“Riverdance on the Grand Circle”

Friday, July 18, 2008 11:59 pm

I can’t believe it’s Friday again. We’re a week into the new RV, and it’s been a real winner. Although I’m not certain it’s definite, the family appears to be settling on the name ‘Forest’, which is a reference to both the RV manufacturer and a nickname of Scott’s (which is itself a reference to the movie “Forrest Gump”, one of the Sommerfeld’s all-time favorites).

The last four days have been a series of spectacular and distinctive canyons one after another. It’s very difficult to describe them in any way that does them justice. The Grand Staircase is a set of cascading canyons that descend from the upper reaches of the Colorado Plateau. It starts with Bryce Canyon, falls through Zion Canyon, and ends with the Grand Canyon. We didn’t visit them in this order, but we have just completed seeing all three – and they are all amazing, unique, and well worth seeing.

We started with the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. This is the less visited side by far. According to one of the rangers, the North Rim receives approximately 10% of all visitors to the Grand Canyon. Purists may claim (and with some truthfulness, I admit) that the view from the South Rim is more ‘grand’. However, in my overall opinion, the North Rim blows away the South Rim hands down. The view is nonetheless incredible, you get it directly from the lodge’s veranda, the cabins you stay in line the very rim itself, the entire area is forested, the higher elevation provides much more comfortable temps, and the solitude and tranquility improve the experience. Also, because of the angle of the land outcropping, you get to view a beautiful sunrise and sunset across two different expanses of the canyon.

Tuesday was a chill day. We arrived late Monday night and wanted to make the most of our full day in the Park. There are several different vistas you can drive to if you are willing to invest the time, but we decided that a lazy day in the lodge was what we needed. We ate at the lodge restaurant twice. Both were good, but we generally preferred dinner, mostly because the breakfast waitress was a jerk, full of passive-aggressive barbs. This started when Scott casually asked about her background, something he has been doing to nearly every Park employee with whom he interacts. But then it seemed to shift to Kathy and her food/coffee. Kathy, not one to tolerate such nonsense, was ready to come to blows over the matter, but we were able to duck out of there without further incident.

The cabins were small and rustic (a bit too rustic for their price) but were big enough to hold us. As mentioned above, we saw both the sunrise and sunset on Tuesday, and took a nice rim hike from the lodge up to the campground - Kathy was hunting for her credit cards which were supposed to be inbound, and she needed the campground’s wi-fi (which was the last of that we’d see until Vegas – cell coverage has been equally spotty through this region). It took a bit of sleuthing, and they were in two different places, but we were finally able to track down her new cards, which was a great relief to her. Scott allowed that we could finally put my credit cards in the freezer for a while, to cool them down after the solo mileage they had seen over the last few days.

Wednesday was Bryce Canyon, famous for its hoodoo formations. Anyone who has built a drip sand castle on an ocean beach will find the similarities between drip towers and hoodoos striking. We gave Forest the day off, leaving him at the entrance to the park while we rode the optional on-and-off shuttle through the Park. This turned out to be a great decision, as it allowed us to exit the shuttle at Inspiration Point and easily walk the rim trail down the canyon to Sunset Point. None of us had hiked the rim trail before, and it is delightful, giving you many different angles of the formations than those provided just at the lookouts.

Thursday was meant to be a Zion day, but we made a detour. Rose Marie (Kathy’s and my sister-in-law, who we met for a quick meeting earlier in this blog) had mentioned a great restaurant that she had discovered not far from Bryce in the remote town of Boulder, UT. The place was renowned for its use of ingredients grown in its very own 3-acre organic gardens. Lee was hooked (she is into organic gardening and has started her own back home), and convinced us it was worth the detour. The place is Hell’s Backbone Grill, but I believe the main reason to go there is the drive. Scenic state highway Utah 12 is called the million dollar road, and it earns its name. The route takes you through the Escalante National Monument, another layer in the Grand Staircase. None of us had seen this before, and it is a fantastic drive (as long as you aren’t driving, which I was). The road dips and turns and dives and climbs, at times in a 10% grade and at least one 9600’ pass. In an RV, it seemed a little dicey, but Forest handled it like a champ, and the views of the Escalante Canyons impressed everyone quite a bit more than did Bryce. We all agreed that the S.T. wouldn’t have had a prayer making it through this section of the trip, and the Sommerfeld’s decision to upgrade (Big Ones) was reinforced yet again.

The detour was slow going, and we didn’t get into Zion until fairly late. Going through the eastern tunnel (a marvel, the best tunnel of our trip, it’s just over a mile long) is a blast in an RV, as the tunnel is not big enough to accommodate the RV in its standard lane. So the rangers shut down on-coming traffic, and you get to drive through the tunnel dead center, straddling the yellow line. Such power!

Zion turned out to be Lee and Kristen’s favorite Canyon and National Park so far. For the first time, they were able to see the majesty of these mountains from the bottom looking up, and they liked the new perspective. We stayed Thursday night at Zion Lodge – once again this was the right decision – this allows you to drive deeper into the park than most tourists, and gives you closer access to the mandatory shuttle system and the Park’s best trails. On Friday, we took a couple of hikes. First, to Weeping Rock – the rangers claim that the water takes 1400 years to seep all the way down through the porous sandstone, though it’s hard to fathom that there’s that much water in there. And second, up Riverside Walk, which takes you deep into the end of the box canyon. The end of Riverside Walk is the beginning of the famous Narrows, which is where the two canyon walls come together and the only way to continue upstream is to wade into the frigid waters of the Virgin River. We went about a ½ mile into the Narrows. It was slow going since the water was very muddy and we couldn’t see where to step. All of our shoes are still soaked and muddy, but it was a lot of fun. None of us (save Scott) felt up to the challenge of Angel’s Landing, a strenuous five mile hike to a tremendous overlook (highly recommended by Chuck), so we set out for Vegas.

Anecdotally, there hasn’t been much to write about, just a bunch of wonderful and amazing views, which ain’t a bad thing. Well, ok, that’s only mostly true. The strange fascination this trip has had with the dark plumbing of the RV has continued. While hooked up to both the water line and the dump station at our campsite in Bryce Valley, we were trying to ‘flush the lines’ by flushing over and over so as to clear out …ahem… everything. While this was going on, the medicine cabinet door was opened in order to look for the sunblock, which had gone MIA. Upon opening the door, said sunblock did a one and a half gainer, and plunk, nothing but net as it went down the crapper. Scott and I heard it rattle and hum as it made its way through the system. It cleared the dump valve, but it got hung up at the final T-junction, and there it remains. The bottle is too long to make the final turn and exit the system, and it’s a metal aerosol can under pressure, so the solution is not as easy as busting the can so it can make the turn. The current plan (untested and untried) is to see if Scott can reach the nozzle to depressurize the can, and then bust it. The whole thing is rather distressing and disgusting, yet it seems appropriate for this group and this trip.

The drive to Vegas was hot, dry, and uninteresting, but we’re here, baby! Wi-fi is back, allowing this post, but I’m not sure if I will be able to write about the next couple of days – this is Vegas after all, and it’s supposed to stay here. There’s probably rules and stuff.