David and Enid's Travels

Fall colours and Zion rock

We drove back to the Weeping Wall this morning.  We were about half an hour earlier than yesterday and got one of the last two parking spots.  We intended to walk up the short distance to the Weeping Wall itself, and then go back to the Emerald Pools.  Another tourist was standing by the trail sign as we started.   We spoke to him briefly, then we headed up the trail.  After walking uphill for about half an hour we came to another sign that indicated a junction to the Hidden Canyon trail.  We realized that we were on the wrong trail, and when we got to the bottom it became clear why.  The man had been standing right in front of the sign that pointed to the Weeping Wall!  Anyway, we did get a view of the wall as we passed by it on the trail, and got to see much more of the valley from the greater height we reached.

After that we did drive back and park at the “Grotto” parking lot, and walked in to the Emerald Pools.  The walk was a bit more difficult than the first one this morning, as the trail had a lot of steps carved out of the rock, or just made from large stones.  They were also covered with dry sand which made them somewhat slippery.

We arrived at one of the middle pools, which wasn’t much, just a small pool of water on the edge of the cliff, so continued on to the upper pool where we ate lunch.  A number of other tourists came by as we were eating, including a family from Sweden with two young boys, probably about six and four, so they reminded us of our own blonde-haired sons at that age.  After lunch we walked back by a different route to see the other and larger middle pool, where there was a park ranger and a group of school children, about fifth or sixth graders.

The lower pool is much more interesting.  The pool itself isn’t much, but to go by it you walk under the cliff of the middle pools, and behind the waterfall that runs out of them.  There wasn’t a lot of water, but it was pretty as it dropped over the edge of the cliff.

We walked along the Virgin River for about a kilometre to get back to our vehicle.  Along the way we saw a young mule deer buck that was down by the water.

It was much cooler this afternoon so that we wore a fleece when outside, even sitting in the sun.  The wind has come up quite strongly and is blowing the leaves around outside.

Riverside Trail, Temple of Sinawava

We drove north on the park road this morning.  It is the first day that the shuttles were not running, and it is easy to see why they are such an advantage.  There are very few parking spaces available.  I took the video camera with us today, and we first stopped at the Court of the Patriarchs to get some video of the mountains in the early morning light.  Then as we drove by the Weeping Wall parking lot we saw some “wild” turkeys in the bush, so drove to a spot where we could get off the road and walked back.  I’m not sure if they are truly wild turkeys, or just feral turkeys; however, they definitely were not modern domestic turkeys.

By this time there was no space let in the Weeping Wall parking lot, so we continued on to the Temple of Sinawava area.  Here there were just a few spaces left, and we got one of the last ones.  We then walked along the riverside trail.  It is pretty flat and paved, and heavily used.  We stopped often as I was taking lots of video.  Several people passed us carrying wooden hiking staves, and they were wearing special wading shoes and dry suit pants.  We saw why when we got to the end of the trail, as they continued upstream wading in the river.  You can go quite a way up the canyon by following the river, but the water would be pretty cold.

We ate our lunch in a nice sunny spot as it was a bright and warm day.  The GPS obviously did not work properly in the narrow canyon, as it recorded our walk as 16 km, but the path was nowhere near correct.  We didn’t walk anywhere near that far – maybe we went 6 km at the most.  When we got back I walked to the edges of the campgrounds to get some more video of the mountains.  The cliffs are spectacular.  On the way back I spoke to the campground volunteer, and he pointed out an arch to me high up on the mountain.  It is very hard to see and it is very thin up near the top of one of the peaks.  It must be quite large as it is a long way away.

Virgin River, Zion National Park

We weren’t in a great rush to leave this morning as the check-in time for our campsite was 12 am and we were only about 50 km away from Zion National Park.  We left just about 10:30 and were to the park entrance a bit after 11.  After buying a year-long US national parks pass we pulled in to our campsite (about 100 m from the entry gate) and were able to set up right away.

We have a very nice site just across the road from the Virgin River.  It was lovely and warm so we ate our lunch outside, then biked up the Pa’rus Trail to where it meets the road, and continued on up the road to Zion Lodge.  It was uphill, but not too terribly steep, so we had a good ride back, coasting all the way.  Today was the last day of the shuttle bus (they don’t allow private vehicles on the park highway until tomorrow) so there wasn’t much traffic on the road.  There are signs all along the road saying to “Pull off the road and stop” or the buses will not pass you, so it’s a pretty safe ride.

