Day 3 at Zion National Park

Thursday 4/10/14
We left the campground at 9:50 and walked to the Visitor's Center (maybe 1/2 mile?) and caught the free shuttle bus.  Today we went to "Weeping Rock Trail head" which was about a 30 minute bus ride including all the stops.  This stop is further up the road than where we went yesterday.  Our hike today was to Observation Point, 8 hours round trip, with elevation gain of 2100 feet (that's in 4 miles).  We made it to the top in 2 hrs 2 mins.  It was very steep, with lots of switch backs but the trail for the most part was a nice hard sandstone most of the way.  About 1/2 to the top we passed through a really cool slot canyon where the walls are really close together, windy and narrow.  We also spotted a few big-horn sheep on one of the cliffs.  We stood and watched them for a while with the binoculars.  At the top, we ate lunch and chilled out for about 40 minutes then started our decent down.  About 1 1/2 miles from the trail head, we took another trail toward "Hidden Canyon".  We hiked for about a mile & half up winding, narrow trails that took us up another 800 feet in elevation.  The trail skirted the rim of the canyon so at times we were literally right next to the edge.  Thank goodness there were big heavy chains that were bolted to the canyon walls to hold on to.   There was also a section of steps climbing straight up carved right into the rocks.  We had to "scramble" over big rocks and logs.  There was an "arch" in the rock made from water erosion which we finally made it to (32 minutes from the Observation Trail to the Arch).  We hiked back out after taking a few pictures.  By the time we made it down to the original trailhead and the shuttle bus stop, we had been hiking for 5 hrs and 45 minutes and about 11 miles.  Back on the shuttle we decided to ride up to the last shuttle stop at "Temple of Sinawava".  There is a 1 1/2 walk on paved trail along the Virgin River to the beginning of the "Narrows" trail.    We saw several mule deer and some wild turkeys.  We would have loved to take that hike but it had a lot of water crossings and we don't have any dry suits or wet suits with us.  As we were walking we noticed a lot of people with rented gear.  Somewhere in the park we could have rented what we needed to do the hike.  Oh well, that will be for another time.  By the time we got back to the RV it was almost 7pm.  We did about 12 miles today so my body was aching.  I took a quick shower at the RV while Greg grilled pork chops.  We had baked sweet potatoes and sauteed asparagus again.  Heading to Las Vegas tomorrow.

Big Horn Sheep

Part way up to Observation Poing

view from Observation trail

Slot canyon

at Observation Point

View from Observation Point

Slot Canyon

more slot canyon

Dona under the arch at Hidden Canyon

Greg on top of the arch (he loves to climb)

one of the rock "scrambles"

it is written in stone "scrambling required"

Thank goodness for the chain-hand rail

Greg:  "who needs a stinkin' hand rail?"

It's flat for awhile!!!! whew!

Day 2 at Zion National Park

Wed. 4/9/14
Greg has convinced me to use the time for the state in which we are traveling so new DISCLAIMER:  ALL TIMES WILL BE IN MOUNTAIN DAYLIGHT TIME (MDT).

53° and windy at 7:30.  Greg rode his bike over to the South Campground at Zion to see if there was a vacant slip this morning.  We packed up and went over there.  We had electric and water at Watchman but no hook ups at South.  That's ok for us.  We rode our bikes about a mile up the rode to the Museum and caught the free shuttle that runs all through the park.  It was about a 20 minute ride from the Zion Human History Museum to the Zion Lodge (several stops along the way).  From Zion Lodge, we hiked the Lower Emerald Pool Trail, then the Middle pool trail, the upper pool trail and the Grotto trail back to the lodge.  It may have been about 2.5 miles total, no more than an hour for us to do it.  It was not a hard hike.  There were TONS of people on these trails and by the pools.  We rode the shuttle back to the museum; went inside (Greg bought me another hiking stick cos I really need 2) to look around.  We rode back to the RV by 12:30 and ate lunch.  I took a nap (surprise!) then we went for another hike later in the day.  This hike started a short walk from our campsite (maybe 3/4 mile).  The entire trail was 2.7 miles called the Watchman trail.  It had over 350 feet in elevation.  Once again, it was not a hard hike and it took us just over an hour.  Back at the RV we chilled with some drinks and appetizers.  Dinner was grilled T-bones, baked sweet potatoes, sauteed asparagus.  Late night for me cos I was writing in the blog.  Once in bed, heard the wind blowing all night.

