Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Bryce Canyon National Park Day 1

We took full advantage of our first night with air conditioning and a bed in a week, sleeping in to the late, late hour of 9 AM. We had gotten used to waking with the sun, or even before it to escape the desert heat.  The BumbleBerry Inn in Springdale had a beautiful outside pool and hot tub with pleasing views of the sandstone cliffs to both the East and the West.  We lounged in the pool for a while, trying to soak up the comforts before heading back out on the road.

Once checking out of the motel, we used the first half of the day to run errands.  We had a hearty breakfast at a local joint, mailed post cards to family, purchased a few groceries for the next week, and re-stocked the cooler with ice.  Springdale, Utah is a very nice town, and very eager to cater to tourists.  The local businesses, by and large, sell just about anything one could desire, and the employees are exceedingly friendly.  

The only drawback to this little town on the doorstep of Zion was that everything was pricey.  I had never paid $16 for a single container of sunscreen before, for example!  I guess the saying is true about a captive audience.  

The road out of Zion was anything but routine.  It climbed past Canyon Junction, affording one last glimpse of Zion Canyon from a lofty perch.  Eventually the road reached a 1 mile tunnel, carved into the heart of the canyon wall.  Built by the men of the Civilian Conservation Corps during Roosevelt's New Deal, the Zion-Mt. Carmel Tunnel is an engineering marvel.  The crews built windows into the side of it, periodically, which provide the occasional glimpse of how the terrain is changing as the road travels East.  

Once emerging from the tunnel, we were treated to a strange terrain of sculpted slick-rock.  The road wound its way higher and higher up the Plateau as it went.  We stopped at a few scenic turn-outs for photos, and marveled at the cooler air.  By the time we were making the turn south for Bryce Canyon National Park, the air was a full 25 degrees cooler than on the floor of Zion Canyon.  

The road to Bryce traversed open country.  Ranch land bordered closely in most places, framed by the more distant mesas, and the even more distant mountains to the North.  We were lucky enough to drive by a field while men on horseback were herding cattle - actual cowboys!  All of this added to the "out west" motif to the area.

Entering Bryce Canyon National Park was quite different from most other parks.  Bryce is famous for the strange rock  formations called hoodoos.  Anyone who has watched a National Geographic or Travel Channel special on the American West has seen pictures of these famous and peculiar landmarks.  Driving into the park, though, provided no evidence of them.  The park road, which travels south from the entrance all the way to Rainbow Point where it dead-ends, is lined with grassy fields and gentle stands of pine trees.  No views could be seen in either direction as we drove into the park, found a campground and set up camp for the week.  

We were elated, however, with the cooler weather.  The air was little over 80 degrees, with cloudless blue skies overhead.  I was hoping we would find our tent and sleeping bag more welcoming here than we did in Zion, where we usually just sprawled naked on top of the air mattress and tried to think cool thoughts long enough to fall asleep.

With camp set up, it was time to drive around and try to gain an understanding of the landscape.  We drove to several points along the park road with views to the East.  This strange land was unlike anything I had ever seen.  The hoodoos began directly beneath the canyon rim, stretching for a couple of miles to the East in most places.  No two were the same.  They ranged from slender spires of limestone, to rock faces with windows cut out of them, to balanced rocks where the middle of the hoodoo was eroded away so severely as to create the illusion that someone had placed a boulder on top of the spire.  In many places the hoodoos were grouped together so as to resemble a structure, such as a sand castle.  

The whole scene was too strange to be real.  I couldn't resist feeling like it was some type  of optical illusion.  We drove the park road all the way to Rainbow Point.  At over 9,000 feet of elevation, this point allowed stunning views of both the hoodoo formations, and of the distant  mesas and mountains of the Grand Escalante National Staircase, stretching to the horizon in the East.  

On our drive back to camp the road was lined with, and even occasionally blocked  by, pronghorn deer.  The park is also home to elk, black bears, mountain lions and prairie dogs, to name a few species, but we have yet to see any of these.  

After cooking up some delicious stir-fry for dinner in camp, we headed to the Bryce Lodge for the evening program.  Ranger Geoff gave a surprisingly interesting presentation on the geology of the park.  I say surprising, because I have seldom found geology to be of interest.  I think its the large spans of time involved. I can understand how it took 50 million years for something to form, but it just isn't interesting to me, seeing as no one could sit around and watch it happen.  To his credit, Ranger Geoff's presentation was highly engaging and left me with a much better understanding of the processes that sculpted this bizarre landscape.  The ranger said that he taught astronomy the rest of the year, when he wasn't working at the national park.  His students are lucky to have a teacher who is so engaging and full of wonder at the natural world.

In the morning we made some breakfast and packed the day-packs for our first day hike in the park.  I was eager to explore this new terrain.  We selected the Peekaboo Loop Hike for our first ramble. A 5.5 mile hike of moderate difficulty, the Peekaboo Loop takes hikers from high on the ridge at Bryce Point down into the heart of the Hoodoos, and back out again.  We quickly learned that one downside to starting on the rim of a canyon is that you have to hike back up at the end of the day.

The trail left Bryce Point via a long and steady switch back down a moderately steep rock wall.  Pinyon, Juniper, Ponderosa and Limber Pines grew sporadically along the trail as it worked its way towards the lower elevations.  Clark's Nutcrackers, a western relative of Blue Jays, darted among the trees as we hiked.  
About half way through the descent, the trail passed through a short tunnel in the red rock.  This would be the first of several tunnels on the Peekaboo Loop Trail.

Upon reaching the bottom the actual loop portion of the hike began.  We chose to turn left and make the hike in a clockwise direction, but I think it could done either way with little difference.  The trail worked its way through the maze of hoodoos.  We would climb steeply up a wall via tightly woven switchbacks to reach a pass or tunnel and then drop back down the other side, only to repeat the process again.

The trail surface was loose rock with a coating of sand.  It was unpredictably slick, and required slow and careful food placement.  We found the 5.5 miles to be very slow going, and tiring.  

Hiking through the Hoodoos themselves was fascinating.  I felt as if I was walking through a life-size series of sand castles, or perhaps through a strange, beach themed miniature golf course.  None of it seemed real.  Occasional windows in the rock faces would provide unique photo opportunities of the more distant landscapes.  

Once completing the loop portion of the hike, we made the tiring climb back up to Bryce Point.  The weather was pleasant and mild throughout our hike, with blue skies framed by red rock formations.  

This is a bizarre place, and unlike anything I have seen before.  We are planning several more day hikes in the park, and a backpacking trip.  Hopefully by the end of the week I'll have a better grasp on this unusual landscape!