‘Merica – part four

Rachel...We are really behind with blog posts as haven’t been in reliable email contact! So lots to catch up on. After Zion National Park, we visited several other places in southern Utah, which were all staggeringly beautiful – Bryce Canyon, Natural Bridges, and Capital Reef. These were all places with incredible canyons to explore. Unlike Zion, where we started out at the bottom of the canyon and climbed upwards, in the other places we started at the top and ventured deep down. Luckily living in hilly Wellington is good practice for all the canyon walking and rock scrambling that we did.

Bryce Canyon was an amphitheatre full of bizarre red rock formations called hoodoos, some named for their shapes – one looked exactly like Queen Victoria! The colours were amazing, especially in the late afternoon sun. We camped at the top of the canyon, which was very cold – we were 8000 feet high (around 2500m).

Capital Reef was very unusual in that the valley floor was full of fruit trees, planted by the first Mormon settlers to the area in the 1860s, which you can pick fruit from today. We picked some juicy sweet red apples in an orchard with deer wandering around, which was very surreal!

Natural Bridges was a canyon system with 3 rock arched bridges that had formed by erosion over time. You could walk down to all 3 of them, and we scrambled down to two. The first one was lots of fun – scrambling down rocks, ropes, wooden ladders and handles to the canyon floor. Not for people scared of heights or too worried about health and safety!

We were lucky enough to visit the Utah parks during the US Govt shutdown, as the Utah state government had done a deal with the Federal government to keep 8 national parks in the state open temporarily. No such luck in California, where Death Valley was shut, although we were able to drive through it.

Bryce Canyon

Highest point at Bryce Canyon

Stellar's jay

Tom, Bryce Canyon

Thor's Hammer, Bryce

Bryce

Rebecca, Bryce

Bryce

Thor's Hammer

Queen Victoria!

Scenic Highway 12

Scenic Highway 12

Natural Bridges

Capital Reef, Fruta District

Capital Reef

Natural Bridges

Natural Bridges

Tom at Capital Reef

Zion Canyon - Utah

Rebecca..

Zion Canyon is a national park in the south of Utah. At 3600 feet (1097 metres) above sea level and is inhabited by chipmunks, mule deer, foxes and very rarely mountain lions.  We hiked along the stripy red, white and orange cliff faces. The paths were steep and occasionally very narrow with a steep drop off on one side and one false step would mean certain death. On the way we saw chipmunks and some lizards basking in the sun as well. We edged closer and closer to the ‘what we thought was the top’ point. We arrived at the view point, realising that there was an opportunity to venture into a canyon that wasn’t that far away. My family and I decided to go for it. We were happily wandering along the track when we realised that there a narrow and dangerous part of the track going along the cliff face and that we needed chains to be able to walk up there safely. It was very scary. We were 240 metres high from the ground that we started on. I could see all the other tracks clambering up the cliffs. All I could think was “don’t look down, don’t look down, don’t look down” When we finally got to a reasonably safe part of the track, I raced on ahead to see what was in store for us. I found out that it was the end of the trail that was maintained which meant scrambling was involved. Scrambling over rocks that were either steep, slippery or sometimes a mixture of both! After around about 15 minutes we had made to the end of the trail that we were allowed to go on. So, as you do, we started heading back to the bottom of the hill. When we finally got down to the bottom of the cliff we caught a shuttle bus back to the RV we relaxed for the rest of the day coming back at 4pm.

Our campsite

Zion Canyon

Rose at Zion

Tom and Rebecca on the scary bit!

Rose at Hidden Canyon

View of canyon from our walk

Checkerboard Mesa