Cedar Breaks

Left the crowds at Bryce and headed south to Cedar Breaks. I've decided it is the North Rim version of Bryce.. similar looking formations, but higher up, colder, less crowded, and beautiful meadows on the drive in. Quite a breath of fresh air after hot croweded Bryce Canyon. Went during the Wildflower festival- although many of the flowers weren't blooming just yet.




Left the monument and went further up the road into the forest and up to Brianhead... elevation around 11,300 ft... It was quite frigid.



So high up that the road was still snowed in so we had to park the subey and walk up most of the way. Up on top there is a church-looking structure built by the CCC... lots of marmots too.


One of my two yellow-bellied marmot friends that we met up there... he seemed pretty confused about our presence. Seems as though not too many people make it up that way.

Overall.. a pretty big fan of Cedar Breaks. Thinking about heading back up for some Shakespeare and mountain biking... good chance of the altitude killing me if we do so up at the top though... we'll see.

Bryce

Rolled into Bryce one Sunday afternoon.. Decided to drive past the crowds and down South to Rainbow Point. Took a little stroll down the bristlecone pine loop... Bristlecones may be tied with aspens for my favorite tree position.. Also called wind timber, they only grow on the edges of cliffs and rims where the conditions are the worst they could be.. windy, exposed, dry, rocky soils... hardcore. But they are some of the oldest living things around.


One of the oldest bristlecones at Bryce... about 1700 years old. Looks dead, and it might be but it'll be kmpossible to tell while theres still at least 10 inches of bark on the tree. Probably started going down the tubes when they told everyone how old it is and people started touching it, taking pieces of it... etc.
There is a bristlecone in the White Mountains in California, Methuselah, that is almost 5,000 years old!






There were some cool youngins on the trail as well. The needles are so soft! Hard not to caress them for a little while.

A little further down the trail is a small structure with a couple plaques with some Thoreau quotes on them.. Like this one:
"I need solitude. I have come forth to this hill... to see the forms of the mountains on the horizon- to behold and commune with something grander than man."




It started getting dark (and cold) so we started driving back. Stopped at natural arch on the way. Did a lightening speed Ed Abbey-style tour... driving real fast, jumping out of the car, leaving it running and trying to take in the views in less than 14 seconds. Kind of fun.

Managed to get a pretty balla spot in the campground.. Not really our style- had to pay about 15 bucks but we weren't really fancing wondering around Dixie national foerest in the dark trying to find a spot.


Got up early and started hiking with some nice cloud cover. Had a pretty ambitious hike planned out but (Jesse) ended up getting bored and cutting it short. Hiked from Bryce point, down through the canyon and up to sunrise point, then took the rim trail back. Must say it is kind of nice hiking in a canyon without putting a ton of effort in (like here).


By the time we finished, it was sunny and beautiful- also hot and crowded.. So we were pretty anxious to get out of there.

Old Bright Angel Trail

Last weekend, Jesse and I headed back into the canyon... This time on the Old Bright Angel Trail- the trail that was used for getting across before the CCC made the North Kaibab Trail all nice. Parked the suby off the scenic drive and had a nice morning stroll through the forest before getting to the trailhead.

View a little ways down... The trail wasn't as bad as many people said.. And we were shaded for the first half.
Early morning view of bright angel canyon on left.





Mystery poo... anyone know what this is? Might have to refer to "Who pooped in the park"- an excellent resource for identifying animal poopies.



Made it down to the Waterslides in Bright Angel Creek (left)... With somewhat ominous rainclouds in the distance. We only got a few drops but the clouds and winds cooled everything down significantly.. not your average scorching hot july day down in the canyon.






Little King snake we ran into around mossy cove. He let us take a few pictures of him and then continued on his way over the ledge.

Overall a pleasant day hike... it really makes all the difference having the trail to yourself... me like

Kolob Canyons/ Buckskin Gulch

Happy Fourth! Celebrating sans fireworks today.. extreme fire danger up here on the Kaibab plateau... not that we're allowed to have fireworkds when fire danger isn't extreme but that's ok. NPS and Forever Resorts usually celebrate with a water fight but I think they've scaled that back too. I just want to eat barbequed goodness and play some volleyball...


Anyway... still behind. A few weeks ago Jesse and I had a permit to hike Buckskin gulch over two days and stay overnight. However, with the slight chance of rain and Buckskin being one of the slottiest slot canyons around, we decided not ot risk it. Headed up to Kolob in Zion instead (sort of like the North Rim of Zion... less people, no shuttles, more remote, a bit smaller but still cool).




Did the Taylor Creek Trail, a delightful little hike along Taylor Creek that takes you to Double Arch Alcove. We got caught in a rainstorm about a half mile from the alcove and had to hover under a little overhang along the creek because we came ill-prepared without rain jackets. After about 20 minutes it cleared up and we got to the Alcove; two huge arches right on top of each other. Pretty cool.



Finished the hike and headed up to the end of the scenic drive to make some dinner. Really cool view but it was getting cold so we finished up and drove back through Zion all the way to the Buckskin Gulch trailhead to stay the night and start our dayhike in the canyon nice and early.





Up with the sun and drove down to the Wirepass trailhead and began our hike into Wirepass and then Buckskin. Beautiful little slot canyon.


Start of the slottiness..a bit eerie looking









Jesse walking through on right. There was one part where it was a pretty tight squeeze with both shoulders touching the walls.







The patterns of how water has carved the rocks over the years was really beautiful. Hard to capture in there without a tripod- it was pretty dark in a lot of spots.













Jesse under a bunch of flood debris on right. There were a lot of places where you could see logs and debris lodged between the walls way up above our heads. Glad we were in there when it was dry with absolutely no chance of rain. I probably would have been pretty freaked out if we had gone in the day before, knowing how high the water gets in there somtimes.



The baby rattlesnake I almost stepped on with bare feet (wanted to hike barefoot in the really soft sandy parts). He must have fallen in because it was too cold in there for snakes- he was moving pretty slow, a mix of the cool air and the fall I'd guess. He was so small that he was shaking his rattle but not making any noise. Good thing I didn't step on him cause young rattlers can't control how much venom they inject when they bite. Wouldn't have been fun getting a ton of venom in my foot.