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Roger here.... The opening photo shows one of our first views of Capitol Reef National Park. I can already tell that our week here will not be a disappointment. But first, I will tell you about our last hours at Bryce.
Our last day at Bryce. What to do? We had talked about doing a four-mile hike with the typical aerobic, what goes down must come up theme of Bryce Canyon. However, the weather forecast hinted at the possible chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon. One of Bryce Canyon National Park's dubious boasts is that it has the second highest number of lightning strikes in the entire state of Utah. Dianne does not like lightning. Once you commit to going down into the canyon, considerable effort and time are involved to get out. I would not want to be with Dianne in the canyon during a storm knowing that it would take an hour to get out. I wouldn't like it either :-). So we opted to make the day simpler by taking a car ride to the furthest point of the park, Rainbow Point.
There were many pull-outs along the way that provided glimpses of the amazing features below. So far, no hint of a storm.
This is probably not a good analogy, but in my opinion, the views at Bryce Canyon are so vivid, beautiful and intense, that they seem to scream at you.
Still no thunderstorm.... so we opted to take a short, one-mile hike at Rainbow Point. This was an easy one. Minimal elevation change with cool, shady vistas.
This particular trail was named after the Bristlecone Pine trees that are prevalent on the canyon edge. These trees are the oldest living organisms on the planet, with an average age of 1500 years. The lonely tree below that Dianne photographed is certainly not that old, but it is indeed photogenic.
Uh Oh! Storm clouds. Time to get back to the doggies and the motor home, even though it did not actually rain.
Sunday it was time to pack up and move on to Capitol Reef National Park... We opted to avoid the twists and turns of Highway 12, and take the longer route to get to Torrey, Utah. The drive was not as pretty, but much, much safer.
Our home for this week is at the Thousand Lakes Campground. We had heard very good things about it and have not been disappointed. It doesn't hurt that the seventh night is free if you stay a week. It is a quiet, unassuming place with a great ambiance. Here is our campsite.
As an aside, our site at Ruby's Inn left a little to be desired. The living space was very small and our very nearby parade of neighbors (though very nice) changed almost every day. Quiet times in the lawn chairs were limited. It was also a little salty considering the closeness of the sites --- the only game in town. Don't misunderstand, it was not horrible, but look at the view from our campsite at Thousand Lakes. Dianne and I are happy campers.
This morning we did an exploratory visit to Capitol Reef National Park. We were here fourteen years ago, but did not stop the car on our whirlwind tour. What a mistake.
(Somebody needs a haircut! One interesting aspect at our current RV park is there is an on-site hair salon. I promptly made an appointment for later this week! -- D.)
We stopped at the Visitors' Center and got some great information about the adventures we will be pursuing this week. From there we visited the nearby remnants of the Mormon town of Fruita that was nestled between canyon walls in the midst of orchards that still produce apples, pears, peaches, and cherries. We stopped for "lunch" at a historic house and purchased the most delicious pies we have tasted in a long time.
Dianne had cherry.
I had peach.
After our sugar-loaded lunch*, we drove down the scenic paved road for a few miles to get a taste of the things we would be seeing during the coming week. Another amazing national park in Utah. (Dianne here: We should have shared a pie, they were big! We don't eat much sugar any more, and it made me so sleepy I couldn't keep my eyes open on the ride back. Luckily, Roger was driving, but he said it made him sleepy, too. They were so good I know we'll go back, but next time we'll share!)
The Pet Pictures of the Day are, again, not of our pets. The first shows a fearless raven who was wandering around one of the pull-offs at Bryce. He was not the least bit concerned when Dianne approached him to take his picture.
The second shows a majestic horse that approached me from a corral in the Fruita section of Capitol Reef. I love this horse. He let me pet him for several minutes. So pretty with his white star and black mane.
Hi all, Dianne here. If you're tired of the Bryce Canyon scenery, you might want to skip this blog. I, for one, can't get enough of it! In fact, the scenery on this hike was so amazing that I knew right away I'd need to make a slide show on Photobucket. I'll provide the link at the bottom of the post if you'd like to see more amazing photos.
My photos are taken with a little Canon Elph pocket camera, and I'm just a tourist; imagine what the photos would look like with someone who knew what they were doing behind a fancy camera.
I've said it before, it's impossible to take a bad photo here.
Roger and I were up for a good, long hike last Thursday, so we suited up in our hiking gear, packed a lunch, and bribed the dogs with treats as we made our escape. After looking at the Bryce National Park hiking guide, we chose to try the Bryce Amphitheater Traverse 4.7 mile hike from Bryce Point. We tweaked the route a bit by climbing back out of the canyon on the shorter (but steeper) Navajo Point trail, taking the part of that trail we had not done before. The other alternative was to continue up the Queens Garden Trail, a more gradual ascent, but a trail we have already hiked this year (during our girls' recent visit).
We began by taking in the views from the Bryce Point overlook (see opening photos). If you come to Bryce, you can see these views without hiking, as most people do. Not content to just see the hoodoos from above, we started down the connector trail from Bryce Point and turned left on the Peekaboo Loop, taking it down, down, down to the canyon floor.
As on previous hikes here at Bryce, the prettiest scenery to me appears as you get down to eye level with it.
Pretty soon, the Peekaboo Trail started to live up to its name with views of the Wall of Windows.
The sky this day was even more brilliant blue than during the Hat Shop hike we took earlier in the week.
