Part III - The long and smoky road home

 

Grass Wildfire on I-5

Since I still had a few muscles and tendons in my legs which were not screaming in pain from the abuse of this trip, I made two stops on the way back to Las Vegas. The first was the Coral Sand Dunes State Park, which was sort of on the way out from Kanab. The park is a sort of a misplaced beach, or from a geologic perspective, an example of how all the huge sandstone formations are created. Wind driven sand eroded from the Navajo Formation blows into this area and builds up against the ridge lines, creating very large dunes. It is a perfect playground for ATV’s and other off-road vehicles. You can also rent a surfboard and slide down the larger dunes. Looks like fun, but not for me. All of this activity is well controlled by the park rangers, so it’s safe to wander around to look for animal tracks, or just enjoy the scenery. I’ve mellowed about ATV’s in my old age I guess. It was a pleasant stop for an hour or so, but I did manage to get a pile of coral sand in the car. I had to do some serious vacuuming when I got home.

Getting back to the highway to continue my journey to Las Vegas was a challenge. This was another Google Map issue - I’ve had a few this year. Google had me travel about 20 miles in the wrong direction, just to circle around and come back past the park to finally catch the correct roads to get to the highway back to I-15.Very annoying, but the scenery was beautiful, so seeing it again was not so bad.

I decided to hit the Valley of Flames State Park one more time, since there were large sections which I did not cover on the way in. Glad I did. This really is a gem of a park. I was not up for any serious hiking, but found a number of trails I’d like to follow on my next trip out here. 

After Las Vegas, I headed off to Westlake Village, a community NW of Los Angeles to visit family. I also made a cemetery visit, but no need to discuss that in this blog. I had a nice time hanging with my cousin, and had a pleasant cruise around the lake in their electric “party” boat. After two nights, I made the long trip back home. That should have been a boring, uneventful trip, but I had one more bit of excitement added to the trip. Driving through a wildfire. About halfway home, cruising North on I-5, I noticed a cloud of smoke on the horizon. It was extremely windy, so I was guessing there was a grass fire somewhere ahead. As I got closer, the cloud grew and appeared to be very close to the highway. Well, it was REALLY close to the highway. There were no cars in the southbound lanes, and people were pulling over to the side, or switching over to the south lanes, to avoid driving into the smoke. Cal-Fire had not closed the northbound lanes  since the fire had not jumped the median yet. I really wanted to get home, so I SLOWLY entered the wall of smoke, following behind a big rig which I could barely see. As we crawled ahead, you could see the flames on the other side of the highway, and the fire crews working the fire. I made a big mistake - I did not turn off the A/C or shut the vents, so the car filled up with smoke. Fortunately I was through the smoke quickly, but was gasping for air at the point. That hurt. It took a while, with the windows and moon roof open, to clear out the car. It took about four days to clear out my lungs. Smoke inhalation is not fun.

The remainder of the drive home was uneventful…except for coughing. It was good to get home - I did absolutely nothing for two days. That felt good.

No Wave, but a nice White Pocket

 

This post is Part II of the previous post, which covered my Road Scholars trip to the two National Parks in Utah. As I briefly mentioned before, I decided to try for a hike called “The Wave” - very well known among hikers in the South West, both for the amazing sandstone formation with waves of flowing, layered sandstone, as well as the notoriously difficult trail to get there - difficult in that the trail is not marked, and you can wind up lost in the desert. Here’s what the Wave looks like (not my photograph)

The Wave is a regulated location, in the North Coyote Buttes, within the Vermillion Cliffs National Monument. It is only a 3.5 mile hike to get to it, but the trail is not marked, and it’s easy to get off-trail, something you don’t want to do in a desert. Access is managed by the BLM, and you have to get a permit either through the monthly lottery on the recreation.gov website, or a daily permit, again through a lottery on the same site. For the daily permits, you can only submit an application if you are physically within an geo-fenced area between Kanab and Page AZ. Only 64 permits are granted each day. I had no luck on the monthly lottery for the past 5 months, so since I would wind up a 90 minute drive from St. George to Kanab, I thought it would be worth a try after I was done with the Road Scholars trip. Not wanting to chance getting lost on my own, I signed up with a local touring company (Kanab Touring Company) for a private guide. Since there was no guarantee of getting the permit, I was also signed up for an alternative tour to a non-permitted area in the same National Monument - The White Pocket. I had everyone on the Roads tour crossing their fingers for me. 

So, that was the long story of what I was hoping for on my solo trip extension. And here is the rest of the story, of what actually happened.

