Overland in the Americas

Wednesday, 2 November 2011

On the straight and narrow

Zion has a much hyped, but admittedly pretty special hike called the Narrows which involves walking about 3 miles along a river bed (the Virgin river) into a canyon with steep and beautiful walls. The ranger advised us that we should hire some kit as the hike is in the shade and the water is cold (9ish degrees, so quite warm for most UK rivers). We hired canyoneering shoes, dry suit trousers and the obligatory hiking stick.

In the Narrows we saw many people both more and less prepared than ourselves. In order to conserve the riparian vegetation you are advised to hike as much as possible in the water, despite this most people seemed to spend only around 40% of the time in the water. This might have been understandable for those dressed in shorts and shivering (it seems this is some sort of manliness test for Mormon boys – as we saw a few shivering children lagging behind their dads), but many were dressed in the Star Trek like full dry suits (which we wanted but were sold out) and walking along the banks of the river. This was quite annoying as sections on the way back were floatable if we had suits.

Walking in the rapids was really fun and Ralph only had to be rescued once!

Waiting for the bus

Ready for action us with fellow campers and Narrows hikers Dan and Natashja

Star trek suits

Some people in drysuits floating back downstream

Ralph in the raging rapids

Oops, nearly over the top of the trousers

A katydid

Finally Ralph takes a dip having been itching to do so all day

Mission complete

of Bryce and men

Another victim of the ranchers is the Utah Prairie dog, (along with just about anything they can get their hands on, wolves, condors you name it……). This endangered species has a stronghold within Bryce Canyon National park. We were lucky to see this one in a meadow there and attempted to get a photo through the binoculars, not great but you can just about see him.

We saw what looked to be the same one on several occasions in exactly the same spot, standing up on his back legs, holding a blade of grass in both paws nibbling away (not that dissimilar to our much missed guinea pigs, the nibbling bit obviously as the manual dexterity of GPs is not renowned ). We even saw him run for cover when a hawk flew overhead.

Special prairie dog crossing sign

Fall colours on the way to Bryce

Golden mantled ground squirrel at North campground preparing for hibernation by tucking into a piece of bread Ralph dropped into the fire (recklessly ignoring all the don’t feed the animals signs).

Bryce Canyon is a small national park with amazing scenery. We spent a long day walking the Peek-a-boo loop, Navajo loop up and down around and among the spires and windows, rock formations with the colours changing as the sun moved across the sky. The shapes and colours were amazing and you could see all sorts shapes when you looked at them.

Our neighbours from Yellowstone arrived and unknowingly (so they claim!) pitched their tent next door to us while we were out walking so it was quite funny to see them again. We first meet Dan and Natasha at Slough Creek campsite, the one on the main Bison highway. They are great fun and regaled us with stories about naked Tuesdays at work, killing peacocks in bikinis and pancake making at LAN parties.

Spires

The campsite was up at the rim of the canyon so it was easy to walk up to see sunrise and sunset, well apart from getting up in the dark and out of the sleeping bag when it was just below freezing. From the rim walk you look down into the canyon and out across the spires and out into a wider canyon as far as you can see, on a clear day you can see into New Mexico.