It's too damn hot in Logan, and it has been for about 3 weeks straight. It's only 83 degrees in Moab, 91 in St. George, but it's 96 degrees here. I'm not a desert guy for good reason, and that's that I cannot handle the heat of summer, at least not happily. But it seems as though the desert is following me northward. For this personal distaste of heat, spring trips to red rock country have become a tradition for my small family. This spring, time to get our money's worth out of the national parks pass.
Night drive in
Melody, Hannah, and I set out in our trusty steed, Santiago, on Friday for southern Utah. Hip-hop provides plenty of head bobbing and f-words. Doug Peacock talks about grizzly bears, global warming, and the pleistocene. We come into the Zion area around midnight to discover Bureau of Land Management land along the Virgin River closed due to previous campers trashing the area. Best to protect the watershed from ourselves. We find a small sliver of unfenced BLM land near Coal Pits Wash, our home for the next 4 nights.
Making the rounds
The crowds arrive early and we leave the car outside the park limits and walk in. It feels more like Disneyland than any nature experience unless you gaze up high to the walls of Zion Canyon and tune out the hum of the tourists (us).
Shuttle buses transport us hoards along the canyon bottoms and we are let out to wade the waters of the Zion Canyon Narrows. It is a good way to cool off and we make our way up to Orderville Canyon, a small creek running into the main fork, before turning around. It is a striking place, certainly unique, but I wonder what effects on the ecosystem the footsteps of hundreds of people have, walking through the same stretch of a river everyday. I do not think the answer to that question is in an exhibit in the visitor's center. Back at the trailhead, a woman pets a squirrel.
Our next stop is Angel's Landing, that infamous stretch of narrow ridge hemmed in by 1000 foot drops. We all 3 have a fear of heights so the summit feels as an accomplishment, guide chains or not! Little children dart around us, primates on a jungle gym, their legs and arms scrambling in a way that our adult bodies have long forgotten, our loss. A few hikers are covered in sweat, feet skidding, bumbling about. We wonder if one of them will drop, or tumble and take us down with him. We feel precarious. Douglas firs growing out of the vertical canyon walls prove our plight manageable.
Evening time cups of coffee between the tents become a ritual. Other rituals are afternoon visits to the salad bar of the local market and rosemary chicken. We talk in northeast old lady accents, Edna, Marnene, and Maude, bantering on about our husbands. We are 'alone' in the wash, stream peetering 30 yards to the south of us. Road, what road!? Clear desert skies, cool nights. Let's do it all again tomorrow.
Back to the canyon, shuttles, sandy river. We hike single file past families and foreigners, out from all corners of the 1st world to see what this gem of the southwest has to offer. The Emerald Pools are a little boggier than what is pictured in the tourist pamphlet, but maybe the filter on my camera is not set just right. Ah, but I forget, water in the desert, there is no greater novelty than water in the desert! And we can chew jerky and take a shady nap in the sand, sounds of children plunking stones into the pools as white noise.
Now that we can notch off a few must-see places in the park, we are able to take a bit of solace out to Hidden Canyon, a less visited trail. A smooth sandstone walkway carved out of the cliffs leading to the canyon gives us views of the Virgin River below. The hike provides not just respite from the heat but from the crowds. Little grey birds eye us, rising out of rock crevices and tip toeing in the canyon bottom. We stop at a small arch in the sandy floor and pause for candids before moving on.
Subway, Kolob
The Parks Service restricts the amount of hikers into places like the Subway, permit only. I like this. We hike miles in and out of the Left Fork of the Great West Canyon. Cutthroat and rainbow trout are abundant in this crystal clear creek- let me remember my fly rod for next time.
Rock hopping over blue boulders, yellow overgrown butterflies, an overhanging corridor carved by water, waist deep but drying out quickly. We stop halfway up the canyon, the non-technical hike. Vertical walls, natural obstacles, the tunnel of the Subway. Mid-afternoon hike back to the plateau above means the girls have earned their hobo meals and I have earned my dehydrated chicken, rice, and beans.
The northwest entrance of the park receives far less traffic than the main entrance and is no less beautiful. The plateau above Kolob Canyon is forested with juniper, pinyon pine, and cottonwood trees not yet in bloom. Wild turkeys make their way between the brush and we make our way to the canyon bottom to walk along La Verkin Creek, a turqouise tributary of the Virgin River. Our terminus is Kolob Arch, viewed from hundreds of feet below, the second longest arch in the world. It is enough to be outdoors, and the deep color of the evergreen trees, jade blue creek, and red rock towers give this place an ethereal feel.
It is hot, and we are all ready to blast ourselves with Santiago's air conditioning.
Bryce
After hiking back from Kolob Arch, we drive toward Bryce Canyon National Park to a hotel and showers, Bryce Canyon Pines. Melody's desert allergies have kicked in and we hole up for the night, Titanic on the tube. In the morning, it's obvious the sickness has hit her hard and we drive through the park for its viewpoints instead of hiking. The hoodoos and canyon walls are a brilliant orange I have never seen before, mazes of them going on for miles. Smoke is in the air, a prescribed forest burn 30 miles to the north. The ponderosa pine forest gives way to Doug and true fir trees the higher we ascend. Limber pines perch on dicey areas along the rim, high elevation handstanders. Down below the viewpoints, juniper dots the landscape. A young child tries to feed a crow from his hand and I tell him it's a bad idea. His parents say it's ok.