I headed out from St. George in the morning after our farewell dinner. It’s a relatively short drive from St. George, going back through part of the route to Zion. It was a beautiful drive - like being in one of the old Western movies (many of which were filmed in this area).  There was no traffic, and I made the trip in nothing flat. My first goal was to do some laundry - after 10 days of travel and hiking, the laundry bag was getting full (and a little fragrant). Kanab has a really nice combo laundromat and car wash. I passed on the car wash. 

The laundromat had Wifi, so I was able to submit my permit application for the Wave, targeted for Tuesday (it was Sunday). I would find out that evening if I was successful, in which case, I would pick up the permit on Monday. After finishing laundry, I decided to ignore my initial plan of taking a day off from hiking, giving my knees a rest. Heck, there were so many trails in the area and absolutely incredible rock formations, that I had to do something. So, I decided to do a hike on a trail named “Dinosaur Footprints Trail”. It was marked as easy. What could go wrong? I set out without water or a pack since it was only less than a mile to get there. But, there was a lot of vertical portions, on loose rock, small ravines, and the trail was hard to find as you went up. A bunch of people passed me on the way down, and there were very few cars in the parking lot. I thought about turning around but of course, kept on trucking. The trail got worse since I was not on a trail, and I was starting to get concerned about being by myself. Then I heard voices. Real people, not in my head. A nice couple was above me, searching for the dinosaur footprints. Once I scrambled up there, they asked why I was coming up the cliff, when there was an easier trail. Duh. They asked if I wanted to follow them down once we found the footprints. I gladly accepted the offer. The footprints were almost impossible to find unless you knew what you were looking for (I did, so did the other guy….another geologist). And when we found some, they were really weathered out. The trail down was much easier than what I was on, so I made it down safely.

I think I now have a guardian angel keeping an eye out for when I’m doing something stupid. The angel’s name is Jan. I need that. I tend to do a lot of stupid things.

I avoided doing any more hikes after that, checked into the hotel (a really nice Hamden Inn), soaked in the spa for a while, and had a nice dinner. The town is really setup for walking - a lot of nice restaurants all along the main drag, which is also where most of the hotels are located. What’s really cool, are all the metal stands all along the street, with photos and stories about all the movie stars who have stayed in Kanab while filming Western movies and TV shows.

That evening, I got the bad news. I did not get a permit. The touring company also submitted a request, and they were also unsuccessful. So, I would be doing the White Pocket on Wednesday. Damn. 

I now had Day 2 in Kanab wide open for whatever I felt like doing. How about a nice hike? Sure. I had already picked one out, someplace that would probably have a bunch of other people. It had an interesting name - Toadstool Hoodoos, in the Escalante National Monument. How could I resist? This time I geared up with food and plenty of of water (2 liter bladder in my pack). The trail head was about 40 minutes from Kanab, and pretty easy to find - big parking area with porta-potties. A good sign. It was a nice day - not too hot, and relatively light winds…which were supposed to pick up later in the day. The trail to the hoodoos was nice and easy following a sandy wash. It was really obvious when you reached the hoodoos.

This was not a toadstool. Once you step past, there was a very large, flat area with these odd, small lumps of sandstone with capstone on top. Some were only four feet high. Very strange. Very hard to figure out how/why they were there, unlike the hoodoos in Bryce Canyon. 

I spent a few hours wandering around - it was fun taking time to setup shots, and just enjoy the strange landscape. Then all of a sudden, the wind picked. Not a breeze - steady, strong gusts that were blowing the fine grained sand at enough velocity to sting bare flesh. Ouch. Seemed like a good time to beat a hasty retreat back to my traveling closet (Subaru). Which I did.

I was now left with a decision on what to do with the rest of the day. Looking at the map,  noticed I was less than an hours drive from Page AZ, and the horse bend of the Colorado River. Woo hoo! I last saw that 53 years ago on my first geology field camp in undergraduate school. Things have changed….not the river - that would take tens of thousands of years to alter the course of the river. What had changed was Page, which is now a giant commercial strip mall (nicely done though), and it now costs $15 to park your car so you can walk .75 miles to the overlook, on a broad path with shaded resting spots. The place was packed with tourists, and when you get down to the viewing area, you have a large number of idiots who take selfies along the cliff edge. It’s a long way down if you slip. They have railings along the edge for a good reason. I laughed when I heard some guy’s wife yelling at him to move away from the edge. At least he listened. 

Notice the boat wakes in the river - that was something new I guess, coming downstream from Lake Mead. 

That was the end of my day off - I headed back Kanab since I had an early start for the White Pocket. I stopped at the Kanab Touring Company office on the way back - great shop. Aside from their office, there was a nice coffee shop, and some all kinds of clothing and hiking gear. I got the name of my guide, who would pick me up at the hotel at 7.

