More Best of Capitol Reef & Bryce Canyon, a set on Flickr.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Best of Capitol Reef and Bryce Canyon
Best of Capitol Reef and Bryce Canyon, a set on Flickr.
More pics to come shortly. Of course, I do most everything shortly.
Capitol Reef and Bryce Canyon, part deux
July 26, 2011: Hello, fellow travelers, and welcome to the latest installment of the now world-famous Gownezio blog. We've slowed down the ol' blog a little bit for a couple of reasons… first, it's getting harder and harder to get a decent internet connection for more than a couple of minutes at a stretch. Second, I realized I was spending more time talking about having fun than actually having fun. So, there it is. As soon as this becomes a paid subscription service, we'll be back every single day! But, right now, we're on our way north and Liz is driving so I can type. We had planned 3 or 4 days in the world-famous Bryce Canyon National Park in Southwestern France, er, Utah, but we've bailed - done a bunk - and are on our way to Yellowstone . It's a funny thing (and by funny, I mean quite sad, really) that the southwestern national parks frequently have as many Europeans as Americans. It seems that we (the Americans, that is) don't appreciate the beauty of our own country as much as the Europeans do. But Bryce is another thing entirely. We went to the rodeo our first night (more on that later), and the rodeo clown on the microphone said, "Hey all you Americans who have come to the rodeo this evening, I've got a stunning surprise for you. Let's see a show of hands if you are a real-live American." Only about 10% of the hands went up. Then… "Raise your hands if you are from France." More than half. Italy and Germany, another quarter.
So we have come, this past week, to two parks in southern Utah that we have never seen before: Capitol Reef and Bryce Canyon. And I can think of no two parks with more different personalities. Capitol Reef is a vast expanse (most people stick within 10 miles of the visitor center, but it is almost 100 miles long) that has virtually no visitors. It is a remarkable wilderness where you can really experience with wonder and awe the majesty of nature and the variety of landscapes that are possible within a small area. It may have catapulted way up on my list, debuting in the top 10 (or maybe even 5) of my favorite parks. It is so empty, so full of remarkable beauty, that you really shouldn't come here. I mean, at least while I'm here. I've seen articles with people saying that it's underappreciated, and that's the understatement of the year. But we shouldn't change that. I mean, you probably wouldn't like it anyway.
Bryce Canyon is an entirely different kind of place. It's filled with probably tens of thousands of people in an incredibly small area. We went on a hike on Sunday that was the easiest of the hard hikes or the hardest of the easy hikes, depending on your point of view. At any rate, on a three-mile loop that descends into a burning hot canyon and then climbs steep switchbacks 600 vertical feet out, even Yellowstone or Yosemite would have only had a moderate amount of people. This trail was so full that you would have said it was crowded if it was in Eastview Mall on Christmas Eve. And a funny thing about the 90% European population on the hike... the vast majority of them apparently believe that nature should be screamed, not heard. It might be my all-time least favorite hike. But for me, the best part was at the end of the hike, when we had spread out a little bit so that the kids could move at their own pace. I looked back from the second-to-last switchback, and saw my betrothed, the object of my affection, looking absolutely like an angry Martian, with blood-red skin. As I said, "maybe you should take a break", she said, "I don't feel very good." Turns out that "I've almost drunk the (3 liter) CamelBak dry" translates to "I've had 8 ounces of water in the burning hot desert in the last 3 hours." But she's fine now, and is mad at me for telling you.
Speaking of people being mad at me for telling you dark and dirty secrets, tomorrow is Kathy's birthday.
We right now are driving through a 55-degree downpouring rainstorm that seems to have consumed all of the southwestern desert as far as we can see. Fortunately, we aren't stuck in 102-degree temperate western New York. Lucky for us, this climate-change thing is just a hoax perpetrated by the socialists so they can enslave us.
Yesterday I went on a fun bike ride around Dave's Hollow, a 12-mile loop. The first 2 miles were all in sand (ugh), and I wasn't really paying attention to anything but my front tire… noticed some deer tracks in the sand, realized they looked a little funny, looked up, and I was 20 feet from a family of pronghorns (often incorrectly identified as antelope, as in "Where the deer and the antelope play"). I think I kind of surprised them, and they surprised me, and they were just within zoom range by the time I got the camera out. Pronghorn are the fastest land animal in the western hemisphere, and are second only to the cheetah worldwide. There were possibly 40 million of them at the start of the 19th century, less than 10,000 one hundred years later (ahh, progess). But now - with wolves and mountain lions missing from most of their habitat and hunting discouraged/prohibited in much of their range, they are making a comeback.
Sudden Interruption: 2% left on the battery. Talk to you soon.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Capitol Reef Adventures
This is Liz here. Many of the crew has gone into town to resupply, but the children and I are in camp happily playing. We have been having so much fun that we didn't have time to write! I told Mark that although I am not nearly as witty, I would try to get us up to date.