Outro
Car rides mean hours of podcasts, plenty of interruptions for discussion between the 3 of us, and cups and cups of coffee. We group pee in a ditch on the side of the road south of Nephi. Passage through Salt Lake City warrants a stop at Chipotle. Hold the margarita, Utah.
Night drive in
Melody, Hannah, and I set out in our trusty steed, Santiago, on Friday for southern Utah. Hip-hop provides plenty of head bobbing and f-words. Doug Peacock talks about grizzly bears, global warming, and the pleistocene. We come into the Zion area around midnight to discover Bureau of Land Management land along the Virgin River closed due to previous campers trashing the area. Best to protect the watershed from ourselves. We find a small sliver of unfenced BLM land near Coal Pits Wash, our home for the next 4 nights.
Making the rounds
The crowds arrive early and we leave the car outside the park limits and walk in. It feels more like Disneyland than any nature experience unless you gaze up high to the walls of Zion Canyon and tune out the hum of the tourists (us).
Shuttle buses transport us hoards along the canyon bottoms and we are let out to wade the waters of the Zion Canyon Narrows. It is a good way to cool off and we make our way up to Orderville Canyon, a small creek running into the main fork, before turning around. It is a striking place, certainly unique, but I wonder what effects on the ecosystem the footsteps of hundreds of people have, walking through the same stretch of a river everyday. I do not think the answer to that question is in an exhibit in the visitor's center. Back at the trailhead, a woman pets a squirrel.
Our next stop is Angel's Landing, that infamous stretch of narrow ridge hemmed in by 1000 foot drops. We all 3 have a fear of heights so the summit feels as an accomplishment, guide chains or not! Little children dart around us, primates on a jungle gym, their legs and arms scrambling in a way that our adult bodies have long forgotten, our loss. A few hikers are covered in sweat, feet skidding, bumbling about. We wonder if one of them will drop, or tumble and take us down with him. We feel precarious. Douglas firs growing out of the vertical canyon walls prove our plight manageable.
Evening time cups of coffee between the tents become a ritual. Other rituals are afternoon visits to the salad bar of the local market and rosemary chicken. We talk in northeast old lady accents, Edna, Marnene, and Maude, bantering on about our husbands. We are 'alone' in the wash, stream peetering 30 yards to the south of us. Road, what road!? Clear desert skies, cool nights. Let's do it all again tomorrow.
Now that we can notch off a few must-see places in the park, we are able to take a bit of solace out to Hidden Canyon, a less visited trail. A smooth sandstone walkway carved out of the cliffs leading to the canyon gives us views of the Virgin River below. The hike provides not just respite from the heat but from the crowds. Little grey birds eye us, rising out of rock crevices and tip toeing in the canyon bottom. We stop at a small arch in the sandy floor and pause for candids before moving on.
Subway, Kolob
The Parks Service restricts the amount of hikers into places like the Subway, permit only. I like this. We hike miles in and out of the Left Fork of the Great West Canyon. Cutthroat and rainbow trout are abundant in this crystal clear creek- let me remember my fly rod for next time.
The northwest entrance of the park receives far less traffic than the main entrance and is no less beautiful. The plateau above Kolob Canyon is forested with juniper, pinyon pine, and cottonwood trees not yet in bloom. Wild turkeys make their way between the brush and we make our way to the canyon bottom to walk along La Verkin Creek, a turqouise tributary of the Virgin River. Our terminus is Kolob Arch, viewed from hundreds of feet below, the second longest arch in the world. It is enough to be outdoors, and the deep color of the evergreen trees, jade blue creek, and red rock towers give this place an ethereal feel.
It is hot, and we are all ready to blast ourselves with Santiago's air conditioning.
After hiking back from Kolob Arch, we drive toward Bryce Canyon National Park to a hotel and showers, Bryce Canyon Pines. Melody's desert allergies have kicked in and we hole up for the night, Titanic on the tube. In the morning, it's obvious the sickness has hit her hard and we drive through the park for its viewpoints instead of hiking. The hoodoos and canyon walls are a brilliant orange I have never seen before, mazes of them going on for miles. Smoke is in the air, a prescribed forest burn 30 miles to the north. The ponderosa pine forest gives way to Doug and true fir trees the higher we ascend. Limber pines perch on dicey areas along the rim, high elevation handstanders. Down below the viewpoints, juniper dots the landscape. A young child tries to feed a crow from his hand and I tell him it's a bad idea. His parents say it's ok.
Car rides mean hours of podcasts, plenty of interruptions for discussion between the 3 of us, and cups and cups of coffee. We group pee in a ditch on the side of the road south of Nephi. Passage through Salt Lake City warrants a stop at Chipotle. Hold the margarita, Utah.
-Grasshopper
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