We've Moved Again-Bryce Canyon

Yesterday we arrived at Bryce Canyon.  We used GPS coordinates from a blogger that directed us to nice free camping.  We are literally right outside the entrance to the Canyon on National Forest land.  This morning we both woke up feeling a little burnt out with everything.  We decided to only do one day hiking in the canyon amongst the hoodoos (the tall eroding peaks).  If a little hike only makes you feel a little better than a big hike should do the trick.  It is something I've never seen before.  This is the biggest concentration of hoodoos in the world, I think.  We connected 4 different trails and saw a little of everything.  This was the least busy of all the parks in southern Utah, which was nice.  Tomorrow we are heading north to Moab.  Chris has a cousin that lives in Northern Utah (just north of Salt Lake City) that we are going to visit early next week. 

      Our campsite for two nights.

 Below is the view from our campsite as the sun was setting yesterday evening.

Angels Landing

We got up early and were hiking by 7:00 am, which was great because it was nice and cool.  I actually had trouble sleeping last night worrying that I may not be able to complete the Angels Landing hike  after my bad altitude issue at the Grand Canyon. The first 2 miles were straight up switch backs.  Then you reached the point where you really had to climb along the ledges.  There were chains mounted on the wall to use to pull yourself along.  It was a 1500 ft. drop to the canyon floor and at times it was straight down.  The top was a beautiful landing, hence the name Angels Landing (because it is said it is so high in the park, only angels can land there) and you could see the entire area.  Because we went early we avoided some of the nut balls that had no problem just plowing through everyone.  It was great.  As the holiday weekend gets here we will probably avoid most of the trails since they are expecting 90,000 visitors here...yuck!  If you can zoom in on the picture below, you will read that 7 people have died doing this hike, Chris and I are happy to say we did not add to the death toll, as I type this, it remains at 7.

Zion Part II

Our initial visits to Zion were day trips from Hurricane, UT.  On one of our visits we stopped at the campground inside Zion to talk to the hosts.  We found out there are a number of highly coveted walk up sites, so we decided to go for it.  We got in line at 6:30 am but missed the cut off, five sites became available and we were number seven .  Lucky for us the host told us to come back in a few hours and she would see if anyone left early.  She was able to set us up for one night!  Chris then got up at 2 am and put our car in the walk up wait line.  He was number 2.  He went back to sit in line in the car at 6 am while I held down the fort sound asleep in our comfy bed and we are in!  We can now stay up to 14 days.  We had nothing set up for Memorial Day weekend so we are staying put.  Not much of a hardship.  We are heading out tomorrow to get food and supplies as the host says we shouldn't leave the park once we get close to the weekend as because of Memorial Day there will be two hour waits to get thru the gate.  We did a hike here called The Narrows.  It was like nothing we have ever done.  You hike up the river thru the canyons.  It was beautiful!  I have decided I want to try doing Angels Landing tomorrow, which is the highest point you can hike to in the park, so we are relaxing today.  It is supposed to be a very steep hike that ends with a 1/3 mile stretch of climbing over rocks pulling yourself along chains...we shall see.  I'm a big talker....Chris keeps reminding me I'm double covered on my life insurance through the end of May ; ).   We have been talking to lots of people sleeping in all forms of camping options.  People seem to be very happy with the Escape rental vans, Juicy Rental Vans and the class C rentals as well.  Most pick them up in Las Vegas and do Zion, Bryce and the Grand Canyon.  If the next post is from Chris, things didn't go well at Angels Landing.

On a side note, we'd like an update from Mark, Denise and Liam on their current travels in Europe.

Also, early congratulations to our Nephew, Alex on his upcoming High School graduation... we are sorry to be missing the festivities.  Love you Alex... Go Badgers.

 The Narrows

 This is the view from our campsite.  There is a beautiful clean river just on the other side of the trees.

 I'm a little obsessed with these flowering cactus!

 These are from the Watchman trail.  Our site is right by the tip of my top foot.

Zion National Park & Daily Life

Yesterday we went to Zion National Park.  It is quite an organized set-up there.  You can only drive a car partially in to the park but they have a great shuttle system that we never waited more than 15 minutes for.  We hiked multiple trails and thankfully I did not feel as though I may need to be rescued.  It was quite warm so we were pretty tired by the end of the day.  Nothing like a cold beer after a hot hike.  We sat in the beer garden, that is inside the park, looking at the beautiful scenery.  We actually had hats, sunscreen and enough water...we are learning from our errors.  We did forget the hiking sticks, actually, have yet to use them...not learned on that one yet.  They have now made it to the car.  My friend Nina initially asked what our days are like.  Not all days are hiking and sightseeing.  Today is just a regular day.  We still have to do all the things everyone else does.  Needed prescriptions picked up, laundry and errands done.  Nothing too exciting.  It is very hot here, 95 in the RV when we returned from errands so we turned on the air and relaxed. Tomorrow we are going back to hike in Zion which will be our last time before moving on.  We are going to try and find a place to stay near Bryce Canyon...we'll see.

North Rim Grand Canyon

We decided to go to the North Rim for a couple of reasons.  First off, most people go to the South Rim, and secondly we had no place to stay near the South Rim.  We stayed 3 nights in that area and hiked two of those days.  The beauty really does take your breath away.  It was an hour drive in from our site.  All along the way there were signs for bison...didn't get to see even one!  I had a bit of a hiccup or maybe a gasp would be more appropriate.  We did a hike that was two miles straight in to the canyon...no problem.  On the way back I was really struggling with the heat and altitude.  It was straight up and I had times where I could only go 50 yards and had to stop and rest.  It was rough, real rough.  Needless to say the smoker had no problem.  I felt terrible by the time we finished.  But I did finish and did not have to be rescued...yay me.  I now have also discovered Chris's second fear.  Mule poop.  He just could not get over the fact that the mules pooped and peed all over the trail.  I however, was more concerned with my heart stopping.  Good times.

Some of our pictures, but they just don't capture the size and beauty of the Grand Canyon.