THE TOP OF THE GRAND STAIRCASE AT BRYCE CANYON

Carol writes:  Far back into geologic history, the four corners region of Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico was covered in water with a system of lakes into which sediments were deposited over countless eons.  Then, twenty million years ago, tectonic plate activity commenced.  This region began to rise and eventually uplifted almost 2 miles to form the Colorado Plateau.

Today, the Colorado Plateau displays a nearly complete sequence of sedimentary rocks that stretch north from the Grand Canyon at the bottom, where the very basement rocks of the continent lie, to Bryce Canyon at the top.  This marvel of the geologic record has very few gaps and is known as the Grand Staircase.

We have spent several weeks at various spectacular “steps” on the Grand Staircase.  For the next two weeks we would linger on the top step at the so-called pink cliffs of Bryce Canyon.

   

Al selected a perfect campground that was very convenient for visiting Bryce Canyon National Park.  Ruby’s RV Park was situated in Bryce Canyon City at the very doorstep of the national park.  Ruby’s was also a stop along the route of a nifty free shuttle bus into the park.  It sure was nice not to have to consider parking issues within the park.

Ruby’s comprised a giant tourist business operation that had it all covered—hotel, cabins, restaurants, a general store, a cowboy dinner show, western adventure activities, and an RV park.  This business venture was started by Reuben Syrett and his wife Minnie 100 years ago.  Ruby’s operation began as tent camps called Tourist Rest for visitors to Bryce Canyon.  Today, Ruby’s ancestors still own the enterprise; they would appear to be the recipients of a very wealthy inheritance…

Bryce Canyon is actually not a canyon but rather a series of amphitheaters composed of whimsical rock formations called hoodoos.

Scottish Mormon pioneer Ebenezer Bryce, who homesteaded in the area with his wife and family in the latter decades of the 1800s, gave his namesake to the national park that now bears his name.  Ebenezer Bryce once famously said, “It’s a helluva place to lose a horse.”  His words have been immortalized in a cowboy song sung nightly by the Bryce Canyon Wranglers at cowboy dinner shows seen at Ebenezer’s Barn and Grill.

We can personally attest that the Wranglers at Ebenezer’s provided a first-rate country music performance.  The cowboy cuisine was pretty darn good too!  We thoroughly enjoyed our rainy evening at the dinner show at a table with two other couples—one from France and the other from the Netherlands.  Neither European couple seemed quite sure what to expect, and the conversation never lagged…

For our first trip into Bryce Canyon National Park, we decided to walk the rim trail for the most iconic and popular views of the star of the show—Bryce Amphitheater.  The fiery red colors and fairytale hoodoo formations simply awed the sense of sight!

Al and I frequently observed to one another that the park’s decision not to block the rim of the amphitheater with lots of ugly fences meant that “Bryce Canyon has given its visitors a whole lot of ways to screw up.”  We made this same observation at Grand Canyon.  In both parks we saw many a fool taking that must-have camera pic way too close to the edge for safety.  In any case, our personal “6-foot rule” still allowed for spectacular views down into the amphitheater, like this one looking down on the next day’s hike along the “Queen’s Garden Trail.”

We felt the rim trail climb to Inspiration Point well worth it for one of the park’s most inspiring viewpoints.

Lunch in the historic lodge along the rim was relatively inexpensive and quite nice…

Horse jokes aside, the ruggedness of the hoodoo landscape at Bryce Point was also treacherous for unprepared humans, as we discovered shortly after our arrival when a man hiking a Bryce trail, dressed only in shorts and a T-shirt and carrying little water and no food, got lost for 4 days before he was rescued.

The Queen’s Garden Trail led 320 feet down to a hoodoo formation resembling Queen Victoria.

As we descended lower on the trail, the hoodoos were just out of reach.

Hiker doorways that had been cut into the hoodoo formations reminded me of a hobbit house. 

It was uncanny how closely the Queen Victoria hoodoo resembled the queen’s statue in London…

The climb back up did sap a little oxygen from the lungs, but it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.

The 15-mile drive out to the furthest part of the park at Yovimpa Point was definitely worth it for ever more diverse views of Bryce Canyon’s fairytale formations.

At over 9000 feet of elevation, the past winter’s snow had not melted yet.

The views at Rainbow Point,

Ponderosa Point,

Natural Bridge,

and Fairyland Canyon

were further highlights of Bryce Canyon’s poetry in stone.

