Day 8: Grand Tetons to Dinosaur National Monument/Vernal, Utah.
We originally were going to spend another day in Grand Tetons, but ended up doing everything we wanted to do in the first 2 days. So we ended up leaving early so we could have an extra day somewhere else. That extra day ended up being in Capital Reef National Park.
On our way to Dinosaur National Monument, we stopped at Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area. This lake was made when they built a dam. It was funny to be driving along and see tons of trucks pulling boats through the desert. We kept wondering, "Where the hell would you use a boat around here?" Well, this would be a good place.
This is what's called the quarry at Dinosaur National Monument. They uncovered this mass of dinosaur bones and built a structure around it, effectively making it a wall of the building. And yes, those are real fossils in the rock.
Wow, check out those gams.
This is where you can see real live paleontologists at work. They're very skittish people, and they scurry away when they see movement, that's why you don't see any in the work area.
This is a copy (the real one is in the Smithsonian) of the most complete skeleton of this type of dinosaur found. I forgot what species it was.
Run Kim, RUN! An Allosaurus is after you.
I'm fairly certain I wasn't supposed to do this.
Look at me! I'm on a dinosaur!
A shot of Kim against the beautiful Utah sunset.
Day 9: Vernal, Utah to Black Canyon of the Gunnison/Montrose, Co.
Next stop, Black Canyon of the Gunnison. I really didn't read all that much about this national park, but it sounded cool, and was on the way to Mesa Verde. It was worth the stop, but we decided against camping there. We were a little worn out on the camping thing, so we drove 20 miles back to Montrose (a drive we would have had to do in the morning anyway) and stayed in a Best Western.
One of the hiking trails down to a vista spot about halfway down the canyon. I also have to say I was rather relieved to finally be out of bear country and now only had to worry about mountain lions.
This is the Black Canyon in all its glory.
More Black Canyon.
Kim admiring the Black Canyon.
And the Black Canyon from the river level.
And a shot of the Escape in the distance.
Day 10: Montrose, Co. to Mesa Verde National Monument
I've always wanted to visit Mesa Verde ever since I read about it as a kid. It was definately worth the wait. The place is amazing. These sites were built around 1200-1300.
This was a very neat town called Ouray, Co. It's at the base of a series of 3 summits. The town seemed to have only 1 paved road which was Main St., and all the buildings were very old west. Kim and I loved this place, and mentioned we wouldn't mind living there.
This was an old mining town at the top of the second summit. It was actually the richest silver mine in the U.S. until the Comstock Lode was found.
Not only did Kim and I have trouble with the elevation, but so did the Escape. This was at the second summit which was the highest at 11,018 feet. I also have never seen so many Harleys in all my life as I did on this road. They all seemed to have no problems making it up the "hill".
This is Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde. There are three ruins you can walk around in and tour. This is the one we chose to tour.
The cave looking area above the structures in the center of the picture was the pantry. When archeologists opened it up, they found years and years worth of food stores. Corn, grains, dried meats, etc.
This is one of the kivas at the site. The tiny hole in the center of the photo is where spirits entered and exited. They apparently don't need that much room.
In one of the buildings, you could see some of the original "plaster" and artwork.
A view of the valley from the top of the Mesa.
This is Square Tower House.
Another shot of Cliff Palace.
And this is Spruce Tree House.
One of the locals.
Day 11: Mesa Verde to Capitol Reef via 4 Corners, Natural Bridges, and Glen Canyon.
This was a very interesting drive. It was through parts of the desert that just remind you of the Southwest. Amazing red buttes and mesas everywhere. We also stopped at 4 corners. Ever want to stand in 4 states at once? Well, that's the palce to do it. This is also where I diverge onto a short diatribe. Four corners is in the middle of the Navajo reservation. You have to pay a few bucks to get into the site which helps take care of the residents, and there are several "shops" you can see in the background where the locals sell cheap "Indian" trinkets. It made me rather mad to see Americans living like this. It reminded me of what you would see in Tiajuana or Ensenada. And to say these people live like this because they're lazy, or don't want to work is BS. We drove for 200 miles and didn't run across any sort of town that would support more than 2 families. There simply isn't anything out there. I instantly thought of how American tech companies are quick to outsource their call centers to India because it's cheap land and cheap labor. Why not build a call center on a reservation and put some Americans to work? [/rant]
I obviously don't know where I'm going.
See that large mesa in the background. Remember that. It will come into play in a picture or two.
This picture really doesn't do this scenery justice.
Here's that mesa I mentioned. The road (Route 261) stopped being paved at the base of the mesa and became a gravel road about a car and a half wide all the way up. It's an 1100 foot climb to the top with no guard rails. Very scary, but very cool.
A very encouraging sign.
A shot from the summit.
This is Sipapu bridge in Natural Bridges National Monument. Though not as expansive as Arches National Park, Natural Bridges is still quite a wonder. Sipapu is a Hopi word for the gateway to the spirit world. Kim and I cross back and forth and didn't notice any change in dimensions. I think it must be broken or something.
Looking back in time millions of years in the rock strata.
This is Kachina bridge. It's the youngest of the three bridges in the park.
Kachina Bridge from the river bed.
Ancient Native American graffiti. I have to say though, if I was going to spend the time to paint something on a bridge, it wouldn't be a goat. It'd be something prolific, like, "Ryan was here."
The view to the long way back up. It was very steep, slippery, and hot.
And on the 8th day of creation, God said, "Let there be air conditioning," and it was so, and it was good.
This is the last of the three bridges, Owachomo.
