national park – Page 3

Visiting parents

In September my parents came over from Sweden to visit us in Arizona. The first few days we showed them around the area, looked at the views from Dobbins Lookout on South Mountain, did some shopping at the Chandler Mall, had drinks at the Hyatt in downtown Phoenix and drove the Apache Trail.

Apache Trail

Goldfield Ghost town along the Apache Trail

As usual the weather was sunny and a bit warmer than we had expected at this time of year. It has been around 40 degrees Celsius in Phoenix during this time. My parents had not ever experienced that kind of heat which required some getting used to.

After the sight seeing in the Phoenix area we did a 5 day tour featuring Prescott / Sedona, Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, Las Vegas, Hoover Dam and Lake Havasu. It was a fair way to go and we had to spend quite a lot of time in the car. But it was a nice trip with a good mix of things to do. We did some hiking, shopping and sight seeing.

Grand Canyon

At the Narrows in Zion National park

My parents at Luxor

The Elvis fan

When we got back to Phoenix we had a rest day where we slept in and just went shopping in Scottsdale. In the evening we had a barbecue at the pool.

Tombstone down town

The last outing was a day trip down to Tombstone where we walked around the historic little down town, ate at one of the old saloons and watched the Shoot out show at OK Corral, featuring Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday.

At Crystal Palace where we had lunch

Thanks for visiting. We had a great time!

More images from Colorado and Utah

Of course we took loads of images during our latest trip. In case you would like to see more from our latest adventures in Colorado and Utah click here.

The Narrows

The last day before heading back to Phoenix and reality again we hiked The Narrows in Zion National Park. This is a narrow canyon through which the Virgin River runs. It is so narrow that you have to hike in the river most of the time. Since this was going to be our last hiking day we did not care about getting our boots wet and the heat made it feel very tempting to hike in the cool river.

To be on the safe side we rented poles at an outdoor store that would help us keep the balance in the stream. Many hiked without but I was happy to have one so I didn’t have to swim unless it was necessary. In fact we did not have to swim at all, at the deepest place the water reached up to my chest. Unfortunately this was after about 10 min so you had to get wet from the very beginning but then it was mostly knee deep.

It was a different and fun hike in the water but after a couple of hours we decided to turn back because we were getting a bit cold. Luckily at this time the sun was high enough to shine down into the canyon which helped us keep warm. I am not sure I would attempt this hike any other time of the year. In that case you have to rent a dry suite to keep warm.

Zion National Park

View over Zion National Park from Angel’s Landing

As we drove into Zion National Park we realized that we were getting back to desert temperatures. It was suddenly very hot again and it was hard to sleep at night. You can’t really have the engine running all night for air condition… Bryce had been warm during the day but fairly nice due to the elevation.

The heat was a factor when we chose the hikes to do here. We decided on Angel’s Landing as early in the morning as possible and Lost Canyon which was a short hike in the shade most of the day. It turned out to be a good decision and we had time to get out in the afternoon and have coffee in an air conditioned café, a swim in the cold river and a beer before cooking dinner.

You have to hike this narrow ridge to reach Angel’s Landing

Fun stuff!

Overnight hike in Bryce Canyon

Bryce Canyon

In Bryce Canyon we decided to do an overnight hike. We caught a lift with the tour bus to the south end of the park and hiked back to the more popular area closer to the entrance of the park. As we came to our final stop the bus driver told the other passengers, mostly overweight older americans, that he wanted to say goodbye to the two hikers and wish us a nice hike back. As we were leaving the bus the other passengers expressed their admiration and best wishes, it was obvious it is not very common to do a longer hike in this park.

At the starting point.

Before heading out you need to get a backcountry permit and reserve a spot at one of the few campgrounds along the way. We chose a camp about half ways after we added a loop of about 14 km in the south part of the park. Afterwards we realized that the loop had not been necessary to do since it was mainly in the forest without any view. It mainly just added time and effort. What we did see though were a lot of cute horned lizards, actually 19 of them. We had seen one in Arizona earlier this year and got the feeling they are rare to see but here they were everywhere.

Horned lizard

As we got our permit they also gave us a bear vault. This is a box with a lid that is bear proof in case one happened to find us and decide to try and steal our food. In the box we had to keep all food and scented items, like tooth paste. We also got very clear instructions on how and were to cook, sleep and go to the bathroom. We believe we followed the directions which should ensure that the park is kept clean and bears away from the tourists. They have had to put down two bears because they were stalking tourists looking for food. This is what happens when people leave food at campsites. Luckily we were not stalked, we only saw the foot prints of a mountain lion in the morning. We were ok with that.

Cooking dinner. Bear vault to the right.

Most of the hike was down in the valley underneath the rim which Bryce Canyon is so famous for. The very first part going down from Rainbow Point and the very last part coming up to Bryce Point were the nicest ones. On the way the trail went up and down a number of hills which turned out to be quite strenuous. The hike was in total about 50 km so we did about 25 km per day which is probably about what I can take with a heavy backpack and elevation change. We made it though and looked forward to shorter day hikes for the rest of the holiday.

Coming down from Rainbow point

Needles – an unexpected adventure

After some breakfast in our favourite café in Moab we drove south towards Needles. The Needles is a part of Canyonlands National Park and since we already had a backcountry permit for this park we thought we should drive in and have a look.

This is what we did NOT read before driving happily along and now we also understand why the park rangers wished us good luck…

So, we did not know that we were about to drive one of the hardest trail in the state although it was written on our map, on the flyer we got at the ranger station and on the big board as you start the drive. We simply did not read it… Maybe sometimes it is good not to know everything.

We just wanted to drive in, hike a bit and camp somewhere in the park and then leave the next morning. It turned out being quite a drive with one of us most of the time in front of the car spotting the best way to go. We knew that the car was capable of a lot but we did not really want to try it out because we did not want to break it. Now we know more.

We made it through without any damages to the car, but next time we will probably hike into the area and leave the poor car safe on the paved parking lot. Once we reached our camp we went for a hike and it was all worth it because this is what we saw.

The fact that the hike was longer than we expected (our mistake again), that we had to hike the last hour or so in the dark (luckily we were clever enough to bring head lamps), that we lost the trail for a short while and were hungry and tired is something we don’t really remember anymore. Somehow it is almost always worth it.