Besides Bryce Canyon, there were other worthwhile excursions in the area.  Along Scenic Byway 12 in the land of rolling slickrock, buttes, mesas, canyons, and rock walls painted with “desert varnish” was a popular hike called Calf Creek Falls Trail.

This 6-mile roundtrip trail followed a stream to a 126 ft high waterfall that poured dramatically over the canyon wall.

Red pigment pictographs of trapezoidal bodies adorned with elaborate headdresses painted on the rock faces of the canyon,

and very old granaries dating back to the Fremont People, who built into high niches in the canyon wall,

added additional interest to this very pleasant trail.

KODACHROME BASIN STATE PARK

On the way to Kodachrome Basin State Park we took a slight detour to what has been called one of Nature’s “unequalled masterpieces”—Grosvenor Arch.  Indeed, this massive solitary 152 ft tall double arch was one of the most perfect we have seen to date.

Dramatic arch shots with jet contrails were an obvious temptation…

The last few miles on the approach to Kodachrome Basin State Park left little doubt why that name was selected.  In fact, when the park was created, the state had to get permission from the Kodak film company to use Kodachrome as its name.

The most distinctive feature of Kodachrome Basin State Park was a geologic formation called a sand pipe, a structure similar to an upright cylindrical chimney. 

Panorama Trail 

had numerous sand pipe formations.  Some of them, like Ballerina Spire, were quite tall.

Secret Passage detour had more unusual sand pipes,

dramatic pink slickrock,

and irresistible backdrops.

We knew ahead of time that the trail to Shakespeare Arch would be an effort in futility, as a ranger told us when we entered the park that the only natural arch in the park, several million-year-old Shakespeare Arch, had fallen in a wind storm just a few days ago!

Yep, the arch was now rubble at the base…

At an elevation of 9115 ft at Rainbow Point, the most distant point in Bryce Canyon, Al remarked, “It’s all downhill from here.”  I chuckled and agreed.  For the next 5 months or so, we would be heading downhill to our October reunion date in Maryland on the Atlantic Ocean.  What a great downhill ride it would be!   

Carol Galus

Photo-Blogger

    

THE LAND OF BIG WATER AT LAKE POWELL (Part II)

Carol writes:  Our stay along the stunningly picturesque shore of Lake Powell evolved as a very busy and pleasant two weeks.  It was impossible to appreciate the specialness of this area of Arizona without a basic understanding of its geology.  Even though Lake Powell was in the midst of full-blown spring, the summit of Navajo Mountain was still covered in winter snow.

At over 10,000 feet of elevation, this solitary snow-topped dome dominated its surroundings.   Navajo Mountain was technically a laccolith, a geologic term for a dome that formed as molten magma pushed up from the Earth’s mantle into the crust, but never erupted onto the surface.  Straddling the Utah/Arizona state line on the Navajo Indian Reservation, this mountain has been revered as a sacred mountain by the Diné (the Navajo People). 

A 150-mile diameter “Great Circle” that encompasses Arizona and Utah with Page, Arizona, as its center, includes many of the American Southwest's most renowned national parks and monuments.  Two of this area’s lesser known, and lesser visited national monuments, are Vermilion Cliffs and Grand Staircase-Escalante.   

VERMILION CLIFFS NATIONAL MONUMENT

Vermilion Cliffs National Monument exhibits one of the most brilliantly color-rich landscapes in the American Southwest.

Mother Nature has spent eons sculpting this colorful 3000-ft sandstone escarpment.  During the 1872 Powell Expedition, one of the expedition’s geologists gazed at the multicolored and multilayered rock walls in front of him and stated, “It looks like a grand stairway.”  

At Vermilion Cliffs, the geological “steps” are chocolate, vermilion, white, gray, and finally pink.  It is the vermilion layer that stands out so spectacularly at Vermillion Cliffs National Monument.  

At a particularly spectacular lookout on the road to Vermilion Cliffs,

we stopped at some roadside tables of eye-popping Navajo jewelry.  I freely admit I was tempted and succumbed.  I purchased a lovely Navajo bracelet for my daughter’s birthday, and for myself I bought a juniper berry seed necklace which promises to bring “reconnection with my inner strength and surroundings.”  It couldn’t hurt…

With lunch in Al’s backpack, Cathedral Wash Trail at Vermilion Cliffs National Monument seemed like a good idea on paper when we read that this hike is a favorite of locals.  And indeed, the trail started out with lots of promise.

Very soon, however, the canyon narrowed and hiking became more challenging.