July 23, 2011
Traveling from Capitol Reef, we took Route 12. Car and Driver rated this the most scenic drive in America and they were not exaggerating! The scenery was so amazing and so varied. Every 5 minutes it looked like we were in a different part of the country all together. There were sage flats, aspen forests growing into slickrock, red and orange rock hoodoos and more. From the passenger seat, I think the highlight was driving the RVs across a hogback. For those of you unfamiliar with the word, a hogback is a ridge with steep cliffs on not one, but both sides of the road. I didn't know which way to lean, and was glad for once not to be driving! Tonight there is a big rodeo in town with a firework show following to commemorate a Utah holiday called Pioneer Day. Pictures will surely follow!
July 22, 2011
The scenic drive in Capitol Reef was finally open today. We stopped at the visitor center and all three kids got their Junior Ranger badges. We drove a mile down the road to the Gifford House, a historic homestead within the park. They maintain orchards, and apricots were in season, so we had our first experience picking fresh apricots from a tree. We used these neat basket/grabber arm extensions to get the ripest fruit from the tops of the trees. Everyone tried and enjoyed them! As this was part of the park, they asked $1 a pound, and we picked 6 pounds! Make sure grandma knows we turned it into compote and froze some for her!
After we'd picked our fill, we started to hike the Colab Canyon Trail. Mark drove to the bottom of the trail and hiked up to meet us. The beginning of the trail was a brutal set of 21 switchbacks going up almost 700 feet. My favorite (and I am being ironic here) part was that Isabella chose this moment to try to push past Poppy and Yaya on the cliff-fall-to-your-doom side. It was hard to be a part of, but once we reached the top the hike was amazing. The sandstone at the top was white with many pine trees growing all around. There were several slot canyons to the sides of the trails, which even Yaya got into climbing! Alex did some death defying free climbing up a sheer rock face with these small hole-like erosion patterns - I think the only thing that kept him from going further was Dad's anxiety and the idea placed in his mind that spiders or other creatures might have made the rocks their homes in the holes and might not like his hand there! Dad stopped to take some pictures, and the rest of us hid in a small area around a corner. We jumped out and growled, scaring him. The funniest part was when some tourists from another country passed us on the trail, they mentioned they thought they'd heard a mountain lion and to keep our eyes open. We didn't have the language skills to explain our joke... See the pictures to get the idea! Mark met us half way down. We finished the rest of the hike (about 2 miles total) together. On the drive back to the campground we stopped to see the Freemont Petroglyphs. Kieran was interested to talk about the difference between historic rock art and graffiti.
July 21, 2011
The water was finally down far enough to take the Great Wash hike. It was a great hike (about 4 miles total), but especially interesting to take after the extreme flooding that happened on our way into the park. The ranger mentioned that this area traditionally receives 7 inches of rain total in a year. In the past 2 days it had rained 3 inches. Because of this rain, there were many areas along the hike that were still wet. The red mud looked like melted milk chocolate - where it was drying it curled up over the surface, giving the appearance of walking on chocolate curls. The rocks we were walking on were many different colors. In many places it looked like you were walking on candy the purples and greens, oranges and yellows were so vivid. It was a wonderful hike, but as we'd started a little late, the shade was minimal. At the two-mile mark, we turned around. Other than the rocks, the highlight of the trip was seeing a mother bighorn sheep and her lamb. They were busy eating some of the fresh greenery brought back to life by the recent rain.
There had been road construction to repair the scenic road above the Great Wash. Along the hike Mark and the kids found various parts of the construction barrels. On the way back the kids filled their packs with the smaller parts, and Mark carried a barrel on his head like a basket of fruit. How's that for picking up litter?
After such a hike, we decided to go out to eat at Cafe Diablo. It was divine! Southwest food at it's freshest and finest, pared with a chef who took great pride in the presentation of each plate. We took pictures of the entrees for Aunt Sarah to enjoy, but you are welcome to salivate as well. Taro root cakes, plantain chips, yucca fries, rattlesnake cakes..... I could live off the memories of this food for a week. The homemade ice cream was amazing. Izzie picked mulberry ice cream, and it voted the best flavor by the Gownezio clan.
We set up the telescope for the first time that night. It was a bit of a procedure - Dad brought out the computer and read the setup steps to Mark and then double-checked to make sure it was all okay. It turns out they were supposed to sight it in the daytime to align the site to the GPS computer attached, so there was more cursing and banter to get that fixed. Finally, the set up was complete and Mark lined up the first object in his field of vision. It turned out to be Saturn. You could see the rings! It was so cool! We sat around the campfire taking tuns looking at objects until we got ready for bed! It was a late night for the kids!
