Gallup, New Mexico & Chaco Canyon

After leaving Sedona, we headed east toward Gallup New Mexico. We chose Gallup not for any special features that it had but for the fact that it seemed to be centrally located among a number of National Monuments in the area, including Chaco Culture National Historic Site, where our friend Kelley was volunteering as a tour guide. We were pleasantly surprised by the campground we chose, which was in Red Rock State Park. It is becoming apparent to us that we enjoy the campsites much more when they are situated in state or national parks rather than commercial facilities. As, so far at least, the settings in the parks have been much more scenic than the commercial campgrounds. Our choice of Gallup proved to be a good one as it gave us a home base to stay in during our travels for the next several days and spared us having to set up and break down every day or two.

EL MORO NATIONAL MONUMENT

Our first visit the next morning was to El Moro National Monument, which we frankly had never heard of before. It turned out that El Moro was blessed with a deep pool of water, collected from rainfall from the adjacent Mesa which proved to be a virtual oasis for travelers in this area for hundreds and hundreds of years. El Moro was noted for an area of rock wall next to the oasis where resting travelers had chosen to carve messages over the years. The earliest carvings were a large number of assorted Indian pictographs. The earliest non-Indian inscriptions date back to early Spanish travelers in the early 1600s. Some carvings were merely names and dates, while others were short messages describing the travels being undertaken, (e.g., a Spanish provincial governor describing his trip to and from the Gulf of California). Most startling were signatures and short messages carved into stone in beautiful script writing style that must have taken days to carve with special tools as well as the artistic ability to use them. But the writers achieved a small degree of immortality since here we were reading their inscriptions hundreds of years later.

As an added bonus, El Moro contains pueblo Indian ruins on top of the mesa adjacent to the oasis and the “inscription rock” area. A short but vigorous hike up led us not only to the pueblo ruins but gave us a great view of the surrounding countryside.








EL MALPAIS NATIONAL MONUMENT

Only a short distance down the road from El Moro was a totally different type of national monument. El Malpais NM is a very large park containing lava fields resulting from numerous volcanic eruptions. In addition to walking across lava fields and viewing the collapsed domes at the sites of some of the eruptions, we were introduced to “lava tubes.” Apparently, during many of the eruptions, the lava flowed in channels or rivers rather than as a broad mass moving down the slopes. A typical pattern would be for the outer areas of the channel or river to cool off and harden while molten lava continued to flow through the space inside. After the lava had flowed out of these channels, it left behind hollow “lava tubes.” Many of these tubes have since been covered over with sediment, turning them into virtual caves. In some spots, the roof of the lava tube had collapsed, forming a sink hole which allowed us to look down into the lava tube from the surface. The park service strongly warned against going into any of the lava tubes/caves without proper caving equipment and experience. Against Jo’s very strong objection, David decided to walk through a short stretch of a lava tube which had caved in and formed two sink holes only one hundred yards apart. Climbing over the boulders that had fallen down from the roof of the lava tube amply demonstrated how difficult the journey would be to travel any extended distances in one of the lava tubes/caves. But it was exciting to see what these tubes actually look like inside.

We didn’t start on our hike into the lava fields until late in the afternoon, which had two benefits. First, we had the trail entirely to ourselves and did not see anyone else during the entire hike. Second, when we got back to the trailhead at the end of the hike, we were treated to a beautiful sunset which we could enjoy in solitude. What a wonderful ending to a surprising delightful day.


CHACO CULTURE NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE

The next day we were up early for our planned trip up to Chaco Culture National Historic Site. The GPS said it was a 2 ½ hour trip, and we wanted to get up there in enough time to join Kelley’s tour which was scheduled to start at 10:00 a.m. We were coming up from the south and were forced to take a secondary road, the last 20 miles of which was on a rough dirt road. Boy did we bounce up and down on those rough surfaces. But we weathered the road hazard and made it to Chaco in time.