Along the way we stopped and took many pictures of the sharply rising mountains above the Virgin River Canyon.  The views are beautiful, with the leaves on the cottonwoods along the river just starting to turn colour.

Along the Virgin River trail, Hurricane, Utah

Today is our last day in Hurricane.  This morning we did the laundry, and I washed the Tahoe.  After lunch we walked along the Virgin River trail.  We didn’t get too far because we soon came to a spot where we would have had to ford the river, and we didn’t really want to do that.  So at that point we turned around and walked upstream as far as we could go, until that trail also petered out.

Along the way though we spotted an area where they are protecting desert tortoises.  There was a fence about five feet high topped with razor wire, and inside it many small pens divided up with wire netting, feeding or watering stations, along with pipes buried to make shelters.  We wondered what they had there, a site of almost an acre, and then we spotted a tortoise out sunning itself.  We stopped again on our return trip and saw three more (the one we’d seen originally was now inside the pipe).  It was lucky that we spotted the one tortoise on the walk in, as otherwise we wouldn’t have know what the area was for, and wouldn’t have known to look for more.

The weather was beautiful again today.  I went for a bike ride after we got back from the hike, then we both sat outside in the sun and read until suppertime.  Tomorrow we are off to Zion National Park.  We won’t have Internet access for several days, so this will be the last entry to the blog until we once more have wi-fi access.

Three Ponds Trail, Snow Canyon State Park, Utah

We drove west today to Snow Canyon State Park.  We spent a great day hiking through the beautiful red sandstone canyons.  First we stopped at a short trail into Jenny’s Canyon, a very narrow slot canyon.  We then drove on just a couple of kilometres to the trail head for the Three Ponds Trail.  This was quite a bit longer and harder.  At least half of the distance of the trail is though soft sand which made the trail quite tough walking.  At one point near the start of the trail it goes over bare rock and wasn’t well marked there, though it was everywhere else, and we had to spend a few minutes trying to find the trail (along with two women, one carrying her six month old daughter in a snuggly, who had also lost the main trail).  We reached the second pond just about noon, so stopped to eat our lunch there, then walked just a few hundred metres farther to the third pond.  The ponds are very small, the largest being the first, and it was only about 5 metres wide.  The third was only a metre across, but they were ponds, so there is water in the desert sometimes.

Petrified sand dunes, Snow Canyon State Park, Utah

On the way back I walked to the top of the Petrified Sand Dunes.  These are very interesting sandstone rocks, very bare, but with the waves of sand clearly visible in the eroded surface.  It was a fairly steep climb, most noticeably so on the way down.  While I was doing that Enid stayed at the bottom and talked with several of the other hikers that passed by.  We then hiked to the top of the Hidden Pinion overlook.  Here there are some large deposits of black sandstone, and great views down the valley both to the north and south.

When we got back to our Tahoe we were shocked to see that the tailgate was open.  At first we thought someone had broken in to it, but we soon realized that we had left it open when we started our hike in the morning.  Fortunately everyone who saw it was honest, and everything was still there.

On the way back we stopped and bought a step-stool ladder.  I used it to wash the trailer, which was pretty dusty from our travels here.  We also bought an electric heater.  Since we have power at our campsite, and it’s cool in the evening it will save on running our propane furnace in the trailer.  We’ll see how warm it keeps it tonight.

It was a beautiful day, sunny and clear, no wind, and with the temperature about 22 C.  It’s hard to beat that kind of weather.

Virgin River, north of Hurricane, Utah

We wanted to do some biking around Hurricane today, so we rode back up to the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve.  We didn’t get too far into the reserve though before the trail ended at a fence marked “No Trespassing” so we turned around there and rode back to the other side of the park to where it overlooks the Virgin River.

Enid’s bike was not shifting properly, so every time she wanted to change gears she had to stop and force her shifters to a new gear.  When we got back to the trailer I tried to fix them, and got the one (the front sprockets) to shift fairly well.  The rear shifter wasn’t working well, and when Enid took the bike for a short ride to try out my repair, the rear one totally seized up.  I tried for a long time to fix it, but finally gave up and looked on the Internet to find a bike shop.  Fortunately I did, Over the Edge Sports, where we got a repair part for the rear shifter (though as they didn’t have one for the front shifter, I couldn’t fix that).  After quite a bit of trial and error I finally got the new shifter properly installed, so Enid once again has a working bike.

