2020 Winter Camping Trip Day24-Siphon Draw

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day24, 2020/12/19

We went more South in Arizona and did a hike in a state park near Phoenix.  The hike is called Siphon Draw and the Flatiron. It is a 6 miles with 3000 feet elevation gain! Coming this south, cacti appeared in the field. More specifically, Saguaro! Saguaro is an iconic cactus. When you type cactus on your phone, Saguaro emoji automatically shows up. It is that famous, but actually I had never seen Saguaro in person. Saguaro and other cacti in the field was really beautiful and I loved the cactus scenery! The hike was very steep (fun), pretty, but crowded. 

Going up

The hike starts in the state park, but only a half mile it enters national forest. State park charges hikers but only a half mile is actually in the state park! Hummm. First 2 mile is only 1000 elevation gain.

The first 2 miles were like in the left picture. Going up to the flatiron in the beautiful rocks was nice. On the grass there are some Saguaros. I loved this kind of geology. My English teacher when I learned English in California is from Phoenix and this reminded me of her. She says she loves desert and sometimes need to go back there since she now lives in Vermont. 

flatiron

Going up more, the flatiron got in the sight. In the left picture, the most left rock is the flatiron. The destination of the hike was there. You now might think, "Oh it is up high!" Yes it was. The last mile is 2000 feet elevation gain. There is not an official trail and you just climb up a gully. I was surprised that this type of hike exist in the West: very similar to New England steepness. Surprisingly, despite the steepness, many people were here. Probably because 1) it is not far from Phoenix, 2) it was Saturday, 3) more people are already off on Dec 19th, 4) students are definitely off (we saw many student-looking hikers). Since we are used to this type of steepness we had no problem, but we saw many people stopped before the gully, especially people with whining dogs for the steepness. 

From flatiron

From the top, I saw very very West-ish view. I love this kind of scenery. I always think this is the America. Japanese don't call United Sates as US or USA, we call it America. Since my first place to live in America was West, I always think the West-ish view the America. The Western view always linked to my new chapter with mixture of fear and excitement. If you are an immigrant, you know the feeling. The feeling something you had never had before. Looking at the vast West view always brings such waves of sense into my heart.

After we enjoyed the hike, we stopped by a Japanese grocery store in Phoenix! I was really happy to learn that there is at least one Japanese store in Phoenix! We stocked up some camping food there (always Japanese one is good!). Next to the grocery store there was a Japanese bakery shop: of course we stopped by and had some bread for the hike next day. Yay! Phoenix....big enough and a lot of hiking, and warm. Not bad to live there.

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day23-Fay Canyon and Brim Mesa

 2020 Winter Camping Trip Day23, 2020/12/18

This was the 2nd day of the hikes in the Sedona area in Arizona. Since there are so many hikes in the area, it was hard to pick one. After searching for a while with our trail App, we picked Fay Arch and Fay Canyon for the first hike. We knew that people in the Sedona area are rather touristic type hikers, we started early to beat them: usually those people start later morning. Actually a day before we overheard the representative conversation from those tourists. The guy said, "I hike a little then look for a brewery. That is my kind of vacation." 

Fay arch

The parking lot was large, but only a couple of cars were there at 9 a.m. However, there are 10 toddlers and a couple of adults were there. Hummm. Anyway we first headed for the Fay Arch. The side trail to go to the Arch is from the main trail to the Fay Canyon. The side trail is not a official trial, and very steep, however, it is worth it! The arch is a little hidden from the main trail, but once off the main trail it will appear gradually. You can see the view through the arch, once you reach under it. In the morning nobody was at the arch and we had really nice time under the arch. Looking great view under the blue sky was priceless. When we were enjoying the scenery, we heard toddlers passing by the trail in the distance. Toddlers' voices were loud and they were continuously chatting. 

Then we headed for Fay Canyon. The rock formation in the canyon are interesting and the color is beautiful.  We climbed a little towards the most interesting rock in the canyon area and enjoyed the view. The color....what a color. It is hard to describe with words. Pictures help, but it is totally a different experience to hike in the rocks and see the actual color in person. I really recommend hiking in the desert in the West. By 11:00 a.m., more and more people hiked in the area and some yahoos started doing drone. It was very annoying! 

