2020 Winter Camping Trip Day19-Chinle Hike

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day19, 2020/12/14

This day we decided to go back to Zion, but not Zion canyon. We went to Kolob canyon first. I didn't know about not-main area of Zion at all. Actually how many of you know about Kolob canyon? It is completely a different region from the main area. You need to drive out of the park and drive some to go to Kolob canyon from the main area. There is much less people and quiet yet it is equally beautiful. On this day, unfortunately, the Kolob canyon area was closed due to snow. There was not much snow, but it seems the rangers in the Kolob canyon area are lazy. Due to the closure we went to another non-popular area of Zion, Chinle trail. 

Chinle trail

Big rock

The first 0.5 mile of the Chinle trail is near the houses. Those houses are pretty big. It might be second home of rich people? I don't know. This trail is not a typical Zion trail. In the distance there are Zion-ish rocks as you can see in the picture, but mainly the trail is in the desert. The right picture is the representative image of Chinle trail. Admittedly, it was not my favorite hike, although geologically interesting. At mile5, it started snowing, so we decided to turn around. 

Then in the evening we hike a short trail, 1 mile of Canyon overlook trail. This is in the Zion canyon. In the evening light, the canyon looks nostalgic. It was wonderful to look at the canyon. Utah is a paradise for hikers. We don't have such immense canyon in our country Japan. I am lucky to be able to see it with easier access by living in the U.S. (FYI: Japan is a beautiful county in a different sense).

Canyon View

Reflecting orange evening light, one of the rocks became amazing color while we were sitting and staring the canyon. I was like, "Whoa!" What a color. The picture is not edited! Stunning rock. After we enjoyed the view we headed back. On the way back we saw 5-6 of bighorn sheep. Cute! We came back to the camp and had fire and dinner.

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day18-Bryce in the Snow

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day18, 2020/12/13

Snowy Bryce

At the motel we stayed, we saw an RV in the parking lot. Actually the next room to us was a couple who parked the RV. Why were they staying a motel even though they had everything at RV? That was a huge RV (rental) with kitchen, dining table, toilet, bed, heater, water, etc. Weird and waste of money I guess. Anyway, at -10F, we headed back to Bryce Canyon National Park to see hoodoos with snow. There are not many opportunities to see such things. 

View on a sunny day after snow storm was ah-may-zing. These are a couple of pictures we saw from several viewpoints. Although we had already been at all the viewpoints before snow, the scenery was very different. Hoodoos with white decoration on the white carpet. Wonderful, wonderful.

Snowy Bryce

Snowy Brice

We had already hiked a lot of day hikes, but there was one left. We did that.

Hat Shop. I didn't know why it is called Hat shop, but when we reached it, we understood. Hat Shop hike is an out and back hike of 4 miles. The brochure says that it is a hike to see a cluster of balanced-rock hoodoos. I didn't get an idea of "balanced-rock" Well it is always easier to see than hear thousands words of description, especially if it is not your language. 

"hat" on the top of hoodoos

First I saw several hoodoos that have a rock on the top. I thought, "Oh wow interesting!" Then, I saw hundreds of that together lined up just below the cliff, and I got it that that is the hat shop! It was hard to decide which hat I should shop! This is again not the most popular hike in winter, so the entire 4 miles there was no one. Lucky!

Hat Shop

In spring and falls, a popular backpacking route in Bryce is Under-the-Rim-Trail. Under-the-Rim-Trail is one way backpacking around 30 miles and people take a shuttle to go back to the starting point. In winter Park shuttle is not running, so nobody backpacks. During COVID, I don't know the shuttle was running in the summer 2020, though. I don't know either if the shuttle will run in 2021 summer. Since the Hat Shop is on the Under-the-Rim trail, it doesn't get much attention from day hikers, especially in winter. It was good for us since we love solitude. 

coyote

After the Hat Shop hike, we spotted a coyote. Native Americans in the area, it is sinawava in their language. In their story, if one does bad thing, sinawava change you to a hoodoo. They spent winter by story telling. Sinawava have magical powers in their stories. I wonder why. Because their voice at night is mysterious? In fact we heard sinawava's talking in the distance when we camp at night. It was cool to hear their voice by fire. They hunt solo, but I heard that they got together at night to talk and exchange information. Maybe they say, "Today I got a bunny." and another reply, "where?" and exchange information about hunting. ^ - ^ 

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day17-Deer Creek Hike

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day17, 2020/12/12

Deer Creek

We started hiking in Deer Creek, then it started snowing. It was very cold! Brrrrr. Although it was cold, the snow view was pretty. Brown rocks with powdery white snow...that reminded me of chocolate cake with powder sugar decoration. Big cake.