It was a delight to meet up again with our friend Kelley, whom we hadn’t seen since our last high school reunion in 2004. It was wonderful to see her in the setting at Chaco since it took her back to her long time roots in New Mexico and her love of anthropology, which had been the subject of her master’s degree from the University of New Mexico. After introducing us to several of the rangers on staff at the park she took us up to Pueblo Bonito, the premier location in the park and the site of her scheduled 10am tour. The ruins alone are enough to impress any visitor to this remote park. Even more astonishing, however, was the information that Kelley’s excellent presentation provided us and the other visitors on the tour, about the Chaco culture. As far back as 800 AD, pueblo Indians had been active at Chaco Canyon. For reasons that anthropologists still do not understand, this culture exploded in a massive development effort which boggles the mind even today. They built a number of roads, each 30 feet wide, going off in numerous directions from the canyon –- no one even today can explain why they went to the immense extra effort to build roads 30 feet wide when they didn’t even have wagons in that era. In Pueblo Bonito, one of the premier buildings constructed during this boom period, they built a huge number of rooms, many of which were apparently never occupied as dwellings and may never have been used even for storage purposes. No one knows why they built such a large structure or just what they were doing with many of the rooms in the structure. Moreover, particularly during the later stages of construction, the stonework was done with exquisite care even though the artisans knew that it would be covered up with adobe plaster and hidden from view. We have the question, but no answer, as to how and why this culture invested such tremendous effort in building these magnificent structures, and how it was done in an area so arid as to make it difficult to identify how this society could support the extravagance of such a large “public works” project. And why did virtually all of the inhabitants abandon Chaco Canyon less than 100 years after having made such a great sacrifice in building these magnificent structures?

After our tour with Kelley was over, she was required to leave us to go back to the visitor’s center. We went off on our own to explore more of Chaco Canyon. One of the highlights of our afternoon was the hike we took up onto the mesa above Pueblo Bonito. At first, we weren’t sure just how the trail got to the top of the mesa since it seems to disappear into the rock wall. After we were 1/3 of the way up the trail, however, we found that it passed between a 2-3 foot wide fissure between the main rock wall of the mesa and a large rock face which had split away from the main mesa wall. While Jo was initially hesitant to try this ascent, she yielded to David’s urging and made the valiant effort to climb to the top of the mesa, with the benefit of periodic boosts from David pushing up from below. The journey was definitely worth the effort as the views from the top of the mesa were superb. Particularly lovely was to sit on the mesa looking down at Pueblo Bonito from above and gaining an even greater appreciation for the magnificent effort made in constructing this structure.

Although we had initially planned to drive back that evening to Gallup and have Kelley stay with us in our Big Sky, we were having such a good time visiting with her in her park service duplex that we decided to stay the night. In addition to great conversation and catching up on what’s been happening with all of us recently, we were treated to an extra bonus. Because of its location in a remote spot far from any light pollution, Chaco has been the focus of many who seek a great view of the stars. One of these was an amateur astronomer who donated to the park several telescopes with the proviso that he could use them when he came to the park. We were able to benefit from his generosity by being able to look through two of these telescopes to see a variety of astronomical features, including the Homer’s comet, a seldom noticed comet which has gotten substantial attention in the last week because it had suddently increased its visability by a factor of one million (for reasons unknown) in the last few days. While we appreciated being able to view the comet and other stars through these telescopes, David was heard to say that the comet really just looked like a fuzzy snowball.

The next morning, Kelley joined us on our trip back to Gallup. Indeed, Kelley and Jo led the way in Kelley’s car while David strove valiantly to keep up with these fast women. It turns out that, for drivers experienced in handling rough dirt roads, the preferred solutions to pot holes and washboard surfaces is to drive over them at a high rate of speed so that you skim across the top rather than dip in and out of the low spots. The theory seemed to work in practice, although it left David a nervous wreck. When we finally made back to Gallup, the women went shopping while David went back to the Big Sky to settle his nerves with a good supply of wine. Indeed he called Jo to recommend that she stop off in route and buy more wine. The wine came in handy as the three of us spent the afternoon and evening in taking about life past and present.