A few more minutes down the wash, the hike was called to a sudden halt when we came to a very large and wet mudhole that we simply could not get around.

Plans soon altered to heading down the road to the Colorado River and Navajo Bridge.

The Colorado River was calm here and reflected a brilliant shade of green.  The path across pedestrian-only Navajo Bridge led to a few more tables of Navajo jewelry on the other side, but it was the walk across the bridge that was the thrill.  This bridge paralleled a similar bridge next to it that was for motor traffic.  

What a spectacular crossing over the mighty Colorado River!

GRAND STAIRCASE-ESCALANTE NATIONAL MONUMENT

Grand Staircase-Escalante was partly named after the Escalante River which flows through it, but more precisely it was named after a Franciscan priest who led an expedition through this forbidding area in 1776.  The expedition was looking for an overland route between Santa Fe (present-day New Mexico) and Monterey, California.  Discovering such a passable route was a huge task by any standard, for this part of Utah/Arizona is the most rugged wilderness region in the Lower 48.

The “Staircase” reference in the monument’s name refers to the immense sequence of sedimentary rock layers that are found here.  The natural wildness is due to the extremely rugged topography of its canyons, plateaus, and cliffs.

The tamest and best of the roads through Grand Staircase-Escalante was Cottonwood Road, which basically bisected the monument.

We looked for hikes that were within our abilities, and came up with several successes:

TOADSTOOLS TRAIL

This Easter Sunday hike led through a badlands of multicolored sandstone layers.

The trail climbed to the top of a knoll and then opened out onto a landscape of balanced rocks, alcoves, and whimsical sandstone formations called hoodoos.

The toadstool formations seemed very delicate,

and one wondered how long they would survive humans, much less Nature.

WIRE PASS TRAIL

One of our Tucson friends familiar with the Lake Powell region urged us to be sure to explore some of area’s slot canyons.  We judged it a good omen when we arrived at 10 a.m. and found the trailhead parking lot loaded with cars.

Wire Pass Trail traversed a gravel and sand wash that started out nice and wide,

but gradually narrowed.

Before long we were definitely in the “slot.” So far, so good… 

until we came to a 6-foot drop-off with a ladder.  Unfortunately, the first rung of the ladder was way too far down for me to reach safely… and that was the end of that.

MAZE ROCK ART TRAIL

A bit further down the road was the Maze Rock Art site.  A bit of a climb from the car 

led to a heavenly, lush, sagebrush-covered valley that was at the peak of springtime eruption.

The trail led up the other side of the valley to some really neat petroglyphs depicting typical human forms, plants, animals, and abstract symbols that were important to the artists of the day.

The most unusual of the many unspoiled petroglyphs at this site was the one of a maze; however, this abstract design was much more complex than the typical concentric circular ones (like the small one above the maze) we have seen throughout the West.

We love lizard shots… As we started back to the car, we couldn’t resist watching this colorful blue-spotted lizard pose for his (her?) beauty shot.

LOWER HACKBERRY CANYON TRAIL

One of the most intriguing and highly recommended local hikes was along Cottonwood Road where there was a trailhead for Hackberry Canyon.  This vast wildflower display amid wide-open scenery at the start of Cottonwood Road was outstanding!

 At “certain times of the year” the Lower Hackberry Canyon Trail was sure to be under ankle-deep water, but that was supposed to be the fun part!  For me, that was the scary part, and I secretly hoped it would be dry.  I have never hiked predominantly in water before, and the warning at the trailhead about quicksand didn’t relieve any jitters… 

Soon enough, however, old tennis shoes replaced our hiking boots.

I found myself stepping gingerly, looking for quicksand, and not sure if I was having fun or not.

By the time the canyon walls met the water and there was no going around by seeking out dry patches,

I was beginning to think this was pretty neat! 

Gradually, I started sloshing through the water like I owned it,

just like Al had been doing since first dipping his toes in.

We met up with a barefoot older woman who was walking her pet goats!!!  That was a first for us on the trail…

Both goats were very friendly, and we got quite a unique pet fix.

And finally, some horse riders!  Lots of smiles… We were all having fun in the water—the horses, those in the saddle, and us hiking in our old tennis shoes.

Despite my initial misgivings, this hike turned out to be one I will remember for a very long time.  Al had a blast, and so did I once I conquered my fear of hiking in water with possible hidden quicksand.  All in all, this was certainly a day of very “happy trails.”

Carol Galus

Photo-Blogger