Deer Creek hike is a hike along the Deer Creek (obviously). I fell a couple of times because there was ice under the snow. It was a little dangerous and the temperature was even decreasing a lot, so we turn around after a mile of hiking in. The temperature was negative in F, and probably -20C. This trailhead is along the paved road, but it is really small road and we weren't sure if it would be plowed, so we decided to go back to the main road area. 

Fremont foe or enemy or friends?

Ancestral Pueblo and Fremont culture difference

On the way we stopped by Anasazi State Park Museum. This was a great opportunity to learn Native Americans, Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) culture. The place is actually where they lived and you can see the remnant of their home. These ancestral Puebloans are different from Fremont people (I mentioned Fremont culture on the previous entry on Day16). This site here at the museum, Coombs site, is the border of ancestral Puebloan and Fremont culture. As you can see in the panel in the left, Fremont and this Coombs site are close. There are proofs Fremont and Ancestral Puebloan were trading. It is interesting to see how culture is different in the two cultures. As it is stated in the description, Ancestral Pueblons' potteries are thin and highly decorated. Their mug is in the display. It is a nice decoration actually. It looks like mathematical pattern.  

 

mug

The big mystery of these Ancestral Puebloan is that they lived here from around A.D.1129 then left about A.D.1175 and then never returned. It might be because lack of resource since drought began around A.D.1150. Maybe it got more competitive for the resource with other tribes. Maybe there were conflicts within Ancestral Puebloan. It is not possible to know now, but it is fun thinking about that. Interestingly, when they left the site, they probably intentionally burned the site, however, still structure is left as it is. 

Coombs site

There are many rooms and some rooms has fire pit. I was surprised how small the fire pit is. It is much smaller than my campfire. Well, they probably needed to ration logs. Clearly, the fire for them was not for fun but to survive. Mr.N said that my size of fire for sure burns their house.

After they migrated, it is believed that they became members of tribes now in South West of United States. This visit was really interesting!

What a beautiful view

Then we headed back to the main road. The view was completely different compared to a couple of days ago. Wow. Snow in the desert is quite rare scene to see. It was wonderful! Storm was gone and blue sky came. What a contrast with snow covered rocks and blue sky. It was really really beautiful. 

snowy Bryce

Then we got an idea, "Let's go back to see snowy hoodoos in Bryce Canyon National Park!" We saw some snow covered hoodoos! We enjoyed seeing those for some time, but I got super cold, since it was -23C (-9F). -18C was OK but below -20C was really tough for me. So we went to a motel. First time in this trip sleeping on actual bed with electricity. I set the temperature at 80F on the heater. First time in 2 weeks using shampoo, hot water, and Wifi. What a....what a luxurious day. Bryce area would be sunny on the next day, so we decided to take a rest and come back next morning. 

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day16-Calf Creek Fall Hikes

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day16, 2020/12/11

This day we started with lower calf creek hike. Since we were camping at the campground at the trailhead, we were able to start hiking early. This hike costs money, if I remember correctly it was like $6-7, but it's totally worth it. Since we were camping there we didn't need additional hiking fee. Good thing for paying is that we could get a brochure. I like hiking with some descriptions. Several things can't be noticed without that pamphlet. One of them was granaries in the farrrrrr distance and uuuuuuup high.

Storage Granary

Please look at the picture in the left. Can you tell where the granary is? There is a pile of rock in the middle of cliff. That is the granary. I saw that and thought, "Whoa!! How can you get there? How could you build a granary on such a steep cliff?" I guess a rope was needed to reach there from the top. Or they could climb from the bottom? They could be a rock climber champion if they were now. Ancient Fremont people were here AD700 to AD1300. They gathered nuts, plants, and hunted some animals. They needed a secure storage place not to be accessed by rodents. I can tell this granary is indeed a secure place. 

Native Americans are very good at rock climbing. When I went to Mesa Verde National Park, I learned that they were very good at rock climbing. They had a cliff dwelling and they made corns at the top of cliff. Thus they had to rock climb every day and a lot of place to put fingers to climb the rocks were found there. Amazing!

Pictographs

The second wowing stuff is pictographs. The pamphlet says that there are pictographs at a certain point on the trail. At first I couldn't find it. After a minute, I found it and "Wow!"

Can you find the pictographs in the left picture? If it is difficult, the picture took with zooming in is below. 

Pictographs

A lot of questions came to my mind. First of all, the pictograph is really above the ground. How could old Fremont people reach such high place with bringing painting materials? What was the materials? How long did it take to paint that? It might be hard to tell by picture, but the pictograph is actually big. It is not a few hour work for sure. The biggest questions are why these were painted? What do these mean? Why are these needed to be at certain place and particular point of the rock? 

According to the brochure, these painting are typical Fremont-style, but no idea what these mean. 