June 21, 2011
Our first full day in the park was started with many mishaps. The sliding counter came off its hinges requiring a 30 minute fix. The bathroom wouldn't flush - another 30 minutes down. One thing happened after another, and when Mark had all the packs ready, all the kids ready, and all the morning clean up done, Dad was still in his pajamas. Oh dear!
Once underway, we chose to do the hardest hike first. It was called Chimney Rock, a 3.8 mile hike with a 900 foot elevation gain. This is not the longest nor the most elevation gain we have ever done. However, this was our first desert hike and there was absolutely no shade to be found. Again, most of the elevation gain was at the beginning of the hike and on the edge of various cliff faces, but there was a wonderful cool breeze that followed us our entire hike. We couldn't believe when we got to our high point how far up we'd come - we were looking down on Chimney Rock from above, and could see in the distance our car like a tiny little speck. We had plenty of water, and finally found a large sandstone rock big enough to cast a shadow we could sit and eat our lunch beside. Two thing happened - one, there was some creature that had made the underside of the rock its home as evidenced by a LOT of strange looking poop (I mean scat - we are, after all, naturalists here). Also, I found a water bottle still full to the brim of still frozen water. How refreshing! The hike was a loop, and as we followed our tireless hike leader, Alex, we saw the most intense yellow-colored rocks. We were not sure of their content - Liz suggested sulphur, Dad was worried about Uranium cakes though, and wouldn't let us explore too closely.
Mom, Dad, Mark, and Alex all got bad headaches that afternoon. (too much heat, too little water?) The kids all enjoyed the pool with Mark while some of us (Liz) slept until dinner. A good day was had by all! Dinner was spaghetti with the first of Dad's sauce we've had since we left home. SO GOOD!
July 20, 2011
We drove form Colorado Springs to Torrey, Utah today to get to Capitol Reef. The drive was lovely. When we were almost at the park, we started seeing signs of flash flooding. The banks of what looked like creeks were flooding with red, turbulent water. At one point were were stopped by park rangers who informed us we would have to wait until the road was cleared before proceeding. The flooding was so bad it had knocked down trees, carrying rocks, sand and other debris into the roadway which the park rangers cleared with some nifty looking, well placed construction gear. We got set up at 1,000 Lakes RV park. Dad made dinner while Mark, Liz, Mom and Izzie drove back into the park for some information. Our first campfire in a while! Chicken cooked on a wood campfire is the best!
July 23, 2011
Traveling from Capitol Reef, we took Route 12. Car and Driver rated this the most scenic drive in America and they were not exaggerating! The scenery was so amazing and so varied. Every 5 minutes it looked like we were in a different part of the country all together. There were sage flats, aspen forests growing into slickrock, red and orange rock hoodoos and more. From the passenger seat, I think the highlight was driving the RVs across a hogback. For those of you unfamiliar with the word, a hogback is a ridge with steep cliffs on not one, but both sides of the road. I didn't know which way to lean, and was glad for once not to be driving! Tonight there is a big rodeo in town with a firework show following to commemorate a Utah holiday called Pioneer Day. Pictures will surely follow!
July 22, 2011
The scenic drive in Capitol Reef was finally open today. We stopped at the visitor center and all three kids got their Junior Ranger badges. We drove a mile down the road to the Gifford House, a historic homestead within the park. They maintain orchards, and apricots were in season, so we had our first experience picking fresh apricots from a tree. We used these neat basket/grabber arm extensions to get the ripest fruit from the tops of the trees. Everyone tried and enjoyed them! As this was part of the park, they asked $1 a pound, and we picked 6 pounds! Make sure grandma knows we turned it into compote and froze some for her!
After we'd picked our fill, we started to hike the Colab Canyon Trail. Mark drove to the bottom of the trail and hiked up to meet us. The beginning of the trail was a brutal set of 21 switchbacks going up almost 700 feet. My favorite (and I am being ironic here) part was that Isabella chose this moment to try to push past Poppy and Yaya on the cliff-fall-to-your-doom side. It was hard to be a part of, but once we reached the top the hike was amazing. The sandstone at the top was white with many pine trees growing all around. There were several slot canyons to the sides of the trails, which even Yaya got into climbing! Alex did some death defying free climbing up a sheer rock face with these small hole-like erosion patterns - I think the only thing that kept him from going further was Dad's anxiety and the idea placed in his mind that spiders or other creatures might have made the rocks their homes in the holes and might not like his hand there! Dad stopped to take some pictures, and the rest of us hid in a small area around a corner. We jumped out and growled, scaring him. The funniest part was when some tourists from another country passed us on the trail, they mentioned they thought they'd heard a mountain lion and to keep our eyes open. We didn't have the language skills to explain our joke... See the pictures to get the idea! Mark met us half way down. We finished the rest of the hike (about 2 miles total) together. On the drive back to the campground we stopped to see the Freemont Petroglyphs. Kieran was interested to talk about the difference between historic rock art and graffiti.
