Hiking in Zion National Park

Today we got up and drove into Zion and took the shuttle into the interior. These peaks are named Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and form the Court of the Patriarchs. Stunning, just stunning.

We got off at the Grotto stop to do the Angels Landing hike. It's about 5 miles round trip. It's up and then it's down. The path debouches on to Scout's landing, which is where I took this picture. 

Then one may hike up to the side of a sandstone fin for an even better view. 

There were a lot of people there. Right after I took this picture, the young woman in the green pants at the top of the photo had a full blown panic attack. She was crying and scared. It took awhile to get her moving, no one could get around her. 

I made it up farther than I thought I would, given my dislike of heights. If you look behind me, that's quite a drop below. The tree was my friend. 

Jim went on farther, but did not get out to the very end. There were many people and no one was moving quickly. If we did walk out to the end, this is what you would see (courtesy of the web). 

We went back to Scout's landing and had nosh. Feeding the animals is prohibited. Apparently someone has been feeding them because the chipmunks have learned that backpacks mean food. 

This is the trail on the way down. It's pretty dang impressive. 

We took the shuttle on up towards the end of the line. 

We got off at the Temple of Sinawava stop, to walk up to the Narrows. The Virgin River runs through the canyon and is eroding in a downward direction because the Navajo Sandstone is so hard. Eventually it will reach a softer strata and then will start widening the river bed. That will not happen for awhile. For now, it's a very narrow channel, popular with people who enjoy hiking in the water. 

This is a Golden Mantled Rock squirrel. Cuuuuuuuuute. 

More pictures from the trail. 

So, it was about a 7 mile day for us. My toes are screaming a little, but all in all we had a really good day in the park.

Zion National Park in the Rain

We are in day THREE of the cutoff low that currently is rotating over Nevada, Arizona and southern Utah. Today we were awakened at 6:30 by some fairly significant lightning and thunder. So far my plan to sleep in is being thwarted by nature.

Tuesday we decided to drive in to Zion National Park. The road there is under construction. You can't really see it in the picture, but the road surface in front of this tunnel is dirt. All of the paving has been removed. This is a one mile long tunnel, it's pretty dang impressive. Tour buses can make it through, but they must drive down the center stripe.

Here we are, driving through the rain and the mud, thanking the patron saint of RVers that there is an alternate route to our next destination. This is the route suggested by Yahoo maps, but we will not be going this way.

After traveling through Zion, we decided to go see if Highway 14 would be a viable route to Escalante. NO! The road tops out at almost 10,000 feet. The rain had turned to snow at that elevation. It's hard to see, but that sign warns of upcoming 8% downhill grades with max speeds of 25 mph. That would be bad for us. It was a useful side trip.

So, we returned home whence we came. It was pretty spectacular going through the park again. The water falls had started running. Unfortunately, there was not enough light to get the good ones, which were far away from the road. This is a road side water fall.

Utah has some of the best scenery in the country. When the sun returns I will be posting more pictures of the area. It's just amazing.

So, that was yesterday. Today we are going in to St. George to forage for food and continue to wait out this weather system.

Draper UT to Zion River RV Park, Virgin UT

We had dinner with the Hancocks last night, as always it was just delightful. Their yard is beautifully landscaped. This is one of the outdoor seating areas, it's a chair from an old chairlift. It's suspended so one can sit and look down the valley.

I like the lights in the trees. They are very festive. They're all wired and on timers, which is good because there are many of them.

I took this picture as we were leaving the park in Draper. This is a Hummer H2. This is another case of why. I don't understand why you would own a Hummer in the first place, but if you did own a manly off road vehicle, why would you put such low profile tires on it with fancy wheels?

The weather turned ugly today. We had gusting side winds and torrential rain for most of the drive south. Tonight there's a chance of high winds and hail. After that they're predicting a plague of locusts and frogs falling from the sky.

The Zion River RV park is very nice. We are on a paved pull-through slot. Pull through means that one just drives in, no backing is required. Should be simple, right? We're watching a guy come in next to us, he backed and filled for about 10 minutes, and finally gave up and drove around the park for a second try. I can not understand why this was so difficult. No, wait, he's backing up again.
Anyway, we have wi-fi and satellite. What we do not have is cell phone service.
Given the harrowing nature of today, the captain has authorized an extra tot of grog, so I am signing off now to enjoy said grog. That is all maties.

Idaho to Mountain Shadows, Draper UT

Does this look like fun? This was taken on I84 somewhere in south east Idaho. It's fairly hilly terrain and they have a head wind, and they're riding on a freeway because there aren't any roads. I've ridden on I90 before, and the noise is just overwhelming. I admire their perseverance.

We are at Mountain Shadows, and it's kind of an ukky park. No cable, no wifi, and the sites are side by side hookups. The interior roads are narrow, hopefully there will be no parked cars in the way when it's time to leave in the morning. In some parks you have permanent residents. This is a Select Suites 5th wheel with a room attached to it. There's a stand alone shed in the back, as well. This guy is not going anywhere for awhile.

Then you have your less ambitious permanent residents, who merely skirt their 5th wheels. He has used plywood, and has been very precise in cutting to fit the RV's dimensions. It's a nice job.

Sometimes you have completely home built auxiliary living quarters. This is a plywood box on top of trailer frame we saw last night. Both the class A and the box have window air conditioning units, so we don't think they move often. They both also have water hoses going inside via a window which is something we have not seen before.

It was not a bad drive down to Draper. We're here now and are about to go out and forage for groceries. Our meal planning was incomplete in that we did not obtain food for Monday. I'm not sure what I was thinking while at the store.

Oregon to Village of the Trees, Declo Idaho

Oy and it was a long day. There is a lot of construction on 84 in Oregon. It took forever to complete the first 125 miles. Here we are just past Mountain Home Idaho, where the road goes on forever, and ever and ever.

Village of the Trees is a nice park. We weren't sure what to expect when we turned in to the gas station which is in front of the park, but it's ok. There is a begging squirrel.

There is a cute little pond.

The satellite antenna is working again. It had spit out the fuse assembly in the power plug. Fortunately we found all the bits in the basement and were able to reinstall. Note to self, tighten that thing frequently.

Tomorrow we are on to Draper UT to see our friends the Hancocks.

Oregon Trail RV Park - Baker City, OR

Greetings from Oregon. It was a long day for us, but an even longer day for these unfortunate souls. How does this happen? This was on a fairly long 6% grade. I was driving, and I did my first hard stop downhill towing 6 tons of RV. The little pickup seems to have done a 180 and was hit by the 18 wheeler.


Look upper left in the photo, you can see the top of the other pickup truck that has been hit by the 18 wheeler. Highway patrol was arriving on-scene as we went through in the left lane. It was a very recent incident.


So, that was the interesting thing we saw today.

Most of the drive is through agricultural land. It's green if it's irrigated, and brown if it's not. The park is ok, it would not qualify as a destination stop. The satellite antenna has stopped working due to mysterious forces. However, it's under warranty so it may be going back whence it came. The real bummer is that the only TV one will see in Utah is via satellite. I think two weeks without TV counts as roughing it.