Another interesting fact about the rock in the above picture is those stripes. Those black and orange stripes are from activity of microorganisms. Microbes oxidize iron and manganese and where the rain flows on the rock: that made those colors! Biology and chemistry are everywhere! It is exciting for scientists. 

Lower Calf Creek Falls

Then we arrived the lower calf creek falls! We were the first ones of the day! Really beautiful. Falls reflected the sun and shined. Only we were able to see the shiny falls because the falls went in the shade after 30 minutes or so when the next group came in. Yay! It is very unique fall, because this is in the desert, and fall on the brown rock with countless stripes made by microorganisms. The pool under the falls was also pretty. It was greenish right under the falls then light green in the surrounding area. 

At the Upper Creek Fall Trailhead

The hike was 6 miles and we still had time for another medium size hike. So we went hiking to the upper Calf Creek Falls. Lower and Upper Calf Creek Falls in a day!!

Upper portion of Upper Calf Creek Falls

Trailhead for the Upper Calf Creek Falls is at the high altitude, then go down to the falls as you see in the above picture. How wonderful the view is! This area the hike offers non-stopping views! I was sooooo excited about that. After a 3-mile down to the canyon we came to the upper of Upper Calf Creek Falls. As you can see in the picture, there are several cascades of small falls and inviting (if it is summer) pools to swim. It is very nice and we sat down on the hill and relaxed and looked at nice view for a while. 

We actually saw a bigger fall, that view was mostly blocked by rocks, on the way to this cascades, but it seemed it was not accessible, however, while we were eating snacks, we started thinking that we should explore if there was a way to go to the bigger portion of the fall. We looked around and carefully went down the canyon and found a great spot to see the fall. It was really beautiful. What a color! I had never seen with so many colors on the rock. Black, white, grey, red, green brown....the pool is dark green. A lot of science here, including geology, microbiology, biology, plant biology, ecology. This is the natural art. This is great and we spent some time to stare at the falls.

Upper Calf Creek Falls

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day15-Escalante River Hike

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day15, 2020/12/10

petroglyph

rock rock rock

We left Bryce and we went to the Escalante region of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. We parked at the Escalante River trailhead and started hiking without knowing much the area. There was a used trail but there is no information where the used trail goes. The trail sometimes disappeared, sometimes appeared and we enjoyed such wandering in the middle of nowhere. The area is surrounded by magnificent rocks (below picture). Once in a while, suddenly you will see petroglyphs (above right picture). We found a lot of bighorn sheep petroglyphs. It is good to know people 1000 years ago lived there and they also saw the same animals and had artistic motive to draw them. What a long time but the same spirits we still have.

Huge

I like a hike with destination, such as climbing a mountain, but I like a hike without destination as well. This was a hiking without any destinations, literally wandering in the middle of nowhere. In that way we were able to take time and explore and appreciate the nature. After wandering sometime in the canyon above the Escalante river, we came to a massive "theater". It was a huge rock in front of us. I can't convey how big it is from my poor English and amateur photographs, but it was immense. The rock has a arch shape inside: I guess it will be a future arch. Furthermore, the rock has some huge cracks from top to the bottom. In the future how the rock will look like? Interesting. 

Natural bridge, 1st one

After we had a lunch there, we went back to the trailhead and went for the other direction. Now we had a destination: natural bridge. Our trail map App indicated 2 bridges. After about a 2-mile hike, the first natural bridge showed up! This was really exciting! I love natural bridges and arches. Well everyone likes them, but I love more than anybody else! Even Mr.N asked me why I love arches and bridges so much. Why? I don't know, I just love them. 

2nd natural bridge

Then only less than half a mile the 2nd natural bridge showed up. It was really up high. It was also cool. Natural bridges are sometimes hidden and suddenly show up: they are not moving, I know that, but usually they suddenly come into the vision when I pass some blocking canyon rock. The way bridges come to my eye make the bridges even more exciting. Like, "Wow you were quietly there for how long?!"

Below this bridge, stripes on the rock was also beautiful. I read somewhere else those strips were not from rain, but microorganism's activity. I don't know about this particular rock, though. 

granaries?

Another cool stuff in this area, more specifically, between the two bridges, is that granaries or house on the cliff. I took a picture by zooming, so it looks close, but it is very difficult to go up there. You can see there a pile of rocks. Native Americans in this area made granaries to store seeds/food to protect them from rodents. I don't know this one is granaries or dwelling, and maybe there is no way to know, but it is romantic. It is interesting to imagine what people were doing here in this vast area, what they ate, talked, saw, and heard.

After this hike, we camped at Calf Creek Campground. This is an official campground in the Grand Staircase Escalante, and it costs $15 per night. It is not free, but nothing is offered: the restroom is closed, water is shut-off. Nothing to get by paying $15. Instead what we got was so many human pee everywhere due to toilet closure. This site was the least favorite campsite during this trip.