ZUNI PUEBLO

The next day the three of us went down to Zuni Pueblo to visit a center of current Native American culture. Little did David know that a principle focus of this trip would turn out to be visiting a number of shops and places of business which focused on selling Zuni jewelry, fetishes, pottery and other items. We were unable to take a hoped for guided tour of Zuni Pueblo itself because the tour guide had decided to take the afternoon off and took with her the keys to the church in the heart of the Pueblo which was the primary focus of the guided tour. We nonetheless drove over to the neighborhood of the pueblo with the intent of walking around the perimeter of the pueblo so that we could see at least a portion of it. While on this walk, we happened upon two young Native American girls returning the pueblo from a nearby grocery store. They invited us into the pueblo to view some dolls that their father had made and was offering for sale. We were delighted to accept this invitation to go into the heart of the pueblo as we were otherwise under the impression that this area was off limits to tourists. The products that the father had to offer were of poor quality, and we reluctantly declined to buy anything from him. However, both the walk into this area of the pueblo with the young Native American girls and our walk back out on our own gave us a good opportunity view the pueblo. It was a disappointment. Virtually all of the buildings appeared to be in a very poor state of repair and to exhibit little or no architectural interest. We were not able to go inside the church in the center of the pueblo which was reputed to have wonderful murals. Instead, we were left with a view of the outside of the church, which reflected major deterioration of the structure no doubt due to the lack of economic resources to maintain the structure.

After leaving the pueblo area, we visited the nearby Zuni Museum, which was a delight. Although clearly operating on a limited budget, the museum offered us a valuable glimpse into Zuni history and culture. At the end of our visit to the museum, we enjoyed watching a series of old, silent, black and white films capturing various aspects of historical Zuni life, including the backing of bread the making of soap/shampoo from yucca plants.

On our way out of town, we followed the signs advertising a bakery selling Zuni bread. This turned out to be an operation run out of a nearby home where the bread and pastries were made up in a fairly modern home kitchen but then backed in a traditional adobe oven outside which had been heated with a wood fire. We bought two loaves of bread and turnovers for each of us – the bread we had later that evening, but the turnovers we consumed immediately. For reasons unclear, as we walked around the back yard eating our turnovers and looking at the adobe ovens outside, the neighboring dogs crowded around David in the apparent assumption that he would share with them his turnover. While laughing out loud, Jo snapped a number of pictures of David willfully refusing the pleading expressions on the dogs’ faces as he ate his turnover despite their obvious desire to share it with him. What a hoot!!!

After a delightful dinner that night, and more wine, Kelley headed back to Chaco since she had to open the visitor’s center early the next morning. We said a fond farewell and drowned our sorrows in another glass of wine while planning out trip the next day to Santa Fe.

Sedona, Arizona

After leaving Williams, we headed down to Sedona, Arizona, about 30 miles south of Flagstaff. Our attempt to visit Sedona two years earlier was frustrated by the fact that we couldn’t find anywhere to park our rental RV when we drove to Sedona near the end of our RV trip in the spring of 2005. Our problem this time was that the only campground in Sedona was booked up, so we were forced to settle on a campground 20 miles away outside Camp Verde. After leaving the Big Sky at the campground, we took a short excursion to two nearby national monuments.

MONTEZUMA'S CASTLE NATIONAL MONUMENT


Montezuma’s Castle National Monument turned out to be a delightful little park with a limited number of Indian ruins, including a small number of dwelling situated inside an alcove in the cliff wall -- a minor replica of the Mesa Verde style of construction. The park also had informative exhibits illustrating the tenuous dependence of the Native Americans on a supply of water to get them through the dry seasons.

MONTEZUMA'S WELL NATIONAL MONUMENT


The second nearby national monument, Montezuma’s Well National Monument, turned out to be a large rock depression which was constantly fed by an underground spring. The Indians had creatively adapted this water supply to irrigate their fields using a clever system of irrigation ditches. These ditches were fed by a steady flow of water escaping from Montezuma’s Well through a fissure in the side of the rock wall. It was a very delightful surprise to hike down the little canyon adjacent to the well and to dip our hands in this cool, constantly flowing channel of water coming out of the well. Since all indications were that this well would have survived the drought back in 1400 A.D., it is puzzling that these ancient pueblo dwellers abandoned their homes around the same time that the Native Americans at Meza Verde and other locations also left this area of the country.

On our way back to our campsite in Camp Verde we were able to enjoy a lovely full moon. We love the moon………

The next day we drove up to Sedona for our much anticipated visit. Disappointment. The road leading into Sedona was crowded with traffic (made worse by road construction). The outlet stores and other retail facilities lining the roadway reminded us of many commercial shopping areas back east, thus lessoning whatever magic might have been generated by the red rock formations which we could see here and there to the left and right of the highway. When we got into “downtown” Sedona, we were disappointed to find that the vast majority of the buildings there were small retail shops selling T shirts and souvenirs much like those we had seen in commercial establishments throughout our travels in the last several months. We did, however, have a beautiful few of red rock cliffs from our table in a small café where we had lunch. Even our ride up through Oak Creek Canyon was not as awe inspiring as we had expected, due no doubt in part by the fact that we had seen truly gorgeous canyons and red rock formations repeatedly over the last several weeks. A further downer was that Jo was not feeling well, a possible side effect of the medication she was taking for her rheumatoid arthritis.

