Bryce-Zion Trip Report

Report of 5/07 Zion NP and Bryce Canyon NP Trip

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In 1983, Lona and I made a whirlwind visit of most of the Utah National Parks and Monuments. This caused us to vow we would return soon and see Bryce Canyon and Zion more thoroughly. Because of an over crowded calendar and various ambulatory afflictions that one or both of us have experienced since, it has taken us a very long time to make good on that vow. Only now in early May, 2007, did we finally take our two+ week Zion and Bryce trip. Now that we both are able, we were determined finally to hike in the parks and make use of the topos and guides we bought in 1983.

The trip got off to a ragged start. It seemed to take forever to plan and pack for our adventure, so we got a late start. The plan was to drive across Yosemite NP to get scenery early and camp in a lovely campground on the other side of the park. Yosemite is the last place to cross the Sierra Nevada mountains (except on foot) until way south over Walker Pass east of Bakersfield. The alternative, faster route is to go south down a very boring I-5 which travels down the flat central valley of CA, the food supplier for the USA. Reminds me of Kansas except that mountains are visible way off in the distance on both sides. I figured since it had been a poor snow year, Tioga Pass over the mountains in Yosemite should be open by now. We haven't traveled long before I was regretting not checking on the Web before taking off to assure we could get through Yosemite. We made a cell phone call to a fellow technoid geek friend and had him check for us. It turned out that the pass would not be opened until just before Memorial Day. Thus, after going way north toward Yosemite, we had to turn the truck south down the dreaded I-5. That added a few extra hours to the trip and meant we had to sleep in a motel in the central valley instead of the beautiful campground.

To salvage some scenery, we found a new approach to Walker Pass we had not driven before and decided to spend extra time to go through Death Valley NP on the way to Zion instead of a faster route straight through to Las Vegas. This turned out to be very scenic.
We know essentially every square inch of the 3000 sq. mile Death Valley NP, having driven down every 4WD road I know of and hiked many of the canyons and climbed most of the desert peaks on our 14 previous visits there. It is legal to camp off any jeep road as long as you are well away from a paved road, and do not crush any vegetation. The timing was right to stay the night, so we headed for a great place to camp we know of on the road that leads to the ghost town of Chloride City on top of the Chloride Cliffs in the Funeral Peaks of the Eastern part of the park. This was right on our way anyway. We were treated to gorgeous indigo blooms of sage brush and a flock of chukars.

When we arrived at Zion late the next afternoon, we were shocked how crowded the park was compared to what we had found in 1983. There was no place to park, the lodging and campgrounds were full, and we were required to take a shuttle van through the park instead of driving freely on our own schedule. We barely found a room at an exorbitantly priced motel in Springdale, just south of the park. I don't even remember seeing that town in 1983. It was just a wide spot in the road then, although it had been there since the Mormon pioneer days . Now it was booming from the tourist trade. This whole Zion scene didn't promise to offer the serenity and communion with nature that we had driven so far to find.

The next morning we got up earlier than we would have liked to get a parking spot outside the visitor's center before parking filled up. The shuttles turned out to be fine. Their visibility was good and the drivers gave a nice narration of what we were looking at as we drove along. They stop at all the scenic spots, and another shuttle arrives every 6-10 minutes.

We could and subsequently did do hikes from one shuttle stop to another that would have required cars at each end to do by ourselves. Our spirits improved greatly compared to the previous evening. We hiked all over Zion during the next four days. The scenery was fabulous; the wild flowers were in full bloom; the weather was perfect, and when it was time to leave to go over to Bryce we were not satisfied because we became aware of more stuff we wanted to do.
Unfortunately we were not physically able to do some of the more aggressive hikes to spectacular overlooks because Lona's knees would not tolerate it, nor mine either. I evidently tore the medial meniscus in my "good" knee on one of the steeper hikes on the third day. My knee never did hurt, really, but it started feeling tight and swollen inside. Nothing was visible outside except the next day the skin discolored on the

Double Arch Grotto up Taylor Creek Canyon

right side of the knee from some internal bleeding. I take that to be a good sign. It means that what ever tore has a blood supply and can heal like my other knee did after I tore that medial meniscus. I can't seem to keep my connective tissue connected anymore. Getting old stinks!

The knee bothered me a little, but did not stop us from hiking at Zion nor Bryce. We took it easy. It got no where near as aggravated as the other knee that has now healed. As I write this, the knee feels totally normal, but I am still taking it easy on it and will continue to do so for many weeks.
The last hike we did at Zion before pushing on to Bryce was in the northern part of the park called the Kolob area. It was a hike up a canyon along Taylor Creek past two run down, pioneer log cabins to the most beautiful grotto we have ever seen. We could hardly tear ourselves away from that lovely spot. I have attached a picture. You

may wonder why the border of the picture is weird. I stitched together two pictures I took of the grotto that were unregistered and not intended to be stitched, but I thought it better showed the whole grotto.
The scenery at Bryce Canyon was even more spectacular. Our favorite hike went down through the hoodoo formations along the Navajo Trail to the bottom, over to another area called the Queens Garden (one of the hoodoos looks like Queen Victoria strolling through her garden) and out up through other canyons and hoodoos. We traversed back along the rim to our starting point. We would like to have taken some more extensive hikes down there, but once again, our knees would not permit. We stayed in a nice campground at Bryce, and (unlike Zion) showers were

available. I got some great pictures of the sunrise on the Bryce amphitheater from Bryce point that faces northwest. Another attempt at sunrise pictures from another location was a bust because it was overcast that morning. That is a bummer after getting up 1.5 hours before sunrise to be there on time. We had some extra time on our hands, so we decided to spend a day relaxing and just taking in the scenery. Relaxing is unusual for us, but it was wonderful. We hated to leave so lovely a place as Bryce.
We calculated that if we headed back home the most boring but fastest way, we would have enough time to do what we regretted missing at Zion (a hike to Timber Creek Overlook and a scenic drive in the Kolob Section of the park). We spent a couple more days there and stayed in a nice Comfort Inn in Hurricane, UT. It had a heated pool and even a miniature golf course for entertainment. Hurricane also had a very interesting museum about how the Mormon pioneers settled there. The docent was an older lady who was the granddaughter of one of those pioneers. Her stories were quite interesting.
We arrived back in San Jose the afternoon of May 17th. Unlike 1983, this time we were not sick of the scenery and not ready to come back to reality. But I had to edit and organize the 500+ pictures I took, deal with the over 100 Emails I had waiting for me, and mow the grass before it got knee high..

Don