G & C Summer 2017
Blogpost 020
July 22nd-24th
“Red, Rock,
Rain”
pt 1: Bryce
Canyon National Park
After the long cascade down the
ghost mountain Mingus, we drove north to Utah. At this point we’d been in and
out of more states than we could remember so I honestly couldn’t tell if this
was our first or seventh time. We stopped for the night at a “hotel,” which was
not a hotel in the slightest. It was a person’s house.
While
driving through the middle of nowhere, we found a listing for a cheap room from
a place called the Manor. All other nearby lodgings had been busy jacking up
their prices all summer. They were all competing for tourists visiting the
hidden natural wonders in the area. Despite it being the cheapest roofed option
for the night, it still made us regret not getting to our destination sooner to
set up camp.
The Manor was located in a dirt-road
suburbia with rusting cars pilling up alongside the driveway. As soon as we
arrived, two large and notably un-neutered dogs greeted our crotches, after being
released by the hotel manager/home owner, I’m assuming, to deliver our key. Our
room was on the second floor of the house but was to be entered from and
outdoor balcony atop a set of recently constructed stairs. It looked like
somebody had made this architectural addition by themselves using a
do-it-yourself tree house manual. The wood wasn’t even painted or stained yet.
My
mistrust in the establishment doubled when we finally arrived inside our room,
for the armoire across from my side of the bed was lined with a regiment of
glassy-eyed china-dolls; just like those living baby dolls so
popular/terrifying in pop culture but wearing little traditional Chinese
dresses. A framed picture of Japanese letters informed me that this was a
themed room, and by the looks of things the theme was Asia. However, the miniature Eiffel
tower on the nightstand confused us a little. I did have to turn the dolls
around so they wouldn’t be watching us all through the night. We have enough
imaginary monsters lurking in our heads as it is and recalling that childhood
memory of being six and having a fellow classmate tell you the story of a
little girl’s glassy-eyed doll with a nail lodged in its palm. "And I still
don’t believe you, Todd!" Despite
all of this, we had a lovely night of sleep.
We
awoke to the China dolls facing the wall like they’d done something bad and we,
still un-murdered, so the day was already off to a good start. Our destination
was Bryce Canyon National Park, the second-to-last National Park of our western
road trip, home of the hoodoos and the red rock amphitheater.
Camping at Bryce was by far my
favorite camping experience during our trip. We camped right on the rim of the
canyon, overlooking hoodoos and caves. The climate was modestly warm but dry
enough so that there wasn’t a bloodsucker in sight and chubby squirrels were
absolutely everywhere and had no fear of humans at all. You could be sitting
outside and they’d just scamper all around you, chattering amongst themselves
as if you weren’t even there. There was one squirrel so bold that my fiancé
found him rummaging through her backpack that was resting on her leg. We named
him, “little-trash mouth.”
"Little Trash Mouth"
As
for the canyon itself, Bryce is world-famous for it’s strange, alien-landscape
that more so resembles the cover of a retro science fiction magazine than an
act of nature 130 million years in the making. The geological sedimentation of
the rock itself mixed with the harsh regular winters in the valley (resulting
in frost-wedging, which technically voids Bryce of it’s “canyon”
as canyons are carved by flowing wind/water) which make for a distinct pattern
of erosion responsible for the hoodoos. Red sandstone chimneys
scattered throughout the canyon ranging from 5 - 150 feet in height (about
as high as a ten-story building for you urbanites) which makes for a most
impressive stone-forest.
Once
we’d finished our camping setup I crawled into a hammock to finish
Dostoyevsky’s House of the Dead, which was incredible as a brutal report
on life in a Siberian labor-camp of the 1850’s (proving once again that Russian
history can easily be summed up with, and then it got worse…) but
Charlotte, in her typical alacritous nature set off early to get a lay of the
land. After a stovetop black bean and teriyaki-spam dinner (made by yours
truly) we set off for our first hike together along the canyon’s rim to see the
hoodoos at sunset.
George reading
Hiking the Rim to see the sun set over Bryce
Apparently, sunset around here was just as popular for the tourists as the skinny spires of
iron-red rocks themselves. We teetered atop the rim at a brisk pace through a
swarm of khaki shorts and Whangee walking sticks. My eyes were fixed on the hoodoos;
their towering human-shapes made me think how people over a thousand years ago
must have seen these blood-colored obelisks as spirits not to be trifled with.