And now for the grand finale of the trip (not quite…a few more post after this). My guide, Dan, showed up on time in a huge, off-road equipped Jeep (huge tires, winch) and off we drove to Arizona (Kanab is right on the border, and it was nice to have the time change too). I had thought about driving on my own with the Subaru - I’m glad I did not. The road to this place has deep sand pockets which can swallow SUV’s, even if they are 4-wheel drive. Lots of sharp rocks too. 

The guide was a great driver, and an interesting character, and we hit it off well. We eventually pulled into the parking area, which is about maybe a 100 yard stroll in the sand to the start of the sandstone formations. The White Pocket is sort of like this weird island in the middle of the sandy desert. And I do mean weird. It’s hard to describe it - from a geologic perspective, it is one single sandstone formation (Navaho), but it is totally chaotic. It is like someone just squished the layered sandstone, and then twisted it around a few times. There are streaks of colored rock, weird twisted formations, and large areas of white sandstone which have hexagonal shapes covering the surface - it looks like a giant quilt. 

View from the parking lot

There are no trails at all. You just wander around the “island”, carefully walking along the uneven surface, climbing/scrambling in some places, and gaze in wonder at this strange place. It was nice having a guide to help in a few places since I have balance issues, and he just let me lead along whenever I wanted to stop and photograph for a while. 

There are tadpoles and shrimp in some of the ponds

We spent over two and half hours, just taking our time to cover the entire formation. Probably walked 2 or 3 miles. The weather was great, nice and cool, but extremely windy. After a while, it was becoming dangerous for me (those balance issues again), so we wandered back to the Jeep to begin the ride back. That too was fun - he followed a rough 4-wheel drive trail back to the main road which goes along the North and South Coyote Buttes areas, so I got to see the starting point for the Wave. We also passed by some “interesting” rock formations (picture below). Kind of look like the turd emoji, but are called teepees. 

Teepees or turds?

This was a very expensive adventure - all the touring companies charge a lot for a private tour, but it was worth it to be able to focus on what I wanted to do - photography. I’ll keep trying for the Wave, and will go with the same touring company if I get the permit some day. I’d go back to Kanab anyway to hike/photograph some of the other areas that are close by - Zion, the north rim of the Grand Canyon, Escalante…..all a short drive away. More places to add to my ever growing punch list. 

So ended my hiking adventure. I returned to the hotel, started loading up the car, and had another nice dinner (I really like Kanab). The next day, I would start my very long trip back home. 

 

Searching for the Horse with No Name - hiking and photography in Utah/Arizona/Nevada

The Butch Cassidy Pond in Snow Canyon

 

I’ll get to the not so exciting photo above in a bit - of course there is a story line for that. This post has a lot of territory to cover, and I did split it in half, since this really was two (actually three) separate trips over about 3 weeks of travel.

I had heard from other passengers on the first two National Geographic trips, that I should look into Road Scholars tours - they cover pretty much the world, and have a more educational focus than many of the other tour companies and organizations. Oddly enough, after I returned from the Galapagos trip, I received their catalog (as did my sister-in-law), and I found a domestic, hiking focused trip which covered two of the national parks in Utah that I was planning to visit this year. Better yet, the tour kicked off in St. George Utah, so I could drive there instead of yet another plane ride. And even better than that, I could piggy-back my own trip to try and get to “The Wave”, out of Kanab (more on that in a separate post) AND stop and see family in SoCal on the way home. Three trips in one! So I booked it - I was on the wait list initially, but someone cancelled a week or two later. The trip was scheduled for early May, so it fit in well with my schedule. Perfect.

I had a lot of time to prepare for this trip, but stressed out about the drive and my add-on side trips. Seemed like a lot of driving. But as always, I did a lot of research on hotels, drive distances, and options for what to do in Kanab, and went ahead and booked everything up to heading home. That was about two weeks worth of scheduling. I also stressed out (I do that a lot) on what to bring before realizing that I was driving my Subaru Forester - I could just make that my driving closet, and bring whatever I thought I might need. Plus, I found what seemed to be a nice laundromat in Kanab. All potential problems solved.

The trip to St. George was not too bad. I split it into two overnights so I did not have to drive too far each day, stopping in Bakersfield CA, then on to Las Vegas, which would get me into St. George for check-in way ahead of schedule. I like having extra time. I’ve done the trip to Las Vegas (and St. George) many times with my wife - that was the southern route to/from Sacramento and Denver, and we once did a trip from Denver to LA to visit family. This time around, I stayed at the same hotel in Las Vegas, away from the strip - never been into the casinos. I did slip one side-trip into the schedule - Fire Valley State Park, on the way to St. George. This is one of Nevada’s premier state parks. It’s sort of like Red Rocks (CO) or Roxborough (also CO) parks on steroids. You can just drive around the loop roads to see the sights, or stop and hike on some really nice trails. Incredible red rock formations and scenery, plus the geology is interesting as well.