It was a gorgeous day for a hike; low 80s, low humidity, and brilliant sunshine. It just doesn't get much better than that.
Here's one of my favorite photos, to illustrate just how blue the sky looked against the red rock and green pine trees. There were just enough white, fluffy clouds to really make it "pop."
We started to look for a good picnic spot, and this tunnel looked like an ideal place for a nice, shady lunch. Unfortunately, once we got up to it we discovered a large group that looked to be a sports team with their coach. They had the idea first, so we moved on.
The pink cliffs in the background of this photo are part of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument that Roger blogged about in our prior post. I think the formation in this photo looks like a chocolate layer cake.
As we dug into our sandwiches and apples, we were entertained by not one but three separate horse tours as they made their way from the horse trail to the Peekaboo Loop trail. One group had mules in addition to horses, and the mule riders had been given switches to prod them up the trail. After watching them pass, I think if I ever take a horse tour, I'll make sure I get a horse, not a mule.
After lunch we left the Peekaboo Loop Trail and took a connector trail across the canyon bottom to the Navajo Loop Trail for our trek back up to the top.
There was beautiful scenery even down in the bottom of the canyon, just from a different perspective.
Soon after we joined the Navajo Loop Trail, we saw a side shoot for the "Two Bridges" rock formation. Then it was time to go UP.
This route shaved .7 of a mile off our hike, but instead of a gradual climb up the Queen's Garden Trail to Sunrise Point, it was a series of steep switchbacks to get up to Sunset Point to the shuttle bus stop. We were glad we each had two hiking poles this trek.
Here's a shot looking down at the switchbacks we took to the top:
Once we reached the shuttle bus stop we looked down at our legs to see that we were both caked with dust.
My new hiking boots look 10 years old already!
If you'd like to "take" the entire hike without the dust and sweat, here's a link to a slide show of the remaining photos of the hike:
Bryce Canyon Amphitheater Traverse Trail
Roger here.... The only thing I can add is that if you enjoyed the photos and have a couple minutes, the slide show is WELL worth the time. I have done a lot of hiking. This one is in my top 3.
There are two pet photos of the day, and neither one are really our pets. I've been trying to get a good photo of the Steller's jay that hangs around our camp site. (I had never seen one before we got here). So far, the photo to the right is the best I could do. To lure him out in the open, I put out my ground feeder and some corn and sunflower seed. The first morning after that, I was thrilled to see all the seed gone. Thinking that the jay would be back at any moment, I watched for a while...
...only to realize how foolish I was to think the birds would get even a bite, with all the ground squirrels here!
Hi all, Dianne here. Our second full day near Bryce Canyon National park involved hopping the shuttle bus here at Ruby's Inn Campground and hopping off at Bryce Point to hike the 4-mile Hat Shop Trail. No dogs this time, of course, so they were provided treats and remained behind in the air-conditioned comfort of the RV.
The spectacular views began the minute we exited the bus at Bryce Point. It's hard to pick the prettiest of the bunch, so here are a few at the beginning of the hike:
In order to really experience the hoodoos at Bryce Canyon, you really do need to descend from the rim and hike down. "Down" being the key word here....
We started out looking down onto the scenery, then we were eye-level... (my favorite photo above)
The first two miles of the hike were all downhill, and even though I'm smiling, we had no illusions as to how the return hike slog would be. We didn't even need water as we hiked down, not even breaking a sweat, but we did need to watch our footing on the loose gravel narrow trail, much of which clung to the side of a hill. We were really glad we had our hiking poles, and would be even more glad during the two-mile, 1075-foot slog back to the top.
We passed some ancient bristlecone pine trees. (Factoid: the average age of a bristlecone pine tree is 1000 years; the famous "Methuselah" bristlecone pine tree in California is over 4800 years old!)
Down....
Down....
We stopped now and then to gawk at the formations... (and yes, the sky really is that blue, which also makes for brilliant, cold, starry nights here at this high elevation.)
Finally we reached the hat shop formations (also see opening photo).
After snapping some photos we reluctantly turned tail, knowing what awaited us on the trip back.
As we retraced our steps back to the trail head, we were very glad that we'd saved all of our water on the trip down. The humidity is so low here, the sun is so bright, and the air is so thin at this altitude that I was huffing and puffing almost immediately. The thought ran through my mind "My legs are still tired from yesterday's 4-hour hike; how in the world will I make it all the way back up??"
The answer to that question is slowly, and one foot in front of the other. We stopped to eat our lunch and rest at a shady spot mid-way back up. Once again I was amazed at what a brilliant blue the sky is. That is one of the things I remembered most about our visit to Bryce Canyon 14 years ago. At the time, fresh from a dreary midwest winter, I couldn't believe my eyes.
Did I mention that the two-mile return trip was entirely uphill??!!
Here and there we were rewarded with more magnificent scenery:
Then more plodding...
More scenery...
As we neared the end of the hike, the trail leveled off a bit...
Then one last steep incline and we were UP!
Was it worth it? YOU BET! Roger and I are just thankful that we still have good health and are able to even do these hikes at all.
The pet photo of the day was taken by the staff at Doggie Dude Ranch while our four-legged "kids" were staying there when our human kids came to visit. It is such a good photo of Bandido that I downloaded it for my own! He is such a happy guy and makes us laugh and smile every single day.
Not to be outdone, his little sister Tequila decided to mug for the camera, too:
Love that grin!
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