We awoke this morning greeted by another beautiful day in Utah, but with a less than ideal forecast. We drove about 45 minutes to Bryce Canyon National Park and, after taking into consideration the suggestions from both Garth and the park ranger at Bryce, we decided on a few short hikes before we headed on Zion. Bryce is a pretty small park, so we were told one or two hikes would be sufficient.
So we drove to the trailhead and walked to the rim of the canyon which overlooked what is called the amphitheater. Holy smokes. Similar in many ways but still so different from the sandy terrains of the Badlands and Arches, Bryce's canyons were filled with red and white pillars of sand, twisting upwards. It was insane! We decided to run the first trail - it was called Queen's Garden Trail, just about three miles, but it led into the depths of the canyon to give us a closer look at the crazy shapes and features all around us.
Our run began with a 400 foot drop down steep, rocky paths, which we mostly walked, actually. Then it flattened out a bit but continued to twist through the canyon, through stone doorways and between huge walls of rock. As we ran the relatively steep path, we got lots of weird looks and at least a few comments regarding our sanity or lack thereof. Not sure why, it was one of the coolest runs we'd ever done. The trail ended at a pillar of stone and a sign showing a picture of a statue of Queen Elizabeth or Victoria or someone in England. The rock looked surprisingly like the sculpture pictured, thus it's name. It was cool.
Next we made our way to the Navajo Trail, which we decided to walk so I could bring my real camera (great decision). It began with a series of switchbacks which led to a tiny path between two enormous stone walls. At the end of the path, seemingly growing out of the rock, were two huuuuge trees. The trail continued through more amazing terrain until, after a friendly yet hostile conversation with some Packers fans, we followed more switchbacks, passing Thor's hammer, a huge pillar with an even larger rock balancing on top.
After being satisfied with our morning, we bought some local beers and chips at the park general store and ate PB & Js at a picnic table before driving a few hours to our next highly anticipated destination: Zion National Park.
After and few hours drive, we luckily stopped just outside the park at a campsite and found out that it was the only place around with available tent sites. So after pitching our tent and setting up the tarp in anticipation of the bad weather forecast, we decided to take a drive into Zion.
After all of the crazy places we had been in the last two weeks, Zion still managed to surprise us with yet another completely unique terrain. It's hard to explain, but there were awesome rock patterns, weird trees, and the colors were different shades of red and beige. The red paved road winded through the rock until we entered a long, dark tunnel. A minute or two later we emerged, and we were immediately overwhelmed as we were all of a sudden surrounded by enormous cliffs. Exiting the tunnel was definitely one of the coolest experiences we've had yet on this trip. The mountains around us were just so massive in every direction. We drove to the visitor's center on more windy roads and then turned around and made the epic drive back to our campsite, now completely booked. We ate delicious quinoa n cheese with jalapeños, mushrooms, spinach, red pepper flakes, and of course, lots of hot sauce. Mmmmmm.
The next morning we arose early to try and get some park time in before the impending rain. There was a 100% chance of rain most of the day and the park's flash flood status was "expected." We made the hour long drive to the Visitors Center a bit before 9 and hopped on a shuttle (the only way to access the trailheads) just as the thunderstorms began. We were quickly engulfed by pounding rain, thunder, and lightning. It was one of the coolest places you can ever experience a storm like that. The whole place was just so ominous.
We didn't get out at many of the stops for obvious reasons, but we eventually got off the shuttle at the last stop, and the rain even let up a bit long enough to let us ignore the flash flood warning signs and walk along the river. The storm had created some amazing waterfalls. We took another shuttle back and stopped once or twice more for some pictures until the storm came back, and we decided to head to the Zion Lodge for coffee. However, our shuttle never left the Lodge, and eventually all of the other ~20 shuttles, full of people, were herded there because they had temporarily closed the park due to flash floods and unsafe driving conditions. Hooray! We still got coffee, and after a few hours we realized that since we did not prepare to stay past lunch, two power bars wouldn't suffice. So we got an all you can eat taco bar, and we certainly got our money's worth.
Eventually they got the roads cleaned up from the rock slides and they were able to shuttle us back to our car. We found out that earlier that morning, the river was moving 60 cubic feet of water per second. It was now over 3000 cfs.
Despite the bad weather, Zion is still easily one of our favorite parks.
It was bittersweet as we departed the last National Park of our trip out west. But now we get to start farming, woohoo! We drove a few hours right through Vegas (they had just recently reopened the interstate from the storm damage), very briefly through AZ, and into Cali! After some Google maps mishaps, we ended ended up having to pay $30 and stay at a stupid KOA that night. We ate delicious pasta with mushrooms and kale though, which made it all better. So did the celebratory bottle of wine for making it to Cali.
We were wiped and excited not to have to set an alarm the next morning. Bryce and Zion are the coolest.
