April 13 – 20, 2004
We are writing up our trip for our memoirs, so you don’t have to read any more of it than you want to!
On 13 April we flew out of Manchester on Southwest Airlines on what was described as a direct flight. What they did not mention was that our flight sat down three times (Chicago, Kansas City and Vegas) before reaching Sacramento ten hours later. Guess that explained the cheap price ($238 RT). But we left cold rain and stepped out into spring blossoms, rose gardens and 70 degree temperatures.
Our first evening at Sister Barbara’s we were treated to a chicken barbecue with fresh strawberries at daughter Nancy and David Gray’s with children Emma (who introduced us to her rabbit and crane fly) and Ira (downloading at the computer).
The next day after shopping for trip groceries we helped Barbara bury her fatally ill old marmalade cat under the redwood tree and in midafternoon drove up the valley of the American River on Route 50, winding up into the ponderosa pines and snowcapped peaks of the Sierra Nevadas (7200 feet altitude in the pass). Coming down we were treated to the sight of a small elk herd in one grove and several mule deer in a meadow. We stopped for a quick look at a stormy Lake Tahoe before continuing to Carson City where the wind off the peaks blew us into a Motel 6.
Thursday we continued down to a high (4000) sage desert following the Walker River into Wilson Canyon where we paused under newly green cottonwoods and watched the ATV’s on nearby sand dunes. In Mason Valley the lilacs were blooming on old Mormon homesteads and tamarisks were putting out mauve flowerets around Walker Lake.
Hawthorne (US Army ammo plant and depot (mounded earth concrete bunkers) was a pretty arid scene, so we welcomed the sight of Boundary Peak (13,400) highest in the Nevada/California border range. Enjoyed Barb’s excellent bean salad at a rest area.
On through monotonously straight desert roads enlivened only by the unusual Joshua Tree cacti. What a joy to leave the flat valley and wind our way up into weathered cliffs, boulder screes and multicolored rock layers as we approached Zion National Park and the Hurricane, Utah, Comfort Inn.
Zion wisely does not allow cars past the visitors’ center but avoids gridlock by running frequent shuttles that stop at all viewpoints and trailheads. We hopped off for a short walk to view the Three Patriarchs, massive cliff blocks named for the Biblical Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Then on to the end of Zion Canyon and a hike along the Virgin River from the Temple of Sinowava to the Narrows, where hardy hikers waded across the frigid waters but we turned around.
We saw golden mantle squirrels, scarlet gilia and dusty penstamen, hanging gardens of maidenhair ferns, golden columbine and the tiny yellow flowers of creeping mahonia or ground barberry with hollylike leaves.
We got stiff necks from looking up at ancient dunes hardened on top of old sandstone seabeds alternating with red sandstone and shale washed down from the once 30,000 feet high Rockies. Using our binoculars we saw a nesting peregrine falcon pointed out by another hiker.
After a tailgate lunch we took a 45 minute walk down the river on the bike/hike trail, crossing a half dozen bridges. The Virgin is the longest river in Utah, descending 8000 feet and subject to flash floods, which were what discouraged early settlers from the Anasazi to the Paiutes to the Mormons.
Saturday morning our first stop before the Park was at LaVirkin Lookout for a walk to the Virgin canyon wall with a view out over the town of Hurricane as well as down into the deep river cuts. Orange globe mallows and purply blue vetch were along the path.
Then we took the shuttle to the Emerald Pools Trailhead for a three mile hike passing three waterfall-fed pools with some climbing toward the top. We heard the descending notes of the canyon wren. At each pool the wind would blow the spray onto the trail.
From the town of Virgin we decided to drive up the Kolob Terrace Road which runs up a high lava ridge, admiring lava flows on either side, to summer pastures on a high plateau at the height of Zion Canyon rim.
Sunday was our first rainy day, overcast with spit showers. We took the old Mt. Carmel tunnel road (built for Model T’s so today’s semis require a one-way escort) out through the edge of Zion National Park, leaving the desert for alpine terrain, spectacular red canyon walls crossbedded with sandstone.
We found the high pastures had been covered with rime and snow during the night. Two mule deer went boinging across a field as we passed. Nearing Bryce Canyon National Park we saw more and more hoodoo – misshapen columns eroded out of fins which had themselves cracked free of massive blocks of red and white sandstone. Our kitchenette unit at the Bryce Canyon Pines Motel was about a mile from the park entrance on a high (6000′) plateau.
At Bryce the park road is on top of the canyon and you look down on the fantastic rock formations (in contrast to Zion where the road is on the canyon floor and you look up). You travel through ponderosa pine and white or Douglas firs with stops at overlooks usually monitored by a stately raven who eyes you for handouts. We drove to the end of the 18 mile road and hiked the Bristlecone Pine trail from Rainbow Point. These thousand year old twisted pines endure drought and grow slowly. Half the time we walked on packed snow, panting slightly in the 9000′ altitude.
Monday (Apr 19) we hiked the Pink Ledges and Bird’s Eye “goatpath” trails in nearby Red Canyon, finding elk footprints, caves and a nest ledge (peregrine?) and limber pines with flexible drooping branches instead of bristlecones.
Tuesday we hiked the Queen’s Garden Trail 320′ down into Bryce Canyon off Sunrise Point on a hardpacked switchback with views of weirdly shaped figures in all directions. A stony Queen Victoria surveyed her garden at trail’s end.
In the afternoon we took a trail ride to the canyon floor, Barbara and I on black mares Lacey and Lara, and Alan on a big mule (Tool Time). Our steeds picked their way with slight concern for the dropoffs as we wound our way past bristlecone and limber and stunted ponderosa pines, cedars, and blossoming (red) manzanitas and yellow ground mahonias.
Here endeth Part One of our Trip Log. Next stop: Capitol Reef.
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