Checking out the maps at Emerald Pools

Waterfall at Lower Emerald Pool

middle Emerald Pool

Dona at Upper Emerald Pool

Upper Emerald Pool

waterfalls from upper emerald pools

View from Watchman Trail

At the view point at top of Watchman Trail

Zion National Park

Tuesday April 8, 2014

After leaving Lake Powell at 10:00, we arrived at the entrance to Zion National Park at 1:15, after making a stop in Kanab UT for groceries.  The time has changed to daylight savings time in Utah so it was actually 2:15 when we arrived.  BUT...I am not changing my watch or any of the clocks because we will be going back to Pacific daylight time in a couple of days.  DISCLAIMER:  ALL TIMES NOTED IN THE NEXT FEW BLOGS WILL BE IN PDT (Pacific Daylight Time).

So, anyway, we get to the fee station and because Greg has the Senior Pass, we get in free at all the National Parks and Forests... sweet!  No fee to enter the park but to travel to the side of the park that we want to get to (we are at the East entrance and we want to go to the South entrance) we have to pay $15.00 to drive our RV thru the tunnel at Mt. Carmel.  The tunnel is the only way to get to the south side besides driving another million miles all around the bordering country side.  The tunnel is narrow and not very high.  It is a 2-lane road but to accommodate larger vehicles, they close off one lane and have the large vehicle drive through the middle.  The tunnel is 1.1 miles long.  It has "view" points every few hundred feet or so.  The view points are cut outs in the mountain walls.  You can't stop and take pictures but the scene thru the car windows is pretty amazing.  Once thru the tunnel we only had a few miles to drive to get to the only 2 campgrounds on this side of the park.  One is reservations recommended and has full hook-ups, the other is on a first-come, first-serve basis.  As with most of our planning, we didn't know we'd be making this trip so we didn't call to make reservations and the signs at the East entrance fee station said both campgrounds were "full".  We saw so many campers (trailers, 5th wheels, RV's) driving around we just knew we'd have to find some place out of the park to camp.  Greg, always the optimist, pulled into the reservation recommended campground at 2:15 (3:15 UT time...remember I'm using Pacific coast time), which is Watchman Campground, and just asked the Ranger at the fee station if there was an opening for the night (perhaps someone with a reservation didn't come in?).  What do you know, there was an opening for just tonight!!!!  We got a sight with electric only for $9.00 a night.  If we wanted to stay for 2 more nights at this campground, we were told we'd have to check with the fee station in the morning at 9, to see if anything opened up.  Our plan is to check in the morning with this campground and if nothing is available then ride our bikes to the other campground (less than a mile away) and hopefully we can snag one as someone is leaving.

I had not been feeling well all day, so as soon as we got set up, I crawled on the bed and slept for almost 2 hours.  My head was really stopped up.  I took some drugs and we ate a little left-over chili with quinoa and I went back to bed!  Greg rode his bike around while I was napping but that was the only exercise we did today.

Lots of trails to hike....gotta feel better tomorrow!

Zion National Park Entrance

Entrance to Mt Carmel Tunnel

entering the tunnel

"granary" in the side of the mountain

Lake Powell at Glen Canyon Dam

Continuing on for Monday April 7......

After leaving the Antelope Canyon parking lot at 12:30, we drove a few miles out of Page,AZ across the Glen Canyon Dam (on the Colorado River) and camped at a really nice RV park (Wahweap Campground) across the road from the Lake Powell Resort and Marina.  The campground has nice big parking spots with walking paths.  We ate lunch, I took a nap (have I mentioned how much I love my naps?) then we rode our bikes to the Marina.  We checked out the boats and the HUGE boat ramp.  It was the longest, widest, steepest ramp we've ever seen!  There was a paved path from the resort that ran a couple of miles north to the Utah side of the lake.  We rode the path taking some detours along the way to check out the scenery. Very relaxing ride!    We actually found out that this dam and lake are the 2nd largest in the country (after Hoover Dam and Lake Mead).  Wow, who knew!

Glen Canyon Dam...a drive-by shooting

Part of Lake Powell

Some more Lake Powell

HUGE boat launch

Biking at almost sunset

Entrance to Wahweap campground

our camp site with the lake in the background

For dinner we made caribou steak stir-fry with brown rice and egg rolls.  I took a great shower, $2.00 for 15 minutes, and I used every bit of my 2 bucks.