Canyon

To avoid drone-flying area, we went to the deeper canyon area with off-trail. The deeper canyon is really beautiful. It was a nice sunny day and the contrast with blue sky and brown layers colors of rocks were appealing. We even found a small pile of rocks that seemed to used for a house/shelter for native Americans. We sat down in the "house" and ate lunch. Lunch was again salad from Safeway. We are very happy with great view with healthy salad! 
 

What a view

In the afternoon, we tried another hike, Brim Mesa. This was my favorite hike in the Sedona area for sure. Somehow this hike had much less people, which is a big plus, but it was really marvelous view. Trees and orange rocks with blue sky....very Sedona-ish scenery. I could sit and admire the view forever. 

secret cave

The hike contains some off-trail portion, so we tried to cut off the on-trail portion, however, we encountered the cliff, so we went back to on-trail. Then again we went off-trail. The off-trail portion leads to the secret cave. The cave is above the arch, and you can actually walk on the cave. It was super cool. I was a little scared of walking there, but indeed it was a special experience. 

In this hike, the last "whoa!" thing was Devil's kitchen sink hole. The picture in the right picture. How it was formed? Rain, slightly acidic, dissolve limestone and make a cave inside. Then over a long time, finally sinkhole is made. Actually this was my first time seeing a sinkhole. What a dramatic sinkhole. It is really impressive and even shocking drop off of gigantic rocks. 

I really loved Day15's two hikes.

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day22-Devils Bridge

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day22, 2020/12/17

This day we did 2 hikes in the Sedona area.

Sedona is famous for some touristy including spiritual ceremonies, outdoor activities, and restaurants. About 7-8 years ago when I went to Chaco Canyon, I stopped by Sedona for eating (steak!). I didn't know that Sedona had great hikes until then. When I walked around the town I realized the town is surrounded by red color rocks and mountains. I thought that I needed to come back to the Sedona area for hiking.

An opportunity knocked in this winter trip. We looked up some good rated hiking and tried 2 in the area. 

Devil's bridge

The first one we did is Devil's bridge. Oh gosh it was very crowded. The parking lot was full around 9 a.m. Luckily one car left so we took the spot. When we were getting ready for hiking at least 2 cars asked if we were leaving. Although there were many people it was still doable with social distancing due to the very wide trail. Why so wide? Because the trail is also used for ATV. Well, OK, this was that kind of trail. I wished there had been less people. If I have a chance to come back someday, I will start hiking before sunrise and see a sunrise at the bridge. Despite of the crowd, the Devil's bridge was really impressive. Some people were walking on the bridge, but we didn't do. We know that those stuff can fall ANYTIME. I still remember the Arch rock in Point Reyes in California fell. 

Nice view

I really like the rock color of Sedona. There are a lot of reddish brown rocks. Under the rock there are some trees. In contrast to Grand Staircase-Escalante, this area is more developed and there are many trails available. It is kind of good and bad. It is easy to access some areas, but solitude is hardly gained even in December. Maybe not many people in dying hot August, though. On the way back to the trailhead, we saw some ATVs. It looks like I would get a carsick if I rode it. 

Long Canyon

In the afternoon, we did another hike in the same area. It is Long Canyon hike. It is a hike in the very wide and long canyon, a lot of times we were hiking in the trees. Although the gorgeous rocks can be seen, like in the left picture, admittedly it was not a very impressive hike. Especially at the point we saw the sign "END OF TRAIL" abruptly in the forest, considering 8 mile of hike. I was hoping that the view would be at the end of trail. Oh well. 

Trail ends

The left below picture is the end of trail sign. I don't know why the end was there. After this hike, we stopped by Safeway (I used to go to Safeway a lot but no more as a East coast resident, sadly, I love Safeway) and bought salad and fruit and packed cheesecake. We had feast at the campsite. Camping food does not contain much vegetables, so salad is always good.  

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day21-Northgate Peaks in Zion

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day21, 2020/12/16

This day Mr.N suggested hiking to the top of Northgate peaks in Zion in the morning. 

I know that a lot of people know Zion, but how many of you know about Northgate peaks in Zion? 
I hear silence. 
I didn't know or I had heard of it. 

Mr.N has a hiking app called Alltrails and he browsed in the area and found the Northgate peak hike. It is a 6-mile hike, Mr.N said it would be a half day hike, however, I thought that it would be a whole day hike, because mostly the hike is off-trail. Anyway we started hiking. The hike starts at Wildcat Canyon trailhead. This is probably more known for the starting point for top-down hike to the Subway. 1 mile after the trailhead, there is a junction: one to Subway the other to the Northgate peaks. To go to Subway you need a permit. There is a sign saying requiring a permit to proceed to go to Subway. I really wish I could get a permit someday to the Subway. 

