Bryce, Zion and Vegas, Baby! Day 4

On Sunday, April 8th, we were up in the morning and driving to Bryce Point when we came across this mule deer herd.  The are quite tame and have no fear of humans. 

Denice and I got the idea that we could walk Peekaboo Trail by starting downhill from Bryce Point, deep into the canyon.  The reason that we thought this was a good idea was because we would only have to worry about walking uphill at the end of the trail when we returned to Bryce Point.

I am here to testify that on Peekaboo Trail, no matter which way you walk on the loop, it is all uphill.  Yup, all uphill. Never down.  I have no idea how this is possible but we always were walking up hill.  Both of us were blowin' half way through this hike and we really bit off more than we could do.  This hike took us five hours and although we had drinks we did not bring lunch, which might have helped. 

This part is the bad news.  The trail that we are going to walk on, including the snow and ice, can be viewed from this picture.  This picture also shows how far down we are going to be walking and this is just the connector trail to Peekaboo from Bryce Point.  Yikes!

The good news is we saw all of this:

Despite the physical struggles (and the snow) of a five hour hike, we were both glad that we had the chance to see this wonderous scenery, like none other that we have seen.  Amazing.

After lunch, we decided to take it easy and drive the Highway 63 through the park from the southern points back to the lodge road in the north.  We started at Rainbow Point as the afternoon sun begins to set.

Next it was on to Black Birch Canyon to see more snow still nestled in the valleys.

On to Ponderosa Canyon with no sighting of Adam, Hoss or Joe.  But we did see this.

On to Agua Canyon where the only water was more evidence of frozen snow.

Then on to the Natural Bridge.

At Farview Point, we were met one of many spirit ravens who guide us on every vacation we go on.  Of course, this spirit raven appeared to be more interested in his own thing, but we understood.

Paria View founds us looking at this.

That night we had another great meal in the Lodge (prime rib for me and another round of buffalo stew for Denice) and spent our last night in our room in Bryce.

For all the photos from this, visit my Flickr site at http://www.flickr.com/photos/gniebuhr/sets/72157629454776210/

Bryce, Zion and Vegas, Baby! Day 3

Saturday, April 7th, found me up before dawn to catch the sunrise from (ironically) Sunset Point.  Having checked out the weather forecast before leaving I had take a sweater and my heavier spring jacket on the trip.  I was not prepared to be standing on the edge of a windy cliff with a stiff wind blowing around me and the temperature at a balmy 15 degrees. 

After awhile, when my hands (no gloves) started throbbing, I headed back to the shack.  The odd thing about the trip to Bryce (and later, much of Zion) is the complete lack of clouds.  Denice kept saying how blue the sky was which might have something to do with the fact that we were 8,000 to 9,000 feet up in the wilderness with no pollution.

This morning we really wanted to take the 4 hour horseback ride but because the lower trail (Peekaboo) still had ice on it, we were downgraded to a 2 ride on a horseback trail above Queens Garden Trail with Canyon Trail Rides.  Despite a chill in the air, it turned out to be a beautiful crisp day for ride.  We were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves to assigned to mules instead of horses.  I got Bill while Denice got Leslie and the trail boss was Joe.

Seeing this landscape from muleback was very special.  The ride was smooth, the guide was informative and funny and the weather was great.

For lunch we did the brunch at the Lodge.  The National Park Service is very good at making sure your vacation experience is a safe and happy one.

That afternoon, for whatever reason, we decided to walk down into the canyon from Sunset Point, across the cutover, into the Queens Garden and back out at Sunrise Point. 

While beautiful, this walk had many elevation changes and proved to be a hard task for us as our first hike of the vacation.  That night we ate in the Lodge for more fine dining, went to a ranger talk on the history of the moon in mankind's mythology, and then went outside in the cold to watch the moon rise.  While I do not have the lens to really capture the moon, this will give you some idea how clear the sky was and how big the moon was this night. 

For all the photos from this, visit my Flickr site at http://www.flickr.com/photos/gniebuhr/sets/72157629454776210/

Bryce, Zion and Vegas, Baby! Day 1 and 2

Denice and I took off for the wild west this Easter for a celebration of our 32nd wedding anniversary.  We left Milwaukee after work on Thursday April 5th and flew into Vegas with the only purpose this night  being to sleep in our Courtyard Hotel (on Dean Martin Drive, no less) after arriving at 11:00 p.m.

This trip started with a few issues.  I took my new laptop with me because I wanted to use it to store all the jpgs from my camera, edit the pictures in Elements, and then do this blog while on the trip.  Issue number one was I discovered in Vegas that I never loaded the photo editing software onto my computer.  I tried to download Elements 10 over the web but had to stop the two hour download nine minutes short of success when our van showed up to take us to the Avis rental counter. 

At the McCarren Airport in Vegas I had a vision of our future:

Actually, this is the walk way to the men's room in the rental car building.  Pretty cool!

After picking up our gorgeous red Ford Fusion (which turned out to be a great car for us except the rear view mirror hangs in the sight line of the driver when looking at scenery to the right quarter), we hit WalMart for food and a Best Buy to purchase a copy of Lightroom (for photo editing) except at Best Buy they said I could only buy it on the web.  This is issue number two. 

Driving from Vegas to Bryce Canyon National Park was great.  We drove north on 15 and stopped to have lunch at Peggy Sue's Diner in Mesquite, Nevada.  Peggy Sue is a former Hollywood extra and her diners have movie memorabilia ala Hard Rock. 

On the drive on Hwy. 12 to Bryce Canyon the road runs past the Dixie National Forest and a place there called Red Canyon.  Man, was this gorgeous at 4:00 p.m. in the afternoon and we stopped for our first nature experience. 

While on a walk in the Red Canyon, Denice and I fell in love with this old tree.  However, it does show just how tricky all this photography stuff is.  I used a filter and a tripod to do this shoot but I am not all that happy with any of the photos.  This is one of those times I wish I lived close enough to go back and do it at a different time of day with different light. 

While throughout this trip we really enjoyed our stay in the two national parks we are about to visit, I will encourage you to look around prior to arriving and while departing.  What you can see along the highways rivals the parks at times.  Here are some examples from Highway 12 on the way to Bryce.

We arrived at the Bryce Canyon Lodge at 5:00 p.m.  What surprised us the most at Bryce was the elegant banquet facilities that included great food and waiters in white shirts and black bow ties.  On this first night, I had some kind of fancy chicken while Denice fell in love for the first time with the buffalo stew (which sounds much more pedestrian than it was presented and it tasted). 

We slept in the Sunset Lodge at Bryce, just up the hill from the appropriately named Sunset Point.  We visited this vista before hitting the hay on our first night in the national park. 

For all the photos from this, visit my Flickr site at http://www.flickr.com/photos/gniebuhr/sets/72157629454776210/