opened up again. We sat in the car until it seemed to have slacked off. But, the walk up to the viewpoint was long and steep and the wind had kicked up - the combo was enough to send me back to the car to wait, while Andy went up to take this photo of Inspiration Point:




















We were done for the day after that. Googling restaurants in the area brought up one called the Stone Hearth Grille. It was not far from our motel  - hidden around the corner and under a bush, but terrific. If you ever happen to be in Tropic, UT, we highly recommend this restaurant.

Tomorrow: Check out in the morning, complete a few things left undone and then the 2 hour drive to Zion. MOST IMPORTANT THING:  get there, check in, have dinner in time for Game of Thrones at 9:00.

2017 Grand Circle Day #8 - The Long, Long Winding Road

Today was a travel day - we checked out of the Homewood Suites (highly recommend it - great hotel!) and started driving.

We had seen a park called Dead Horse Point on the map of parks - it's right next to Canyonlands. We assumed it was another National Park, so we decided to stop by this morning before heading to Bryce Canyon.

When we got there we found out it was a Utah State Park, not a National Park, which meant a $15 entrance fee. Ugh.

But at least the Visitor's Center had flush toilets! Yey!

We drove to the one and only overlook to Dead Horse Point

Which was about as much as we were going to do, so we went on our way.

During my research of google generated routes, I planned out a few stops for overlooks and bathrooms (of course) - most of the route was on I-70, followed by Federal Highway 89. Sure enough, we were on I-70 West (speed limit 85! Woohoo!) for quite some time before we saw a pullover for a gas station. Luckily we decided to fill up and take advantage of the facilities.

It turned out to be a really, really good move, because that was the last gas station (and flush toilets) we saw until we arrived at our hotel in Tropic 4 hours later.

We stopped at the Black Dragon Canyon overlook for a bathroom break and a quick lunch of some of the trail food we bought the first day at Arches. Not what we originally had in mind, but it seemed that we were not going to see what we thought would be a standard issue interstate rest stop.

Black Dragon Canyon

It became apparent that Goggle was taking us on the scenic route through endless miles of unpopulated Utah.

Miles and miles later, we came across the last bathroom we would see of any kind until we arrived at our hotel. Of course, it was a port-o-potty, but on this vacation I've long since given up on being picky.

Charming thing about this particular bathroom - apparently it was used for shooting practice - not while I was in it, thank goodness. In the photo below, you'll notice the shooter kinda focused on the female figure. Not creepy at all.

Back on the long and winding road, we experienced a cow-jam (this is the open range, after all). We sat for a few minutes waiting for the cows to finishing crossing the road - the last one had a keen eye on her babies, who having a great time playing and, well not horsing around because they weren't horses, but calve-ing around. And even after the rest of the group had crossed onto the shoulder, she stood there watching us in the middle of the road. 

Here she is circled in this photo. Watching. Waiting for us to make a wrong move.

Evil Cow

Finally, she also strolled to the opposite shoulder. We creept past her at about 5 mph. She gave us the hairy bovine eyeball the entire time.

We really were in the middle of nowhere. Randomly we might pass through a tiny town, but mostly we saw farms and ranches. And more farms and more ranches.

We arrived in Tropic right around 5:00 p.m. - which was actually right on time. It just seemed longer than was because of the back roads.

Moab is a bustling little town. Tropic is not. One street. Motels on either side of the one street. One restaurant. One general store (conveniently attached to the restuarant).

Our hotel (America's Best Value Inn and Suites) is actually a motel. Luckily there was one room left on the ground level - the flight of steps up to the second level is a killer.

We walked across the parking lot to the one restaurant for dinner. It rained while we were inside - when we came out there was a magnificent full-arc double rainbow

Tomorrow - Day 1 of Bryce Canyon

2017 Grand Circle Day #7 - Arches, redux

Ok, I realize I'm a bit of a Star Trek nerd. Can't help seeing Star Trek references in the rock formations at Arches.

When I saw formations like this:

I thought of this:

And Delicate Arch (or any arch, for that matter)

reminded me of this:

Ok, fellow Star Trek nerds - what are the names of the episodes where I got these from?

Anyway, back to the story.

We had a couple of goals to finish up our visit to Arches: a Ranger walk at 9:30 and the Devil's Garden hike up to Landscape Arch

Today was decidedly warmer than previous days - already feeling it at 9:30 while we waited for the Ranger at the Courthouse Towers trailhead. Fortunately our group was small and we didn't walk very far - though a smidge difficult over rocks, nothing as terrible as the day before. The Ranger talked about the formation of the arches and the kinds of life that survive in the desert environment. At the end of his talk, he handed out information on how to find dinosaur tracks (preferably with an off-road capable vehicle).

The big challenge for the day - the hike up to the Landscape Arch. It was described as "easy" (which now always makes me skeptical when I hear that). But it was, in fact, relatively easy. It was pretty flat for about 75% of the way and the path was hard packed dirt. There was only one rock that required a little scrambling. Took some breaks where shade or a sitting place popped up - it was, after all, mostly uphill.

As we approached the end, the path became a mini-roller coaster - up and down, up and down, a couple of times with a steep incline. Even still, it was not a bad walk.

At last we came to a sand pit with this view of the Landscape Arch:

Which was close enough for me. Andy went further through the sand pit in search of the "double O" arch, but couldn't find it.

The entire trip took a bit over an hour - it was so hot at this point and I was so tired, I didn't think there would much more walking for me today.

We drove to a picnic area to have our lunch - shared a table with a teenager whom we assumed belonged to the big family from Italy at the next table.

The car's temperature gauge read 89 degrees as we made our way to our last walk in Arches to the Skyline Arch. It felt every bit of the 89 degrees - low humidity or no.

This is the Skyline Arch:

Which was close enough for me. Andy went further through the sand pit in search of the "double O" arch, but couldn't find it.

As we made our way out of the park, I caught this photo of the Balanced Rock looking like a thumb on a giant hand.

We were back at the hotel by 3:00, which is pretty early, but a good excuse for a nap. I also did the unthinkable - I did a laundry! Horrors! I never, ever do laundry while on vacation! It's my motto - if I have to cook or clean or do laundry, it's not a vacation. BUT, OTOH, we have this timing issue when we get back on August 19 - we have to get up the next morning and leave for South Carolina ASAP, with not a lot of clothing changes left.

BUT - in this hotel there's a laundry room for guests AND I could buy a single load box of Tide from the front desk AND also a bunch of quarters AND the laundry room is literally just down the hall from our room AND we had the time AND it would solve the problem for next weekend.

So there you are. Ugh. Laundry done.

We went to dinner at the Baja Cafe down the street. We have left overs for lunch on the road tomorrow.

Day #8 Dead Horse Point - a very small park not much out of the way as we leave Moab and Arches and head towards Bryce Canyon. Cooler temperatures - at 9,000 feet. Slo-mo walking, here we come again.