On our way to Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. Much of Utah looks just like this.
Here we are crossing the river at Glen Canyon. There's a dam further down stream, where the next river crossing requires a ferry.
Planning out a trip of this scale can be hard. Sometimes you just find a place on the map to stop to camp and hope it's cool. There's not much literature on Capitol Reef National Park, so I decided to take a chance. What an awesome park. It was so beautiful. Mormons had settled this valley in the late 1800's and planted an orchard along the river. This "town" was called Fruita and you could camp among the fruit trees that are still there.
My mom always calls my dad a packrat. Well, this is a real packrat. They live in a nest called a midden.
No, I'm not a hippy hugging a tree. But this is one large tree.
Some deer admiring the scenery.
I can see why the Mormons thought Utah was Zion. It is very beautiful.
The sun ducking behind the mountain.
This is the school house the Mormon settlers built. You can kind of see in teh background how the top of the mountain looks like the dome from the Capitol Building in Washington D.C. That's where the Capitol part of the name comes from. The Reef part comes from the fact that the vally is surrounded by these tall mountains. Giving the impression of an island surrounded by a reef.
Some deer taking a dip to escape the heat.
Day 12: Capitol Reef to Bryce Canyon.
This was one of the most scenic days of our trip. We started the day off my hiking to the top of a nearby arch. We got an early start to "beat the heat." Once again I learned that no matter how early you start in the desert, you never really beat the heat. After we hiked back down, we had a nice air-conditioned ride to Bryce Canyon. Though it's not as large as the Grand Canyon, I think it is actually a more beautiful canyon. It's another one of those places you have to see in person to truly appreciate.
The two small black holes you see directly in front of the sign are the two openings to the mine. What did they mine here? Yeah, uranium. It was such a magic metal that the early settlers would crush it up and mix it in their water to drink. Magic elixer? Yeah, it magically shortened your life.
Oh the dichodomy of this pair of signs. The top one tells you to go no further because of radiation danger, and the bottom one tells you to be sure not to harm the bats which live in the cave. WTF?! There's mutant irradiated bats living in there. That by itself should be reason alone to not go any further.
What a finely graded road. Nope, it's a wash from when it rains. There's signs everywhere saying to watch out for flash floods. This is the path to the Cassidy Arch trailhead.
Kim trying out the 4x4 capability of the Escape.
This is by far one of the more difficult hikes I have ever done. From the trail head to the top of the Arch was 1.75 miles, but it climbed 1,150ft. Eh, that's not so bad you say, but you forget you're at 6,000+ feet to begin with and it's 85 degrees at 9am.
The arch can only be seen from up on the mesa. Sucks to anyone who can't make the climb since it was an awesome experience to hike up there and walk out onto the arch.
Here's Kim on top of the arch. Look, she's smiling.
Next stop, Bryce Canyon. It's amazing how the landscape changes in just a hundred miles or so. The spires are called hoodoos.
One of the many waterfalls we saw on the trip.
This arch was named after someone, but I forget who. Must not have been important.
And this is Bryce Canyon. This section is called the Queen's Garden.
The view from the rim of the canyon looking down onto the hoodoos.
More of the Queen's Garden.
And of course, the required self portrait.
The sunset from our campsite. We met a really awesome family from West Virginia here. They had a slightly more ambitious plan for the next day. We were planning on driving just a few miles to Zion. They were planning on making it halfway back to WV.
Day 13: Bryce Canyon to Zion.
We started this day off with a short hike to the bottom of the canyon. Normally you can do the loop through the canyon, however, there was a rock slide the week before and Wall Street was blocked off. I was a little disapointed, but I managed to survive. After the short hike, we made our way to Zion, which was quite possibly the hottest day of our trip..
I believe this was Thor's Hammer. It doesn't look much like a hammer to me. It's a good thing I wasn't an explorer, because I would have named this, "Big pink rock".
The early morning sun shining on all the hoodoos. Man I love saying that... Hoodoos.
It's pretty amazing that these trees can grow in what would seem such an inhabitiable spot.
The southwest is full of natural bridges. Here's yet another named... Yep, you guessed it, Natural Bridge.< br>
And this is Wall Street. Named for it's resembalance to NY's Wall Street of course.
Here you can the rock slide which prevented us from completing the loop. Good thing we missed that one.
One of Kim's more flattering moments popping a cube of ice into her mouth.
I'm not quite sure what this guy was doing. He is German, so that may explain it. I think he was attempting to warm up the grill. That's the only conclusion I can come to since I know he didn't do it for warmth since it was still 90+ degrees out.
Day 14: Zion National Park.
We spent most of this day hiking the trails. We were pretty beat. By this point we had hiked 50+ miles with lots of elevation gain. So we took it pretty easy this day.
This is one of the emerald pools.
Kim resting in the shade admiring the non-spectacularness of the emerald pool.
A view of weeping rock from a distance.
Weeping rock up close.
The Court of Patriarchs. Supposedly they look like Abraham and some other patriarchs. I don't see the resembalance.
To wild turkey and it's turkeylet.
This is one of the coolest hikes in Zion. If you get a chance, you have to hike the narrows. The trail is literally through the river. The entire trail is several miles long and takes a few days to hike the entire length. I only made it about 3/4 of a mile before turning around.
Day 15-16: Zion National Park to home via Las Vegas.
Since we have been to Vegas numerous times, we didn't take any pictures. Plus, you know what they say, what happens in Vegas... Well, you know the rest. It was the perfect mini-vacation from our camping vacation.