Zion National Park

So we returned to the hummingbird restaurant this morning, this was probably the best of the photos that we took:

 

We then headed off to Zion national park which was interesting, but perhaps not as spectacular as the other parks visited so far. This was mainly due to the huge amount of visitors there, and a shuttle service was needed to get around. However, we found some decent walks resulting in some great views. We first came across Chequerboard Mesa, so called because of the rare horizontal and vertical lines on the rockface:

After this we drove down a winding road to get a good view of an alcove, which we then drove near and got to trek to the top of. The first photo is the alcolve itself, followed by the view of the winding road from on top of the alcove:

We then drove down to Old Paria where we followed a dirt track to get some fantastic views of the striped rocks and scenery:

 

 

And finally, as we were in the heart of cowboy and western film sets, here is a picture of Dad trying to look like an angry cowboy:

We are staying in a nice motel in Page, Arizona for tonight and tomorrow night.

So we started today off with an exciting drive up to Willis Creek which then involved a short walk but got some good views:

 

 

 We then headed off to the spectacular Bryce Canyon in the afternoon where we got some great overlooks of what is called "the ampitheatre" and got to go on a great walk down into the canyon itself:

 

 

This is Wall Street:

 

This also included a great example of a balancing rock formation (Thor's Hammer):

To finish the day off we ate at a fairly decent restaurant but happened to have a hummingbird garden in the front, which was interesting as I had never seen them in real life before. Unfortunately didn't have the camera as they were spectacular to watch!

Zebra Slot

For the last day of our ATV hire we decided to go to Zebra Slot Canyon. This involved about a 3 mile hike to a wash, with the canyon leading off it. It wasn't that easy to find. Fortunately I'd got a map from the visitor centre in Escalante and we found our way there. The visitor centre also warned of thunderstorms later, which can flood the slots in minutes, as evidenced by tree trunks stuck 30 feet up.

We had to wade about 50 yards from the entrance. A guy on leave from the army (he was in special forces) tagged on as his family had turned back. He took this photo:

Zebra got its name from the fantastic stripes on the walls,

 

 

 

 

Just behind Andrew in this photo is quite a difficult climb. We managed to get up with a bit of chimneying and scraped knees, elbows watches and sunglasses!

Further on there was a sump with a difficult climb out which we decided not to try. The special forces guy couldn't mke it either so we returned down.

On the trek back I got some nice photos of layered rock,

It was a pleasant but hot trek back as the sun was a lot higher,

We then went on to a place called Devil's Garden with lots of strange shaped hoodoos and arched,

We then looped back to Escalante on the Collet Hill track. There were some dinosaur tracks marked on the GPS which we found. They are rather faint and haven't come out terribly well. Pat, Steve, how do you photograph dynosaur footprints? The first shows some footprints with a line where the dyno dragged its tail. The second shows a line of about a dozen footprints.

Finally here is the ATV. It was really great and we covered a lot of track we couldn't do in any other vehicle.

Tomorrow we head West towards Bryce Canyon.

Spooked in Spooky

This morning we eventually found the 4x4 rental place after numerous failed skyping calls. It was well worth the effort of tracking the place down as the vehicle we hired was absolutely fantastic. Unfortunately we didn't manage to take any photos of it today so will post some tomorrow. So we drove the sand buggy type thing down dirt tracks from Escalante up to the slot canyons Peek-a-Boo and Spooky. After an hour walking in the wrong direction we eventually found Peek-a-Boo:

 

As you can see it involved a bit of climbing at the start and it didn't get much easier further down.

So after about 45 minutes of climbing through we eventually reached the end of Peek-a-Boo and walked the half a mile onto Spooky, which involved going down rather than up. This slot got extremely thin in some places and involved a fair bit of breathing out to fit through some parts:

 

 

And just when we thought we had done the hard bit we came across what can only be described as one of the cousins of what we ate the other night out for revenge. It rattled at us to worn us off to which we were happy to oblige and move away very very quickly. It was indeed a rattle snake. We are keen for Phil to let us know how poisonous it is!

 

So all in all, it was a fantastic day! The 4x4 buggy is brilliant too as comes with a emergency GPS and generally very easy to drive.

To Escalante via Burr Trail and Hells Backbone

We left Torrey and went to Boulder where we diverted off onto Burr Trail. This is a remakable 20 mile trail through red rock canyons which is mainly paved.

You can see the road winding through this canyon.
We went onto the Wolverine Loop Road which was unpaved. It got trickier and was quite sandy in parts with waashes across the road which were tricky to get out of.

We went onto the Horse Canyon trailbut there were some very sandy stretches which I didn't fancy as we hadn#t seen anyone else since we left the Burr Trail. So we turned round and headed back past some more fantastic scenery. We stopped in a short slot canyon,

Back at Boulder we turned off onto Hells Backbone Road. This is a trail winding high into the mountains which is quite precipitous at times, with the road goind along ridges with 1000 foot drops on either side and a bridge across a deep canyon.

We then went on to Escalante where we're staying in the Circle D Motel. We had enough time to do the Cedar Wash trail and see Ceadr Wash Arch.

At one point we did get stuck getting out of a wash and had to dig the tyres out and lay some stones down before gunning it.
Tomorrow we're hiring a proper ATV to go along Hole in the Rock \road to some slot canyons before returning to this motel.

To Torrey

We made good progress today. The scenic roads are faster than I expected. However there was one bit we took extremely carefully. The road switched from paved to gravel and then headed straight for some cliffs. We were somewhat surprised to see that the road climbed straight up through a series of very sharp switchbacks with no barriers! This was from the top about 1000 ft up:

We took a side track at the top to get some spectacular views of the goosenecks of the SanJuan River and the plains with Monument Valley in the distance (from about 40 miles):

We carried on to Hite on the shore of Lake Powell. However it turned out to be really run down. It had been a thriving sports centre. The problem is that Lake Powell has shrunk so much through excessive water extraction that the huge concrete slipway at Hite is now high and dry.

Here's a photo from the other side. Lake Powell originally covered the grassy bit and went right into the inlet.

We carried on and came across a petroglyph on the red rock walls which are covered with rock varnish:

We passed through Capital Reef National Park with some great rock to Torrey. We've found a very nice motel with a pool. At Supper tonight we had dessert rattlesnake patties:

Tomorrow we go back into Capital Reef to do a trail and then head to Escalante on 12. I hope the rattler's cousins aren't out for revenge!

Valley of the Gods

We got up early this morning and headed off before sunrise (Steve suggests thats the best time!) about 8 miles to the start of a track going through the Valley of the Gods. This is reckoned to rival Monument Valley but is much more deserted as it is not very easy to access.

We arrived as the sun was just starting to rise and gave a pinky glow to the rocks,

Finally the sun rose above the surrounding mountains and gave real shape to the rocks.

Finally giving great colour in the centre of the valley,

Steve was right about the lighting!
We were glad we got the SUV. Parts would have been difficult in a saloon car due to rocks and sandy stretches. It is only 2wd but gave us extra clearance. We saw one other person on the trip (about 16 miles off road) who was in a RV but had had to turn round with great difficulty as one wash (stream bed which fills rapidly with water when wet) was too steep.

Now back at Mexican Hat for breakfast and a swim before heading North on the 261.