SEDONA

The following day, we decided to give Sedona another try. No doubt in part because it was a Sunday, there was much less traffic into Sedona, which got us off to a good start. We took a short walk in the area of a pretty red sandstone formation called Bell Rock, which is supposed to be one of the “energy vortices” in the Sedona area. Alas, we felt no influx of supernatural energy, so we headed down the road for Cathedral Rock for our planned hike up this very attractive red rock formation. The scenery was in fact quite beautiful and the climb challenging but attractive. Jo still wasn’t feeling fully recovered, so she stopped half way up and waited till David returned from his climb to the top of the formation. He found the view up there to be very impressive and the surroundings to be quite tranquil since there were very few other hikers up on the summit when he was there. Again, unfortunately, neither of us felt any influx of supernatural energy even though Cathedral Rock was supposed to be another of the “energy vortices” in the Sedona area.

When we then headed to downtown Sedona, we stayed away from the “T Shirt and Souvenir” shopping area and instead visited a couple of “New Age” shops on the outskirts of town. Ah, we felt a bit more energy influx here then we had out at the energy vortices. LOL LOL!!! They also had some nice collections of crystals and gems (expensive!!!), but it just is not practical to be buying such heavy souvenirs and carrying them around with us for the next two years. There was also a wonderful little shopping complex across the street which had far nicer merchandise than the T shirt and souvenir shops downtown. This included a couple of galleries full of beautiful photographs of the wonderful scenery in this area of the country.

We were extremely glad that we had given Sedona this second chance, since it left us with a much more favorable impression then we had gotten the day before. We plan to come back again next year, if possible. But we will focus on hiking in the beautiful red rock hills surrounding Sedona and forego exposing ourselves again to the souvenir shops downtown. We will also try to make reservations far enough in advance so that we can stay at the campground in Sedona, which is not too far the “new age” retail shops that Jo found to be so nice.

Grand Canyon National Park

We left Laughlin headed to the Grand Canyon for an encore of our visit there in the spring of 2005 in our rented RV. Unfortunately, while we were able to stay in the park two years ago in the rental RV, our Big Sky is just too big to fit into any of the campsites inside the park, so we had to stay at a campground in Williams, about 40 miles south of the park. We reserved a site for two nights at Williams so that we could have a full day up in the park. The Grand Canyon was just as awesome and impressive as we had remembered it from our prior visits. It is in many ways simply overpowering in its magnificence. But a corollary of being such an attractive park is that it attracts crowds, even in the off season. The trip out along the west rim by shuttle bus was influenced in part by the fact that there were hundreds of school kids on a field trip to the park, so solitude was not easy to obtain. Fortunately, the trail along the rim doesn’t attract many visitors, so we ended up finding the solitude we have come to value by taking the shuttle bus to the first stop and hiking from there along the edge of the rim to the next several viewpoints along the edge. Jo took lots of wonderful pictures, but in some ways Grand Canyon is just too big to capture in individual pictures. Next time we come to the south rim, we hope to find a place to stay closer to the park so that we can be out on the trail both early in the morning (to catch the sun rise on the western side of the canyon) as well as sunset (to catch the setting sun light on the eastern side of the canyon).

An unexpected bonus as we were taking the shuttle bus back to the village was the sight of a bobcat in the woods alongside the road. We had heard that bobcats were extremely skittish and were seldom seen by visitors, so we were delighted to have this opportunity to see one in the wild. The pictures we had seen of bobcats in the visitors’ centers at Zion and other parks made them look quite small, but this one looked quite rugged and durable, with heavy legs and big paws. Not your housecat!

We decided to treat ourselves to lunch in main dining room in the El Tovar Lodge. The lodge and its dining room date back to the early 1900s and it was awesome to see the original logs and timbers still supporting the walls and roof almost 100 years after it was built. It gives one a real feeling of the history of this place. And the food was delicious!

