Anyway, at the end of the last post, I was tooling around Canyonlands NP wanting to pull a Bear Grylls and just walk forever (but without the film crew and the misleading notions of isolation) and believe me, this was the place for it. But after Canyonlands, I had about a 3 hour drive to a little town called Richfield, UT where I was staying the night at some crappy Quality Inn (and yes, I'm aware of the irony). There wasn't much to Richfield - just a small town right off the interstate - but they did have a Home Depot and a Wal-mart (don't they all).
A quick/funny story about the hotel. I remember the front desk lady being all excited that she was able to give me a room by the stairs. I didn't think anything of it but this turned out to be the worst thing possible. Seems that at 4 in the morning, I was awakened by numerous jackasses running up and down the "great to be located next to" stairs. Although, I guess it could've been the same jackass...just over and over. Since I was "awake", I figured I'd fake a trip out to the car and find out what was going on. Here's a slightly paraphrased conversation held in the dark of a bad hotel parking lot :
Me - So are you guys a construction crew at the hotel?
Me - So are you guys a construction crew at the hotel?
Guy (apparent leader of crew) - No, we're a seismology team taking readings south of here.
Me - Oh, that's cool. Because I thought with all the noise you were remodeling some of the rooms.
It went downhill from there but I couldn't go back to sleep so I guess I was able to get a jump on the day. From Richfield, I was driving south to Bryce Canyon NP and then on to the Grand Canyon. I had a good friend tell me to be sure and hike down into Bryce Canyon but after spending the previous two days in Arches and Canyonlands, I thought I knew what was coming. Then I came to this.
Heck yeah I was going down there! Seems that the canyon was formed due to erosion (like any other canyon) but also because ice freezes (or is it already frozen?) and then expands in the rock to form the cool spires. It's science. On the way down, I came across this - Thor's Hammer (say it like the movie voice over guy). No joke, that's what it's called. But cool too.
And this is the trail down to the canyon floor. I should note, this is a vertical panorama (2 pics put together) but you get the idea of how far down it was.
Here's a few pics in the canyon and from the way back up.
Check out the person in this pic compared to the tree.
This is the opening in the canyon you come out of before the trek back up.
And this is what you have to hike up - back and forth and back and forth some more.
Finally, the pic from the top looking back down.
After getting back to the top, there was still plenty of the park to see. So once I made it back to the car, I continued south on the main park road and had planned to head all the way to the southern most point of the park. However, the rangers in the middle of the road thought differently. It seems they were doing some controlled burns in that section of the park so the road was closed...and so was my Bryce Canyon experience. I guess it was okay. I had to drive to the Grand Canyon anyway.
Speaking of that, I was coming from the north driving south to the south rim of the Grand Canyon (by far the more visited rim) which seems easy enough, right? Well, before the trip I was looking at the map and doing some simple calculations, I figured it would take about 3 hours just to get around the Grand Canyon. Turns out I was right. Seems pretty unreal that something is sooo big it takes 3 hours to drive around. Anyway, here's a quick video of me losing my mind driving in the wide open.
Once again, before the trip, I had picked out a spot I wanted to check out and the below video is from that spot. It's actually at the "start" of the Grand Canyon with the Colorado River below. Let me tell you, I've experienced hot before but getting out of the car and walking across that pedestrian bridge was probably the hottest I've ever experienced. During the video, I leaned over to show you the river below and my arms touched the metal railing. You're lucky you didn't get a few choice words in there.
Eventually, I did actually make it to the Grand Canyon. Like most people, I stopped at the first lookout just because I was so anxious to see it. My first reaction was, "this is one big *bleepin'*
Here are some more pics of the canyon. This first one is the view of one of the overlooks from the one next to it. Gives you a good idea of the initial drop from the canyon ridge (about 800 feet or so).
This is the view from the same overlook as the previous picture but more centered in the canyon. Keep in mind, the Grand Canyon is 10 miles wide at its farthest point and 1 mile deep from canyon ridge to the Colorado River.
Suffice it to say, I was completely blown away by this thing. So much so that I think everyone should see this for themselves at some point in their life.
It was starting to get a little late in the day and I still needed to check into the campground before they closed. After that, I wanted to find a decent place to eat. But first, I found a lounge and enjoyed the crisp, clean flavor of a few Fat Tires (beer only available west of the Mississippi). Because the chair was so comfortable (*cough*), I stayed and had a burger (and a good burger at that). So once again, after a fairly exhausting day and a little fire I made, I laid down my head on my make-shift pillow consisting of a sweatshirt stuffed in my sleeping bag bag. Ah, vacation. As I went to sleep, I looked forward to getting up well before the sun and watching it rise over the canyon.
Venture on, venture in a high MPG vehicle.
No comments:
Post a Comment