July 21, 2011
The water was finally down far enough to take the Great Wash hike. It was a great hike (about 4 miles total), but especially interesting to take after the extreme flooding that happened on our way into the park. The ranger mentioned that this area traditionally receives 7 inches of rain total in a year. In the past 2 days it had rained 3 inches. Because of this rain, there were many areas along the hike that were still wet. The red mud looked like melted milk chocolate - where it was drying it curled up over the surface, giving the appearance of walking on chocolate curls. The rocks we were walking on were many different colors. In many places it looked like you were walking on candy the purples and greens, oranges and yellows were so vivid. It was a wonderful hike, but as we'd started a little late, the shade was minimal. At the two-mile mark, we turned around. Other than the rocks, the highlight of the trip was seeing a mother bighorn sheep and her lamb. They were busy eating some of the fresh greenery brought back to life by the recent rain.
There had been road construction to repair the scenic road above the Great Wash. Along the hike Mark and the kids found various parts of the construction barrels. On the way back the kids filled their packs with the smaller parts, and Mark carried a barrel on his head like a basket of fruit. How's that for picking up litter?
After such a hike, we decided to go out to eat at Cafe Diablo. It was divine! Southwest food at it's freshest and finest, pared with a chef who took great pride in the presentation of each plate. We took pictures of the entrees for Aunt Sarah to enjoy, but you are welcome to salivate as well. Taro root cakes, plantain chips, yucca fries, rattlesnake cakes..... I could live off the memories of this food for a week. The homemade ice cream was amazing. Izzie picked mulberry ice cream, and it voted the best flavor by the Gownezio clan.
We set up the telescope for the first time that night. It was a bit of a procedure - Dad brought out the computer and read the setup steps to Mark and then double-checked to make sure it was all okay. It turns out they were supposed to sight it in the daytime to align the site to the GPS computer attached, so there was more cursing and banter to get that fixed. Finally, the set up was complete and Mark lined up the first object in his field of vision. It turned out to be Saturn. You could see the rings! It was so cool! We sat around the campfire taking tuns looking at objects until we got ready for bed! It was a late night for the kids!
June 21, 2011
Our first full day in the park was started with many mishaps. The sliding counter came off its hinges requiring a 30 minute fix. The bathroom wouldn't flush - another 30 minutes down. One thing happened after another, and when Mark had all the packs ready, all the kids ready, and all the morning clean up done, Dad was still in his pajamas. Oh dear!
Once underway, we chose to do the hardest hike first. It was called Chimney Rock, a 3.8 mile hike with a 900 foot elevation gain. This is not the longest nor the most elevation gain we have ever done. However, this was our first desert hike and there was absolutely no shade to be found. Again, most of the elevation gain was at the beginning of the hike and on the edge of various cliff faces, but there was a wonderful cool breeze that followed us our entire hike. We couldn't believe when we got to our high point how far up we'd come - we were looking down on Chimney Rock from above, and could see in the distance our car like a tiny little speck. We had plenty of water, and finally found a large sandstone rock big enough to cast a shadow we could sit and eat our lunch beside. Two thing happened - one, there was some creature that had made the underside of the rock its home as evidenced by a LOT of strange looking poop (I mean scat - we are, after all, naturalists here). Also, I found a water bottle still full to the brim of still frozen water. How refreshing! The hike was a loop, and as we followed our tireless hike leader, Alex, we saw the most intense yellow-colored rocks. We were not sure of their content - Liz suggested sulphur, Dad was worried about Uranium cakes though, and wouldn't let us explore too closely.
Mom, Dad, Mark, and Alex all got bad headaches that afternoon. (too much heat, too little water?) The kids all enjoyed the pool with Mark while some of us (Liz) slept until dinner. A good day was had by all! Dinner was spaghetti with the first of Dad's sauce we've had since we left home. SO GOOD!
July 20, 2011
We drove form Colorado Springs to Torrey, Utah today to get to Capitol Reef. The drive was lovely. When we were almost at the park, we started seeing signs of flash flooding. The banks of what looked like creeks were flooding with red, turbulent water. At one point were were stopped by park rangers who informed us we would have to wait until the road was cleared before proceeding. The flooding was so bad it had knocked down trees, carrying rocks, sand and other debris into the roadway which the park rangers cleared with some nifty looking, well placed construction gear. We got set up at 1,000 Lakes RV park. Dad made dinner while Mark, Liz, Mom and Izzie drove back into the park for some information. Our first campfire in a while! Chicken cooked on a wood campfire is the best!
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
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