On Tuesday the 8th, we woke to beautiful skies and 44 degrees.  We both went for a run...I did the paved bike path for 3 miles and Greg took off on some hilly trail run.  We ate a quick breakfast, packed up and headed out for Zion National Park in Utah at 10:00.

I really like this Lake Powell spot, so sad to leave it this soon!

Amazing Pics at Antelope Canyon!

Entrance at Antelope Canyon

Monday 4/7/14
We left our campsite at Lee's Ferry (Colorado River) at 7:25am with temps in the mid-50's.  We are driving to Page AZ which is normally a 45 minute drive but the highway from here washed out in 2013 and it hasn't been fixed yet.  We will have to drive 2 hours to get there now via a detour.  We have arranged a guided tour thru Antelope Canyon, just outside of Page, at 11:00am.  We're giving ourselves plenty of time to get there.  The only way to see the canyon is with native guides (it's on the Navajo Reservation).  It is a slot canyon with narrow passage ways and colorful rock walls.  When the sun shines in from above it creates amazing colors on the canyon walls.  Reviews state the best time to tour this is mid-day when the sun is directly overhead (that's why we're going at 11).  We arrived at the canyon fee area and main parking lot at 9:10, well ahead of our predicted 10:00 time.  There is NOTHING to see from the parking just dirt and lots of RV's and cars.

Antelope Canyon parking area
from the highway

 There are a bunch of trucks outfitted with cushioned seats and canopies in the rear beds for hauling tourists to the canyon.  At 11:00 we were "herded" into the back of a truck with 12 other people (7 of us on each side, facing each other).  Our tour guide, Raquel, was also the truck driver.  It was a 15 minute drive over really soft sand, like at the beach.  Very dusty and bouncy (thank goodness for cushioned seats).  When we arrived at the entrance to the canyon, there were TONS of other tour companies in the same type of rigs and hundred or more tourists.  We literally had to walk thru the canyon single file (it was one way in - same way out so we were running into people coming out as we were going in).  We had to stay with Raquel.  She was giving us pointers on where to take photos, how to take the photos, and even taking our cameras from us to take the photos.  Only a little explanation about the formations themselves (how they were formed, how old, etc).  Raquel was about 20 years old and had a very soft voice.  With several other tour guides and hundreds of tourists in our area, she was very difficult to hear so I'm glad there wasn't much geology lessons going on.  It was an hour tour which took us about an hour 15 minutes because it was so crowded. Greg handled the camera shots and I tried to stick to Raquel so I could hear what instructions she was giving.  I am very impressed with the shots Greg got.  I think we really enjoyed the tour even though the cost was high at 48.00 a piece.....ouch!

Hop aboard the Antelope
Canyon Tour Truck!

Arriving at the entrance to the canyon

Breathtaking colors

a side ways heart!

       

Canyon walls

 

More colors from the sunlight

Lots of people trying to take the same picture

The sun hits the walls at angles that make
it look blue in spots.

We're done.  Goodbye
Antelope Canyon.....aahh.
We finished the tour and got back to the RV at 12:30.

   

We are being herded in.
Others are herded out.
Sunlight flows all about!

No More Victoria's Secret Modeling For Me....In My Dreams

My bike accident on 4/2 has left me with a long-lasting bruise on my right thigh, hence the "no more modeling" title---not that I was doing that anyway----just always wanted to.  Just a note to the queezy:  the following pics are not very pretty (or flattering).  This is how my leg looked 7 days after the accident.

"These bruises make for
better conversation"

7 days after the accident on 4/9/14
It still hurts!

METEOR CRATER

4/3/14  After we left Cave Springs Campground at 9:30 (36 degrees and snow on the ground) we stopped in Flagstaff at 10am for groceries, gas and propane.  We traveled about a 45 minutes after leaving Flagstaff and arrived at Meteor Crater at 12:45.  We fixed and ate lunch in the RV.  It only took us an hour to see all we wanted to see without taking the hour long guided tour.  They do not allow anyone to walk into the crater anymore.  Greg says his family visited here in the 60's and they could go everwhere.  His mom even took movies of their trip.  (He's going to look for those movies when we get home.)  It is a really BIG hole...2 miles in diameter and over 500 feet deep.  Our pictures don't do it justice because we just couldn't get anything to show a perspective.  We left at 3 and at the KOA campground in Holbrook by 4:15 (there is a laundry and free showers--- Cave Springs cost $4.00 for 8 min. shower which I used twice).  We took it easy for dinner....pizza in the oven since we have power....saving the grillin' for nights we don't have power.