We have each now been to the south rim of the Grand Canyon on several occasions in the past, so our hope is next year that we can make it to the north rim before the cold and snow close it down next fall. Jo will particularly like being able to photograph the canyon formations from a different angle and different lighting conditions.

Laughlin, Nevada - Bullhead City, Arizona

On our way from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon, we stopped off for a night in Laughlin, Nevada to visit Jo’s sister-in-law, Jeannie. After a delightful visit to our Big Sky, Jeannie took us down to one of the casinos along the Colorado River where we had another big meal while enjoying the view of the Colorado River rushing by outside the restaurant window. Deserts were great, but oh now we have to take even more hikes to work off the extra calories!!!!!!!!!

Las Vegas, Nevada

It was a considerable shock to go from Zion National Park and Valley of Fire State Park to the man-made canyons of Las Vegas. Fortunately, this shock was cushioned by the enjoyment of being able to spend several days with Jo’s mom and older brother, Bill. Jo’s success hitting the jackpot on the slots more than offset David’s losses playing on the poker slot machines. It was a wonderful surprise to find out that Jo's mom's sister, Aunt Esther was visiting Las Vegas with her friend, John. A nice (almost) birthday celebration for Jo.

At the end of our three days in Las Vegas, we made solemn vows to do lots of hiking in the next several weeks to work off all of those extra portions of mashed potatoes and deserts that we indulged in the various buffet lunches and dinners we took advantage of in Las Vegas. Hopefully the pictures from Las Vegas don’t show how badly we lost the battle of the bulge in this return to “civilization”. Our stay in Las Vegas was extended by one day when high wind warnings made it inadvisable to leave as planned on Sunday morning. This demonstrated one of the beauties of retirement – there was no schedule to keep and no problem simply deciding to stay an extra day when the weather was not accommodating. This extra day also gave us a chance to spend more time with Jo’s mom and brother which was an extra treat which Jo took advantage of by making us pose repeatedly for many more pictures.

Valley of Fire State Park - Nevada

On our way from Zion down towards Las Vegas, we stopped off in Valley of Fire State Park for a few nights. We had been to the park twice before; the first time passing through the park on our way up to Zion at the start of our RV trip in the spring of 2005, and the second time as a day trip up from Las Vegas in February 2007 with some high school classmates with whom we had gotten together in Las Vegas for a mini-reunion. On both occasions we were thrilled by the beauty of this small group of red rock hills clustered together in the midst of the Nevada dessert. Although our prior visits were short, we were hoping to extend our time in Valley of Fire by staying in the campsite there for two nights. Although most of the campsites in the park were too small for an RV the size of our Big Sky, one of the few sizable sights was still available and proved adequate in size to handle our Big Sky. There were no utility hookups available at the campsite, but we had showers available to us in the nearby bathrooms. As there was no electric hookup available, we used our generator for the first time to supplement the batteries in the RV. It proved sufficient to run the generator for an hour in the morning and hour in the evening to keep the RV batteries recharged and to provide 110 volt power for Jo’s coffee pot in the morning and for recharging our computers and camera battery. That gave us a good feeling to know that we could do dry camping or “boon docking” for a least short periods of time without needing RV hookups.

Just as Zion National Park had given us the feeling of being more intimate and personal than the Grand Canyon, Valley of Fire proved to be an even more intimate and personal experience than Zion NP. The red rock formations literally surrounded our small campsite and it was fun to simply go climbing over the red rocks, sitting on top of outcroppings and feeling one with these beautiful rock formations. It was also easy to feel that we were alone with the rock formations since there were so very few people in the campground and a five minute walk was sufficient to be all by ourselves among the rock formations. The feeling of being alone with nature extended into the evenings as we sat outside looking up at the stars which were spread out across the sky thanks to the lack of nearby city lights to obscure the stars. The Milky Way shown forth as a beautiful white belt of stars across the sky.

One of the highlights of our next day in Valley of Fire was the hike from the White Dome Trailhead. The park handbook had simply described this as a pretty landscape of contrasting red and white rock. Our modest expectations were greatly exceeded when the trail took us through many colorful layers of rock strata exposed in this area by water and erosion over the centuries. We also had a delightful walk when the trail took us through a very narrow slot canyon in a dry wash. It brought back memories both of our hike through the narrows in Zion Canyon as well as our hike through Grand Wash in Capitol Reef National Park. Perhaps due to the failure of the park brochure to adequately describe the beauty of this walk we had the delightful benefit of having the walk virtually to ourselves. That sense of being alone with nature added considerable enjoyment to this hike, and we pledged to try to make it back here again next year.

Zion National Park - Springdale, Utah

When we had visited this part of the country two and one-half years ago in our rental RV, Zion had been our favorite park. Accordingly, we reserved a spot at the campground inside the park for two weeks in the hopes of recapturing the pleasure Zion NP had given us on our previous visit, we were not disappointed!!!

For us, the beauty of Zion NP lies in the fact that the campground and facilities are at the bottom of the canyon, at river level, and you therefore always have beautiful views of the sheer red rock canyon walls on the eastern and western sides of the canyon wherever you are at in the park. This contrasts with the Grand Canyon, where you don’t really get a good view of the canyon until you get right at the rim. In addition the entire scale of Zion NP seems smaller, and therefore more intimate, than the Grand Canyon. These factors had caused us to feel so very comfortable when we last visited Zion, and the magic was still there on our return visit.

The most enjoyable activities which we had at Zion, in addition to watching the sunrise and sunsets, were taking various hikes which gave us different views of the beauty of Zion Canyon. The most strenuous hike was the one we took up to Scouts Lookout and Angels Landing, high on the western side of the canyon. To reach Scout’s Lookout, you have to hike two miles up the canyon wall, climbing over 1,000 feet at the accent. This includes climbing up through “Walters Wiggles,” a series of 20 or more sharp switchbacks. At that point it is possible to ascend even higher to a peak called Angels Landing. This requires crossing narrow spines with sharp drop-offs on each side and scaling slickrock with slopes exceeding 45 degrees. To help with the more difficult portions of this ascent, the Park Service has cut foot holds in some of the rock faces and provided chains that you use to help pull yourself up across the slickrock. It’s quite an effort to make it up to Angels Landing, but the views from the top are quite spectacular. With her discomfort with sharp drop-offs, Jo was content to stop at Scouts Lookout and let David proceed to Angels Landing on his own. David took a number of photographs of the trail to Angels Landing as well as from the top of the landing itself. After later viewing David’s photographs, Jo was very thankful that she had not attempted to follow David up to the top of Angels Landing!!!!!!!

The other really adventuresome hike was the one we took up the Virgin River to the “Narrows.” This is the area where Zion Canyon narrows down to a slot canyon which in many areas is little more than 10-20 feet across. In much of the narrows, the river runs completely across the canyon floor, and the only way to pass through the narrows is to walk through the river itself. To protect ourselves from all of the rocks in the river as well as the cold river waters, we rented dry pants, special boots and socks, heavy duty hiking sticks, and dry packs to protect our camera and supplies from the river waters. The hike required going several miles up the river to the heart of the narrows. Most of the time was spent in the river water as there were limited wider spots where there was room to climb out of the water for a respite. Because of all the rocks that are continually falling into the river, we were constantly hiking through and across rapids. To avoid the really deep portions of the river, it was necessary to frequently hike back and forth from the left to the right side of the slot canyon searching for shallower portions. But as some of the photographs here demonstrate, the beauty of the sheer canyon walls made this effort all worthwhile.

We took several other hikes while we were at Zion which helped us to enjoy other vistas, including the Watchman hike (a mid-level ascent giving a good view of the canyon floor overlooking the campground) and Emerald Pools, a hike up an ascending series of pools which provided good views of the opposite canyon walls, even though low water levels kept the pools themselves from being as pretty as they had been when we were last at Zion in the spring of 2005.

In contrast to the strenuous demands of several of these hikes, the easiest method we found for enjoying the canyon was a bike ride through the canyon. From May through October, the Park Service strictly limits private vehicular traffic in the canyon and requires visitors to use the shuttle buses provided by the park service. Visitors are allowed to use the bike rack on the shuttle to take their bikes along with them into the canyon. We took advantage of this to take our bikes all the way to the northern most end of the canyon up near where we started our hike into the narrows. From this point the river flows southward, and the road likewise is a generally downhill grade as it follows the river southward. That means that we were able to coast much of the way down through the canyon while looking up and enjoying the view of the beautiful red rock canyon walls rising on either side of us. The splendor of this undertaking was enhanced by the near solitude of our journey. Because of the ban on private cars in this portion of the canyon, most of the time while we were biking we seemed to have the canyon to ourselves except for shuttle buses that would pass every 5-10 minutes. This solitude made the whole experience even more wonderful, and an experience we definitely intend to repeat when we return to Zion Canyon, which we hope to do next fall when we come back down from our planned trip to Alaska.

While our friends Rick and Ann were not able to join us in Watchman campground because their RV plus trailer exceeded the length limits in the campground, they were able to stay at a nearby campsite just outside the park. In addition to spending many of our evenings together sharing dinners and/or playing various board and card games, Rick and Ann joined us for several of our hikes in Zion Park, including the Riverside Trail along the river, Emerald Pools Trail (Rick was not impressed with the dried up pools!!!), and Weeping Rock, a curious formation where water which has been percolating through the sandstone for hundreds if not thousands of years, comes “weeping” out of the rock face and cascades down in a curtain of water for the enjoyment of park visitors.

The four of us also took two road trips together outside the park. The first trip was a long road trip east of the park through the “Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument,” a beautiful series of mesas and plateaus which descend in staircase fashion from the higher elevations around Bryce Canyon down towards the lower elevations of Zion and the Grand Canyon. Erosion of the various layers of sediment in this area exposes in turn the “pink cliffs, white cliffs, and gray cliffs” in different areas of this vast national monument. In addition to enjoying views of the pink cliffs, we were able to see a rainbow array of colors when we visited the Pariah area of the monument, where the erosion exposed lavender and purple tones in addition to the pink, gray and white layers of sediment. An added bonus during this road trip was going by the remains of the buildings which had been used for filming the TV series Gun Smoke many years ago. While the buildings are now quite dilapidated and can only be viewed from the roadside, we had an enjoyable time trying to reconstruct just what buildings had been the saloon, the sheriff’s office, and “Doc’s” office.

The other road trip the four of us took was to the Kolab Terrace area in the northwest corner of Zion Park. Because of the way the canyons break up Zion into several sections, it was actually necessary to drive west out of the park and head north before we could re-enter the northwest corner of the park. The drive up to Kolab Terrace offered us a much different perspective on Zion Canyon. From our higher elevation to the west of the canyon, we could look across the various canyons and washes cut into the mesa top and see the peaks of the higher canyon walls surrounding Zion Canyon. On the one hand, the striking colors of the canyon made it look like “Emerald City.” On the other hand, the broad plateau spread out in front of us made us realize how Zion Canyon was the anomalous geological feature, the narrow gorge cut by the only river across this broad plateau. The ride up and down from Kolab Terrace provided us with tantalizing hints of autumn, with the aspens turning yellow all around us.

One intriguing aspect of the drive up to Kolab Terrace was driving through an area where the park service was conducting a “prescribed burn.” Smoke was bellowing from many areas, cutting visibility dramatically. Driving along the highway at the edge of the burn gave one the feeling of driving through a forest fire, with hot spots still smoldering long after all the surrounding grasses had been burned away. We were glad they had this fire under control after reading about other prescribed burns in the past on other public lands that had gotten out of control.

On the way back toward Zion we took a small detour to the ghost town of Grafton. We visited the remains of a small community of Mormons who had struggled for many years to try to make a living with their small farms. The few remaining buildings have been restored to try to capture a small flavor of what that community was like. These building were used as a backdrop for filming the scene from the movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” where Robert Redford meets up with his school teacher girlfriend who later the next morning goes on a bicycle ride in an orchard with Paul Newman. Unfortunately, the structure which was built for filming that movie has since burned down, an apparently common destiny for many of these movie sets!! On the outskirts of Grafton, we visited the cemetery used by this small community over the years. Seeing the gravestones of two deceased wives of the same man made us wonder whether this has been a polygamous community. One of the most striking things in the cemetery was a pyramidal headstone bearing the names of three different family members who were recorded as having been killed by Indians on the same day in 1877. The other interesting feature of this cemetery was what appeared to be the graves of several Native Americans buried on the edge of the cemetery and bearing headstones carved in wood showing their nicknames proceeding by the word “IND.”

We were very sorry to see our two-week stay at Zion come to an end, both because we were going to miss this park and because we were leaving our friends Rick and Ann, who were heading down to Yuma to work camp for the winter season. We resolved to be sure to make it back here next fall and re-establish the wonderful relationship we are forming with Zion National Park.