The weather was pretty crappy - drizzling, windy and cool, so the photography was not great, but it was a good start to the trip, and I planned to hit this on my trip back. The park closes all the trails on May 15th for the duration of the summer. It gets way too hot for hiking. You can still drive through it though.

I pulled into St. George in the afternoon, and checked in with Roads Scholar team. The tour lead was an extremely interesting local (from St. George) - very personable, and he turned out to be a perfect fit for this trip. He was a Swiss Army knife of a tour guide - he knew just about everything about this particular part of Utah - a fountain of information on geology, flora/fauna and history, and was an excellent organizer as well. That evening, we had a group dinner, and then had a Geology 101 lesson from a local expert  from Utah State. That was fun for me…sort of a refresher. Some if it was a bit too technical for the group, but I loved it. We also got a really cool book on the geology of the parks in Utah. Bonus round!

The group was very small - 13 of us total. There were two couples, 8 women, and me. Most everyone was from the East coast. I was the only person who drove. Good group - very friendly, and I did not feel weird being the only single guy. 

Since the trip covered three separate parks, I’ll break the rest of this post up into sub sections.

Snow Canyon State Park

This park is located just west of St. George, and is a popular hiking spot for residents in the area. It has sweeping vistas of the huge wall of Navajo sandstone which borders the west side of St. George, and has a lot of interesting hikes which wander through the sandstone and lava formations. There are even a few lava tubes - long caves, which run through portions of the park. A lot of different things for hikers and geologists. The park also has some movie history as well. A number of scenes from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were filmed in the park. Some visitors try to find all the locations from the film for selfies of course.  The pond photo at the head of this post, is a well photographed scene from the movie, where Robert Redford was kneeling for some reason. I think Paul Newman was filmed floating in the water as well. Whatever.

For our hike, there was plenty of water ponding on the sandstone, since it rained (poured) for the duration of this hike. Made for some tricky footing….more like mud in some places. The sandstone was rough enough to provide stable footing, but the sections with lava rock were tricky. There were also a few steep sections as we wandered around for 5 miles in the rain. I’d love to go back there when the sun was shining. It’s really a gem of a park. St. George is also a nice city.

There was so much rain that day that there were waterfalls cascading down the cliffs, something you don’t see to often in that part of Utah. The bad news is my new REI raincoat was not really cut out for heavy rain. I was pretty wet when we finally got back to the bus. Fortunately everything dried out quickly - even my boots (after using the hairdryer on them).

That evening, we had the only meh meal of the trip….Chuck-a-Rama (sorry Brian). Yeah, I’m something of a food snob, but I can usually find something to eat at a giant buffet. Blah. They did have soft ice cream machines with three flavors. And chocolate chips. I’m flexible when it comes to eating. And every other meal on the trip was great.

One thing I did learn about this group from the first day  - this was a hiking trip, while I was interested in a hiking AND photography trip. I had a brand new Sony A7IV, which I purchased a few days before the trip. Another tariff avoidance purchase. I really wanted to test it out on landscape photography, and had brought only two lenses along, a 17-28 wide angle, and a 28-105. I was not planing on wildlife photography unless the subject was really close. So, as it turns out, I was the only person on this trip that had a camera that was not also a phone. The problem for me was that everyone just charged ahead, listening to the trip lead who had a microphone/radio setup so everyone could hear him as we wandered along. It was easy enough for everyone else to just pull there phones out to snap a photo. I learned quickly how to solve the problem - I just stayed back to get the shots I needed, and caught up to the group. The trip lead was super flexible, and wanted to make sure everyone was getting what they wanted out of the trip. I was never left behind. A good thing of course.

Zion National Park

Zion has been on my punch list for a very long time, and it did not disappoint. The trip to the park from St. George was interesting, especially with our tour guide supreme who pointed out all the geologic features we were passing, as well as interesting historical facts about some of the towns, like Hurricane. Once we pulled into the park, we immediately set out on a warm-up hike - only 700 feet elevation gain with a few switch backs, to a great overlook point. Here’s where I decided to start hanging back to take photo’s (the bus driver/lead kept looking back to make sure I was following). Incredible views of the towering rock walls from that point.