Meteor Crater

CANYON de CHELLY (pronounced Canyon "d Shay")

Friday 4/4/14   Left Holbrook AZ at 9am heading toward east AZ and Canyon de Chelly in the Navajo Nation reservation.  Greg says it was 33 degrees at 7am.  The canyon is about 2 hour drive from Holbrook.  We made a stop half-way at Ganado AZ where we checked out the Hubbell Trading Post (135 years old and the oldest trading post still in business).  Lots of nice native crafts; art, jewelery, rugs.  We left there at noon and headed toward the town of Chinle AZ and the Canyon de Chelly.  We camped in the canyon at Cottonwood campground.  Got there at 1:30, ate lunch, then took the 37 mile round trip drive around the "south rim".  We stopped at several overlooks.  You can't walk down in the canyon without a native guide.  We did walk around at some of the overlooks.  The canyon rim extends 7000 feet in elevation with some of the canyon walls are 700 feet tall.  There were lots of ancient Puebloan cliff dwellings but we could only see them with binoculars.  After seeing Gila Cliff Dwellings this was not too spectacular.  We got back to the campground at 5:30.  It had been breezy and upper 50's all day.  Predictions are for 30's tonight.  We have no power hookups so we're grilling shrimp, pineapple, green bell pepper K-Bobs with sides of rice noodles and veggie egg rolls.

Cliff Dwellings

Spider Rock

Canyon Bottom

Greg at the edge

                                                                                                                                                                      SATURDAY 4/5/14

My leg is killing me (from the bike accident on 4-2).  I didn't sleep well last night, couldn't sleep at all on my right side.  I'm thinking all the sitting in the RV and driving didn't help me.  We left Cottonwood campground at 8:40 heading today towards Glen Canyon National Park, about 40 miles north of Page AZ.  Our drive today took us through Navajo Monument Valley (we stopped there from 10:45-12:00).                  

                                                                                                               

   After driving through Monument Valley we headed to Page AZ on Hwy 89 (we detoured into Tuba City first and got gas, there was nothing here really to see and it was getting late.)  We are going to go to Glen Canyon National Park and get a campsite at Lee's Ferry Campground on the Colorado River.  We have made arrangements to get a guided tour tomorrow outside of Page in Antelope Canyon to see the rock formations there.  Page is only about a 45 minute drive from Lee's Ferry. ......SO WE THOUGHT!!!!!  Unbeknownst to us, HWY 89 into Page from the junction of Hwy 89A into Lee's Ferry has been closed for over a year due to a road errosion!!!  We will have to double back and drive over 2 hours to get to Page instead of 45 minutes.  We immediately cancelled our tour guide for Sunday, made one for Monday and now plan to stay at Lee's Ferry for 2 nights instead of 1.  Whew!!! got that situation under control.  We walked around a little untll it got dark (we arrived at the campground at 5:30).  I made chili with leftover hamburgers and I heated up jalapeno cornbread that I made a few nights ago (when we had power).

Nobody told me there was a beach at the Colorado River!
Too bad it was windy and cold and it was 5:00 at night!

LEE'S FERRY AND GLEN CANYON

Sunday 4/6/14  We hiked from the RV starting at 9:15.  About 1/2 mile from camp was the Lonely Dell Ranch which we walked around for a little while.  Old cabins and a pretty large house where the settlers lived.  Further on was the Paria river trail that we hiked for about a mile.  There was a river crossing that we just couldn't figure out where to make our entrance and exit plus I didn't have on water-proof shoes.  We baled on that hike and walked back to the main road (the hike was from 10:20 - 11:15).  We walked down to the Colorado River and watched some commercial operations launching really big rafts that we figured were going to haul people on down the river into the Grand Canyon.

Paria Trail

Greg checking for any usable parts

Part of the Paria River Trail

Rafts for going on into Grand Canyon

Colorado River along the edge of Glen Canyon

         We took a drive from camp up to Jacobs Lake and to the turnoff for the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  It was 44 miles one-way.  We left the campground at 2:30, got back at 5:00.  Stopped at a couple of scenic overlooks and once back to Lee's Ferry turn-off, stopped at Historic Navajo Bridge over the Colorado.

Drive to the North Rim closed until mid-Ma

The bridge on the left is the old Navajo bridge built in 1929
the one on the right is the new and improved bridge