From 1st Northgate Peak

As I mentioned Northgate "peaks" as plural, there are two peaks. So we did 2 peaks (why not). After a mile the trail disappears and it entered the off-trail area. The first peak, 7100 feet high, was not bad. There was a used trail most of the way. Climb was only 300 feet in 0.2 mile. Then the view was spectacular. I didn't have any idea until this hike that there is such beautiful portion in Zion other than main Zion canyon area. Grey tall rock over the brown-ish ground: it was so pretty. We spent time at the top for a little. Quality time with admiring the nature. 

2nd peak

Then we headed for the second peak. This was much harder than first one. It was much steeper and more slippery. How the path looks like is in the right picture. It was a little scary and I thought about turning around for several time in the middle of the climbing, because it would be a problem during descending if ascending is scary. I debated with myself, and decided to take it very slow. By taking good break and taking time, I was able to manage to hike up all the way. After such a climb, the view was even better. From the second peak, we were able to see Kolob Arch area in the distance (brown rocks in the distance in the picture). There was interesting rocky mountains as well. The scenery was so gorgeous and we wanted to be there forever!

From 2nd Northgate Peak

In Utah in this area it was almost everyday was sunny. As you can see in the picture, blue sky rarely had clouds. Nice color was seen in contrast with clear blue, grey rocks, brown rocks, green trees, brown dirt, and some white snow. I love this area, not only it is very beautiful, but also it is eerie at the same time. 

I was a little worried about descending the steep off-trail, but somehow it was quite smooth and not scary.

We loved so much the view and we took time to do off-trail as well, we finished hike around 4 p.m. It was obviously no time for another afternoon hike, so we headed for the next destination: the Sedona area in Arizona. We drove until dark in the night, we got fast food (Burger King), instead of making camping food at 10F.

 

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day20, Kolob Arch

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day20, 2020/12/15

This day we again went to Kolob canyon area. Surprisingly it was still closed even though it was not snowing. It seemed like the rangers there were lazy: if they don't open they work less. 

While we were looking at a map, we noticed that there is a way to go to Kolob Arch which is in the Kolob canyon via Hop Valley not from a trailhead in the Kolob Canyon. The lazy ranger didn't even tell us that. 

Kolob Arch is the second largest arch in the U.S. The biggest one is Landscape Arch in Arches National Park. It is not very well known that second biggest arch is in Zion. So, why not? 

Hop Valley

The two ways to go to the Kolob Arch is both 15 miles/24 km. Via Verkin Creek trail from Kolob Canyon area is more popular. Due to the closure we did the route via Hop Valley. Hop Valley route is interesting: some portion is used for grazing even it is inside the National Park. It is common in BLM, but it was my first time a part of National Park is used for cow grazing. According to the internet, the area was used for grazing long before Zion National Park was established. Probably because of that it is still used for grazing (otherwise it is not allowed in National Park). The view is very nice, rather open space scenery at first, then more Zion-ish canyon comes as hike proceeds. Since the trail is not popular, a lot of portion of the path are faint. Sometimes we needed to cross frozen river, and half-frozen river. In summer it would be a wet hike due to stream crossing, but in winter you can cross on the frozen water, it is actually a dry hike. On the day we hiked, maybe cows were in the different section and we didn't see a single one, although we saw their poops. 

Impressive rocks

From some walk in the valley, the trail go deep into the canyon. The entire canyon we saw no people. Can you imagine you are the only person for the entire 10 hour hike in Zion National Park? It is priceless. It is wonderful to wander in the canyon. I love Utah's massive impressive rocks. Then after short spur trail, Kolob canyon appears in front of us. 

Yes. It is BIG. It is amazing and I loved it. With picture I don't need to describe furthermore. 

Some people actually are disappointed with Kolob Arch, because you can't go just under the Arch. I personally think it is still absolutely worth seeing it in person even if you can't go right under it.

Kolob Arch

Sunset

Because the hike was long, and the start was a little late, we finished the hike at the sunset. At dusk there are chances to see wild animals. We saw around 20 deer in the desert. Cute. Precious time to see those wild animals. The sunset was beautiful and pleasantly we completed the big hike.