2020 Winter Camping Trip Day14, Figure8 Hike in Bryce Canyon National Park

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day14, 2020/12/9

The third day in Bryce, we hiked Figure-8 hike. The hike is called Figure-8, because the shape of the hike is like 8: two small loops are combined. The hike can be only one loop. 7.2 mile +/-1500 feet elevation change. First we started Queen's Garden trail, then did Peekaboo Loop trail, then came back via Navajo Loop trail. This was another amazing hike! Because this is a main park area and each loop is only 4 miles, there were more hikers, compared to 8 mile Fairyland loop hike, but still not crowded since it was December and social distancing was well done. 

Wow!

From the beginning, it was non-stopping wowing hike. First the countless hoodoos were reflecting morning sun and the color was wonderful. Orange, white, brown hoodoos are all over in the entire visible scene in my eyes. 

trail

You can feel walking in the hodoos. Hoodoos are on my right, left, ahead, behind, above and sometimes crossing the hoodoos. Since there are so many hoodoos, sometimes National Park Service made a hole in the hoodoos for the trail (right picture).

Windows

It was tough to pick a lunch spot, because everywhere was great, but we got the best of best spot. The great spot to see windows! (left picture). 2 different hikers passed said to us, "The best lunch spot." There are a lot of windows in Bryce, but this particular window is the iconic window. These windows are used to explain about windows on the Bryce Canyon National Park brochure. These windows are really big and maybe near future it might be no longer window due to fall of the upper portion of the window. Indeed because of possible rock falls, the part of Navajo trail and Wall street trail is closed every winter, although I saw a quite few people violated and walking Wall street trail. I actually took pictures of those violators. Did you hike Wall street trail on 2020/12/9? I have a proof. In National Park, it is not allowed to hike with a dog either. I saw handful people on a trail with dogs. I have a proof of those, too. Be careful. 

More hoodoos

Since hoodoos are everywhere and really wonderful, I took a lot of pictures. I can't post all of them, so one more for this hike. In the right picture, there are different layers of colors. Upper is more white and then lower is orange. I had seen a picture of hoodoos, but it was totally a different experience seeing hoodoos in person. Hoodoos blew my mind!  

At the half way point of Peekaboo Loop trail, there is a restroom (of course not a flush one), but open only in summer. It is probably because there are tours with horse in summer. Yup, they don't walk. Mr.N and I were talking, those type of people are probably shocked the toilet is not a flush one. Also we imagined that the tour guide has to mention in advance that the restroom would be not a flush one. I was glad it was in winter: no tour/no horse. 

Mossy Cave

After Figure-8 hike, we did a mini hike. Mossy Cave Trail, which is only 0.8 mile. As the name indicates, the trail goes to the mossy grotto (left). There are a lot of icicles in the cave, which was interesting. This trail is isolated from other area: actually this trail can be accessed without going to the entrance booth, meaning free. 

On this day we completed 2 weeks of trip, meaning we accumulated laundry. So we went to laundromat and did laundry. It was nice to get soap smelled clean clothes again! Then we again went to Subway and saw 4 cats! 4!!! Black, tabby, Siamese, and a small tuxedo!

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day13-Bryce Canyon NP, Fairyland Loop

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day13, 2020/12/8

On the 2nd day in the Bryce Canyon National Park, we hiked Fairyland Loop. I loved Fairyland Loop sooooooooooooooooooooooooo much. This hike was super amazing. During 8 mile-hike, the stunning view continues literally all the way. Besides, not many people were hiking in winter. In fact we only saw 6-7 people for the entire day. 

Hoodoos

Hoodoos are amazing and eerie. 

I didn't know the word hoodoo, but now I love hoodoos. 

First of all, hoodoos are beautiful. Secondly, hoodoos have interesting shapes and each hoodoo has a different shape. Hoodoos have different colors depending on location, and more specifically depending on composition of minerals. Those different color even changes by reflecting sunlight. Sometimes they look orange in the evening and bright light color in the morning. In this way you can enjoy the  view from the same place many times depending on a season and a time of day.

I had a chance to attend a ranger talk (outside with mask) and learned how hoodoos are formed. 

First of all, the Bryce area used to be a big lake. It was 50 millions ago. In the lake, the tiny particle accumulated: those are including limestone and sandstone, which is materials for the rocks in Bryce now. However, those materials were at sea level. Now how it rose up to 9000 feet high? The answer is two plates crashed. Then one rise, the other fell. That is why now rocks in Bryce came high. Now, how the hoodoos are made? The key is climate in Bryce. In Bryce, half of a year, each day goes below freezing point and temperature gets warm above freezing point once sun comes up. Rain or snow were absorbed inside the limestone/sandstone, then gets frozen at night. Ice volume is bigger than liquid water. Volume is actually 9% bigger! This makes the rock crack. Eventually rocks become like walls (called fin), then some portion of the rocks inside fall (gets windows), then connecting portion of the window fall eventually and hoodoos are created. In the picture above, you might notice that the top of each hoodoos have rather whiter color compared to browner color in the lower portion. This is because magnesium is contained on the top portion. That is called dolomite. Dolomite is not waterproof but water resistant. Therefore water goes down and absorbed under the dolomite portion. That's why each hoodoo's dolomite portion is kind of like a independent ball on the top. In the picture below, you can see a fin, windows, and hoodoos at the same time!

Fin, Window, Hoodoo

Evening view

After a hike, we took some pictures in the evening light from viewpoints. In the left picture the plateau in the distance under orange sky is called Aquarius plateau. It is 15 miles away from Bryce canyon now, but it used to be connected to Bryce. That is over 10,000 feet high. Due to the higher elevation than Bryce, less days goes below and up the freezing point. That is why Aquarius plateau doesn't have much hoodoos, however, in the future, global warming probably make the higher elevation more like Bryce temperature pattern. Then hoodoos might appear there, but hoodoos in Bryce might disappear. 

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day12

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day12, 2020/12/7

We arrived at Bryce Canyon National Park. It was my first time visiting Bryce. Zion, which is not far from Bryce, gets so much attention and that makes Bryce less famous, but I found that Bryce is really beautiful as well.  

Rainbow Point

This day we hike the Rainbow Point to Riggs Spring Loop trail (10 miles, +/- 2000 feet). Rainbow point is one of the viewpoints that can be accessed from scenic drive. It is the highest altitude at 9115 feet, among the viewpoints. From there we went down to the forest. You can get an idea from the left picture. Different altitude offers opportunities to see quite variety of scenery. First we saw hoodoos from the top. After we descended we looked up hoodoos. It is a different impression looking down or up the hoodoos. 

When I went down into the forest, I smelled the forest I used to smell. Western forest smell! It is mixed with trees and dry dirt. I had forgotten the Western forest smell. It is very different smell from New England forest. 

Looking up hoodoos

In Bryce, there are some designated backcounty campsites. Along this loop there are 3 campsites. Yovimpa Pass site had a nice views (for my future note). It would be interesting to go backpacking in Bryce someday. I heard that popular backpacking in Bryce is going through Under-the Rim Trail, around 30 miles, point to point and catch a shuttle to back to the start point. Off-season in winter the shuttle is not running, but summer it would be nice. On this day during 10 mile hike we didn't see anybody again! Wow. All ours. Lucky!

Natural Bridge

After the hike we drove back to the park main area. (The rainbow point is most west of the park and the main park area is Eastern side). On the way to go back to East side, we stopped by each scenic point. My favorite stop among them is Natural Bridge. The left picture is the one. Isn't it cool?! At least a couple of hundred years needed to the inside rock portion is fallen off. Also some time later the whole bridge would fall. Grateful to be able to see this bridge. 

I was thinking, "Oh do I deserve hiking such amazing places every day? This is so good, and I am very happy, and too good!"

Then we went back to the campsite nearby. 

Here I have to add a very important incident. Near the Bryce there are some hotels and cottages for tourists: basically a small touristy town. There is only one fast-food store, though. That is Subway. First night we came to the Bryce area we stopped by Subway to take out (only take-out available due to COVID). When we parked a car, we noticed 2 cats in front of us, as photographed. One was tabby, the other was black and white. I shouted, "cats!" and went outside. The cats were excited about humans and came, but immediately they lost interests, because we didn't have food for them. They are absolutely NOT interested in being pet. They are interested in ONLY food. We didn't have any meat or fish at that time, so we didn't feed them. It was not clear if they were Subway's owner's cat or feral cats. The other day we again came back to Subway the same two cats were there, AND two more cats in the parking lot. It seemed that there were many feral cats there. Cats are always one of highlights of my trip, so I had to write this!

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day11, Grand Staircase-Escalante

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day11, 2020/12/6

We stayed at Grand Staircase-Escalante and went out for hikes. 

The first one was a hoodoo hike. First, we ascended gully. Then we took off the first gully and went to the second gully. Climb, climb, climb.... hard, but good for a morning hike. In the December desert, night and early morning is very cold. Climbing in the morning helps warming up my body. Then by noon, sun warmed up the desert air to comfortable temperature. In the sun it is not cold to stop and take a long rest. This desert climate was a big plus for me, since I am cold sensitive! For Mr.N, who is from Montana, it didn't matter. 

Hoodoo

 

Every step of climb, the view got more glamorous. Then at the top of the hill we saw a hoodoo. It was like a human independently standing at the top of the hill. It was an interesting shape and cool. I love hoodoos. Blue sky without a cloud, hoodoo looked like being proud to be there. It never bores me. 

Wow

 

 

 

After we enjoyed the hoodoo, we proceeded the hike to the middle of nowhere via off-trail. Every step was wow! moment. Cool rocks were everwhere.

Wow2

Again we didn't see a single hiker during the entire hike. I don't know why, but the Zion, which is not far away, has many people and not at all in Grand Staircase-Escalante. Well, maybe off-trail is too much for most people. To be honest, I want to keep Grand Staircase-Escalante as secret place as possible. I was actually hesitant writing these places on my blog!

Canyon!

Cottonwood Narrows

After this 6 mile hike we still had a little time in the afternoon. So we went to Cottonwood Narrows. This is another beautiful canyon to walk. We leisurely walked for about 4 miles until the sunset. This is an easy hike and great for casual hikers to taste Grand Staircase-Escalante. 

 

campfire

After this hike we left Grand Staircase and headed for Bryce Canyon National Park. We camped near the National Park. As everyday we did we had a fire! I am very into fires, because it is fun and more practically it is warm. It is hard to eat dinner without fire. In contrast, Mr.N says no fire needed. He says that I should build character without fire. I don't need to build character.....it is already hardcore camping at 10F, let me have fire.

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day10: Grand Staircase-Escalante

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day10, 2020/12/5

This day we had two hikes: both off-trail in the Grandstaircase-Escalante. 

Paria River

The first one we started at Paria Box Trailhead.  If you look at the National Geographic trail map, you will see that this area has no trails. Actually the map shows Paria Box Trailhead but no trails. So we followed GPS and sometimes "maybe a path?" route. Then there was a place with two choices: either go crossing Paria river, or go up to the gully. I proposed to scramble up the gully, but Mr.N wanted to cross the river. Mr.N actually crossed the river to assess. 20 seconds in the river, he said it was impossible. Firstly it was icy and too cold. Also it was too muddy. You can tell how the river looked like from the picture. So we decided to climb up the gully. At the top of the gully we found a used trail and followed it and reached a "hidden cache" I have no idea that was: a leftover from old Western movie set, or actual thief in the past hid his/her stash. Can you find a hidden cache from the picture below? 

Hidden Cache

cave

Near the hidden cache we found an abandoned cave house, too. There are also broken material which is the same metal as the hidden cache. These might be the old movie set? In this area a lot of Western movies were filmed and sometimes movie sets were left. It is interesting. 

Cave

  Glass on the door or window was broken. The "house" is a size of a bed room without nothing inside. Oh wow. Actually somebody used to live here? Or somebody used this for hiding something? Exciting! 

We ate lunch near the cave with view. Then we headed for "red top" viewpoint. 
What is the red top? See the picture! Now you have an answer. 

Compared to the red top, how small a human is! You can tell from the photo. (here, I can hear Mr.N say "Because of you why it looks small") This Red Top viewpoint is one of my favorite hikes of this trip. Actually one of best hikes in my life. 

The rock is very interesting color. As the name indicates, the top is red. Then grey on the right side. On the left red goes down as if it was a red water flew. In addition to red, yellow portion on the far left. It is unimaginable scene to me. I was thinking, "What a rock. Such a view exists in the world?! Unbelievable." I was wowed, and at the same time, I felt very lucky to be able to look at the amazing place. Luckily I am healthy, I had vacation provided by job. Appreciation came into my mild.

Red Top

We lost words for a while and sat down and stared at the red top. It is difficult to describe how one feels in front of such idyllic place. The entire hike was only us. In the vast view there was not a single person visible. How precious it was. 

We had some time left in the afternoon after Red Top hike, we decided to try another 3-mile hike to the Yellow Rock. 

Yellow Rock: Going up

Yellow Rock: Descending

I had no idea at all why it is called Yellow rock at the beginning of the hike: but soon I got it. It is yellow. Of course no trail to go to the top, you just wherever walk up to the top. Yellow rock divided by squares are everywhere! Some portions are reddish like waves. The squares reminded me of rice fields on the hills. They are divided into squares, too. At the top of the Yellow rock, Yellow Rock valley can be seen. 360 view. Huh. What a day. I couldn't believe we had unbelievable 2 hikes in a day. Again, we sat down and enjoyed the scenery. Then sun was getting low, so we decided to go down. The orange light reflect on the yellow rock and it looked even more yellow. AMAZING. It was super beautiful. For this hike there was a local family at the bottom of yellow rock. They came to the trailhead with a pickup truck. 2 kids were on the back of the truck outside for fun. Mr.N said that those type of things are very "West" thing. Makes sense. 

I loved so much both red top and yellow rock hikes on day10. This memory will reside in my heart forever. 

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day9-Slot Canyon

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day9, 2020/12/4

We tried again (3rd time) the Wave and didn't win. I was tired of it by day3 and decided not to continue anymore. After we left the lottery place we headed for Wire Pass. Wire Pass and the Wave shares the same trailhead. In fact first 1 mile is the same trail. That made me frustrated first, but after I saw the cool rocks, exciting rocks, and fun petroglyphs, I forgot the frustration but had fun.  

Buckskin Gulch

Walking in the slot canyon is extremely exciting. I was so excited and jumped and smiled. 

It is extremely amazing that all this shape was made from water. The power of water is massive. It changes the rock shape. Indeed, if flood warning exists, you shouldn't hike slot canyon. As you can see rock is so tall, path is so narrow, thus you don't have anywhere to escape. The water is all the way top to the rock and you will be flushed. 

Due to that actually this slot canyon, Buckskin Gulch is called the most dangerous hike in the U.S.

In the past Mr.N, Mr.S1, Mr.S2, and I hiked in the Paria river to the entrance of Buckskin Gulch, but we didn't go inside the Buckskin Gulch. One reason is we were extremely wet to cross the icy Paria river by the time we reached the Buckskin Gulch, and another reason was that Mr.S2 said that he wouldn't hike the America's most dangerous hike. Now on the day Mr.N and I hike Buckskin Gulch was sunny, no flash flood warning, so it was safe. As you can see in the photo, the warm light coming into the slot canyon. It was indeed beautiful.

hands

The exciting thing about this hiking is not only the slog canyon but also petroglyphs. Here there was a unique petroglyphs. I had never seen the hand marks. As you can see in the left picture, hands shapes were marked as carving. I was wowed. There are 30-40 hands on the wall. The rock was softer in the older era maybe? Why hands were marked there? Those are like family resister thing? A lot of questions, but there is no way to know now. Mysterious and interesting.

bighorn sheep

Another types of petroglphs are made by making holes on the rock. Animals are popular among petroglyphs. Wire pass area has many bighorn sheeps, and many are drawn on the rock. It is nice to see people saw the same thing and wrote them a thousand years ago. Truly human's artistic activities. 

 

 

double arch

This day we had even one more fun. We hiked off-trail to see a "double arch".  The reason why it is called double arch is obvious if you see the picture. Since there is no trail to go there, it is a hidden gem! I like to be at a cool place which is secret. More fun! 

Although we didn't get a Wave permit, we had really wonderful hike at Wire pass.

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day8-Hackberry Canyon

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day8, 2020/12/3

Second trial for the Wave permit: we didn't win. After 2 trials I felt already tired of it. After the lottery was done we headed for lower Hackberry canyon in Grandstaircase-Escalante. Mr.N wanted to hike Hackberry canyon for a long time. He read a hiking book about Grandstaircase-Escalante when he was a kid at his home in East Glacier, and he wanted to hike there. The opportunity came finally. I thought that he wanted to hike this canyon, because the name is huckleberry, which is an iconic berry in Glacier county in Montana where he is from. I asked it and he said no. He pointed out that the canyon name in Utah is hackberry and the berry in Montana is huckleberry. I didn't notice that until he pointed it out (Me as a non-native English speaker I don't hear such a small difference: hackleberry VS hackberry). Besides, Mr.N said that the reason I raised is too silly to make him want to hike the canyon. 

OK, fine.

Hackberry Canyon

The canyon was cool (actually cold and view is cool as a meaning of spectacular), and the river in the canyon was frozen. Nobody was on the trail, and it was very quiet. Only sounds in the canyon was ice breaking sound. Every step we made broke the ice. The braking ice sound echoed in the canyon. That was interesting and idyllic. It was luxurious and lucky that the entire canyon was only ours. 

Broken ice after hike

After a while the river width got much smaller and the geology changed. Now we didn't need to walk on ice, but dirt trail along the river. Interestingly, there are trees along the river. I didn't expect these trees in the dry desert. The structure was rocks-trees-river-trees-rocks.

different geology

Temperature got higher after sun warmed up desert and we had a lunch on the sunny area. 

cattle

 

 

 

This is BLM (Bureau of Land Management), meaning there are livestock. We saw a lot of cattle. They have big antlers and sometimes scary. We walked by quietly so that we don't disturb them.

Rock formations are extremely beautiful and I could sit and be in the canyon forever. I wish I could do that. It is simply wonderful to be there.

love the rocks

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day7-Angels Landing

 2020 Winter Camping Trip Day7, 2020/12/2

Last night we camped in Kanab, Utah. Why Kanab? Answer is to apply for the Wave permit. 

The Wave. The Wave is a hike in Coyote Butte North in Utah. I have heard about the Wave a lot how amazing it is. This is on my bucket list for a long time. Permit is required to hike the Wave, and the probability to get it is 3%. From the statistics data (Recreation.gov has data), December, January, February are the least popular, meaning a little higher chance to get a permit. March, April, May are the most popular months. There are two ways to apply for a permit: online or walk-in. I heard that online was more competitive. Based on the information, I thought that applying for a walk-in permit in December might be a good chance to get it. So one of my purposes for this trip is to apply for a walk-in Wave permit. Usually walk-in permit lottery is held at the visitor center, but due to COVID-19, lotteries are held at Kanab Center Gymnasium, everyday at 9 a.m. It is a typical gymnasium with a basket ball court. 

The lottery procedure is kind of silly. The gymnasium opens at 8:30 a.m. First, each group fills a paper and hand in to a ranger. You get an application number. At 9 a.m., a ranger calls each number and you need to shout your name for your presence. If you are not there, your application is void. Then a ranger rotates a toy (I don't know what it is called, the circle shape that contains balls inside and each ball has a number). One ball falls out from a toy after rotation. The number on the ball comes out from the toy is a winner. On the first try we didn't win. There were 50 group applied, and 3 groups won. 10 people per day get permits. For example, 4 people/group + 2 people/group + 3 people/group + 1 person/group can go hiking the Wave per day. This is a waste of time (if you don't win), because you can't head for hiking until 9:20 a.m. Daytime is short in winter, so I wished the lottery time was earlier, but sigh, rangers don't work earlier I guess. 

After the lottery, we head for Zion National Park to hike Angels Landing. Since I have some friends hiked there and posted pictures, I was interested in hiking there. On the way we found that the last 3 miles of the road (Zion Canyon Scenic Drive) to the trailhead was closed. It seemed that the park was limiting a number of people to go to Scenic Drive. We overheard the security person saying no clue when to open, so we decided to walk to the trailhead. That means adding 6 miles to the Angels landing hike 5.4 miles, thus total is 11.4 miles. 

Along the Scenic Drive

Walking on the scenic drive road was actually nice. Since the road was closed, no cars were driving. I was able to see the scenery slowly and take pictures. Driving there would be also good, but there would not be enough time to see and take pictures in a nice slow way. 

After 3 mile walk, we arrived at the trailhead. We started walking. It was interesting, because the first part was asphalt. I didn't know that. Going up with switch back was nice, and for us it had been a while to walk switchbacks, because there is no switchbacks in New England. Switchback is one of the things I feel the West. I was thinking that 5.6 mile hike of Angels Landing would be 2.8 miles (at least half) in New Hampshire. Thanks to the switchbacks, I didn't feel the hike hard. National Parks are always like nannies. Even there was a toilet on the way. Mr.N found a small building and said to me, "Oh is that a toilet? I will go there" and he said, "Maybe that is not a toilet." It was behind trees, so it was unclear. Then a bystander hiker said, "It is a restroom, but it is pretty gross." Mr.N replied, "I will prepare for it." After a while Mr.N came back and told me it was IMPOSSIBLE to use it, because urine EVERYWHERE on the floor. He had to use a wilderness restroom. Yikes.

Massive rocks

 

Great View

The last part was steep, but chains were provided (attached to the rocks). I sanitized my hands regularly for COVID practice.
All the way to the top, the view was great.

The scenery from the top was ultra mega amazing. I loved it so much. Pictures tell you that more than my description. We sat down and enjoyed the 360 degree view. Every single direction has a great view! I ate anpan and had a hot tea. How gorgeous it was!!!!

After we enjoyed a lot, we retraced the trail we came. On the way back the sun was going down and the rock color was becoming orange. This was a wonderful and memorable hike.