Red Cliffs Desert Reserve north of Hurricane, Utah

What happened to the warm and sunny south?  We must have missed it!  It was colder here today than when we left Prince Albert.  The highway between Nephi and Hurricane is high, passing over high several passes, at least one of which is over 2000 metres, and it had snowed last night.  Although the highway was clear, the surrounding fields and mountains were snow covered, and the temperature outside was about -2 C.

After passing through Cedar City the highway drops down a long way, and it warmed up, though it didn’t get very hot as it is now about 10 C out.  However this town has certainly earned its’ name as it is just incredibly windy outside.  The trailer is rocking even though it is on the levelling jacks.

We are staying in the Willowind RV Park.  It seems to be a nice park, and we have a pull through site on a concrete pad.  We will be here until Sunday when we leave to stay for a while in Zion National Park.  We hope that it warms up some!

I decided to go for a walk before supper, so headed north with the GPS and found, quite by accident, a nature reserve called the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve.  It looks like it would be a lot of fun to bike and hike in, so tomorrow we plan to bike there, provided it’s not too windy.

Hell's Half Acre lava flow, Idaho

Only two other vehicles appear to have spent the night in the campgrounds we were in last night.  By morning it was calm so we fortunately didn’t have to drive into the wind again today.  We stopped at a highway rest stop not far south of Idaho Falls.  Called “Hell’s Half Acre” it had a walking trail of about a kilometre across the lava flow there, with interpretive signs describing both the lava and the vegetation.

We were in to Salt Lake City by noon, and stopped at REI where we bought a rack and pack to mount on my bike.  We also bought groceries there, then drove on, through a very busy freeway and a lot of construction as we left the city area.  We are about 100 km south of Salt Lake City tonight, stopped in a Flying J Travel Plaza.  We hope that it isn’t too noisy.

Beaverhead Ranch nature area

It was raining very lightly this morning when we left, but it cleared as we headed farther south.  We turned to the east at Helena, leaving the I15, and took the smaller highways (12, 287, I90 and 41) to bypass around the mountains.  We re-entered I15 at Dillon.  It was a nice trip, and has a much lower elevation profile since it avoids several mountain passes, though it is about 30 km longer than taking the I15 route.

The trees along the Missouri River are very colourful in their fall foliage.  This is ranching country.  There are a large number of large, and very nicely maintained ranches along the highway.  We stopped at a viewpoint at Beaverhead, where there is a large wetland that the ranch owners have let revert back to its natural state.

By this time it was sunny out,  so we had a nice drive until we got about 50 km north of Idaho Falls.  Then the wind got very strong and began to buffet the trailer.  The wind has not died much yet and is rocking the trailer here in the campgrounds.  We stopped at the Idaho Falls south tourist park, a free camping spot just above the dam on the lower Idaho Falls in the Snake River.  It is a nice spot.  The lower Idaho Falls are dammed just about 500 metres downstream on the river from this campsite.  There are spaces laid out for ten or more RV sites, as well as a dump station.  I’d found it by looking for free places to camp in Idaho Falls.  It’s the first free site we’ve been to since we left Australia.

We walked along the river before supper.  Though it’s not too cold (about 10 C) the wind wasn’t very pleasant to walk back into, and the forecast on the radio said it will freeze tonight.

We drove from the farm in Bickleigh to Great Falls, Montana.  For some reason when we got to Taber, Alberta, the GPS told me to turn right at the first intersection.  I knew that wasn’t the right way, as right is north, and we needed to head south to the border.  So we didn’t follow its instruction, and instead drove through the town heading west until we came to the highway junction which heads south.  By that time the GPS had corrected itself, and took us in the right direction.  We got to Great Falls just before supper time, and pulled in to the Walmart to spend the night.  We bought groceries in the store and then parked the trailer along the edge of their parking lot which is where they want overnighters.  After we finished supper we walked around the parking lot about three times (it’s a big lot!) for some exercise since we’d been sitting and driving all day.