We bussed from there to the Zion Park lodge, another absolutely beautiful spot with views of the cliffs, lots of nice places to sit, and a large open area with a gigantic cottonwood tree in the center. Lunches were all boxed for us, with large sandwiches, sides, fruit and some sort of cookie. This day, we each had a container with about 2 pounds of potato salad, enough for a family. After lunch, we headed off to our next hike - a relatively “easy” hike that most every tourist goes on, to the Emerald Pools. 

The big tree

The trail is a series of ups and downs with a lot of steep rock steps and narrow passages - perfect for handling large crowds (not really). There were choke points all along the trail and unfortunately, the rock steps were the final straw for my knee, which finally said it had enough for the day. Fortunately, all we had left at that point was one steep set of rock steps, followed by a real, paved path which led back down to the river. We all opted to get our feet/shoes wet, since we could simply cross the narrow (cold) river, and be back at the lodge. The alternative was to go back the way we came….through all the crowds. Nobody fell in the stream, and it was nice just hanging around, waiting for the bus to take us to our hotel for the night. This is where I started to appreciate hotels that had hot tubs. 

A nice spot along the trail

That evening, after dinner, we had another of the Road Scholars educational experiences - the head of a birds of prey rescue organization gave a lecture, and brought a few of his feathered friends along. The lecture was great, and seeing the magnificent birds (Screech Owl, 2 falcons, a hawk, and a Golden Eagle) was amazing. We have Screech Owls in the woods behind my house - we hear their warbled calls (not a screech) but have never seen one. I surprised how tiny they are…cute little things. 

The next day, our trip lead gave us choices for the morning hike. The more difficult one climbed up to an overlook called the Boyscout Lookout, which required hiking up two long stretches of steep switchbacks (including Walter’s Wiggles). This is the trail that leads to the start of Angels Landing trail, which requires a permit and probably a waiver, since it is very steep and exposed. The optional hike, was to follow the Virgin Rver for 7 miles, getting some great views of the valley and rock walls, until you reach the narrow end of the valley. My brain wanted to do the hard hike, but my knee won out and I opted for the less strenuous hike. That worked out - we had the morning light, and I was able to shoot a lot of photos, at my own pace.

Angel’s Landing is at the top of that tower

The final hike at Zion was to wade into the Virgin River in the narrows - this is a significant tourist trap, where the outfitters in Springdale rent out entire outfits (boots, waders, staffs) so you can avoid getting wet. The point at the end of the paved trail where you enter the river looks like a wading pool at a water park. I passed on the opportunity, but walked the trail anyway, just to see what it looked like.

I managed to walk/hike about 7 miles that day. More than enough. Most of it was relatively flat - my knees were grateful.

Bryce Canyon National Park

The next morning we loaded up our luxury bus once more, and headed off to Bryce Canyon. That was a beautiful drive, and included going through the Mount Carmel Tunnel….not to be missed. Once we reached the park, we first stopped at one of the park overlooks - OMG. I have seen photos of Bryce before, but these could not come close to seeing the expanse of this amazing place in person. What makes Bryce so special, is erosion. Over time, the sandstone erodes along fracture lines into thin “fins”, with slot canyons separating the fins. Freeze/thaw cycles create windows within the fin walls, which continue to erode, creating very strange narrow towers, called ‘hoodoos’. These take on strange shapes as the softer rocks erode faster than the hard capstone sandstone at the top layer. And there are different colors too, as the sandstone continues to leach out. The park is basically a huge basin with slot canyons and all kinds of strange hoodoos. There are trails along the rim, with viewpoints that can be reached by auto, and trails which head down to the canyon floor and meander through the fins and hoodoos. The place is magical…I’ve never seen anything quite like it. 

The first hike that day pretty much stayed on the rim - I forget how many miles it was, since I was focused on taking photographs and just enjoying the incredible view. I think I was giggling as I was walking along. After lunch, we did another hike - I opted out on the longer hike, and went off with one other person to view one of the named hoodoos, Thors Hammer. We dropped down into the canyon part way to see it.

Thor’s Hammer

The next day was our last hike before heading back to St. George. I went with a small group to follow the Wallstreet trail down to the canyon floor, and then back up after viewing a few more of the name hoodoos. The trail down was fun, heading into a slot canyon between the rock fins. It was a pleasant walk through the canyon, and a long climb back out. Well worth it. 

Bryce was, to me at least, the highlight of this trip and someplace I want to return to. 

We motored on back to St. George that afternoon, staying at the same hotel we started out in (good thing since my car was there). We had a nice farewell dinner, and said our goodbyes that night. I really enjoyed this trip - but as with my two National Geographic expeditions, there were no lasting relationships created with anyone else on the trip, something I continue to hope for on each of these adventures. 

But, at least I had more to look forward to. On to Kanab.