My fiancé’s eyes, however, were focused on the perched asilid on the
railing of the rim, as any inveterate bug hunter will do. At last, we reached
the amphitheater, which to Bryce is what the Ziggurat was to Mesopotamia.
"Ryan" enjoying the view
The
hoodoo amphitheater of Bryce looked like a backdrop for a classic Star Trek episode
(or Adventure Time serial if that’s too dated). You feel like a star-struck
space-wanderer coming face-to-face with a brand-new intergalactic empire with
buildings, temples, and idols all chiseled out of the same solid earth by which
you stand. A better comparison would be the matte painting used on Jim Henson’s
Labyrinth where David Bowie (playing the proud, groin-bulging Jareth,
king of the goblins) shows Jennifer Connelly his labyrinth for the first time;
mysterious, beautiful, and subtly foreboding.
The Amphitheater
As
the sun finally settled beyond the outer walls of the canyon we witnessed the
famous iridescent lights of Bryce. Literal beams of waning sunlight shot out
over the rim’s edge, stretching across the entire field of hoodoos, leaving
every Whangee-wielding tourist in unabashed stupefaction, just as we were. At a
moment like that, it’s culturally acceptable to express one’s joy through
tears. Charlotte had said something earlier that day that rang in the doldrums
of my mind as we watched the landscape transform around us; it was a quote from
a book she was reading, Half-Earth by
E. O. Wilson, “the most dangerous worldview belongs to those who have not seen
the world.”
Pretty sunset colors
We
stared in silence until the sun’s distance ultimately surpassed the curvature
of the earth and the evening’s sky steadily turned purple, growing darker with
each passing minute. By the time night was in full effect we’d made it back to
camp. A gentle storm accompanied us that night and a small family of friendly
squirrels took refuge under a cavernesque fold in our tent. I then started a
new novel, a Kurt Vonnegut, his first book, The Siren’s of Titan.
Enjoying the view and each others company
The next morning was an exercise in
limitations for our physical endurance. Specifically, we’d both been feeling a
bit blobbish as of late, on account of our recent prolonging car travels, so my
fiancé suggested that we take this time to gain as much trail-distance as
humanly possible. We planned on hiking two trails; the Navajo Loop Trail,
which was a mere 1.5 miles in full and the Peek-a-boo Loop Trail which
was closer to 6.
Navajo Loop Trail
Thor's Hammer
The
Navajo Loop Trail was our first exposure to the hoodoos up close. Because of it
being one of the most popular trails in the park; we were surrounded by flip-flop
wearing, and selfie-taking tourists. However, our attention was scarce on them
because our heads were constantly tilting back as far as our necks would allow to
see the bulbous stone nips at the top of each red column. I believe it goes
without saying that if it wasn’t for the manmade paths, signs, and currents of
amateur nature photographers we’d probably still be down in the amphitheater,
lost, and in search for David Bowie’s magical Escher palace at the center of
this insane, stone-warren. The Navajo Loop Trail was a lovely morning warm-up
with enough elevation going in and coming out to give one’s hams the attention
they deserved after days of long drives. The Peek-a-boo Loop Trail was slightly more
strenuous.
Peek-a-boo Loop Trail
The
first mile was spent climbing down across winding pathways carved into the wall
of the canyon. Last night’s storm was one of many that summer and so the ground
was lumpy with erosion-marks and flooding-scars. When we made it to the bottom,
the trail turned into a loop that resembled a three-dimensional diagram for a
transverse wave; not once had there been a flat surface along our hike, just up
and down, up and down. “Peek-a-boo” was named perfectly, the whole time it felt
like we were on a roller coaster ride in the Flintstones’ car. That doesn’t
take away from the fact that the trail itself was just as, if not more
inspiring as the Navajo Loop, but after four miles of altitude adjustments and
another mile straight up the canyon wall, our energy levels were thoroughly
tested. Fortunately, because neither of us collapsed or became delirious enough
to babbling in parseltongue we knew that we passed and rewarded ourselves with
a mushroom pizza. Yes, Bryce has a pizzeria next to the rim, as if I needed
more proof that it’s the best National Park America has to offer. We later
found out that we had completed the hike about an hour faster than the
estimated average… no wonder we were a little winded.
Charlotte's favorite picture of George!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment