The lazy weekend and final hike

The happy hikers ready to go.

Since we are on holiday, we might as well have a holiday from the holiday.  Plans to hike the northern reaches of Zion today were eventually not realized.  Instead a morning of lounging and reading followed by a slow breakfast of wonderful, blueberry pancakes. 

Wall street Canyon, Bryce Canyon NP

Patrick was slow to rise, having spent too much time reading in bed last night and when he did, it straight off to the hot tub and more reading.  Returning from the hot tub and ready for breakfast, he declared that he needed to save the rest of Book three, The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, for Salt Lake City and the flight back home.

Hoodoos at Bryce Canyon, NP

Having surrendered to the slow pace of the day, we continued on reading and then for a hearty round of canasta.  Roberta continued her trounce of all of us again promising Patrick a victory, but instead delivering a fatal blow to our card playing egos.  She’s on a tear these days, not to be stopped.

Patrick proudly displaying his new
western apparel 

Another hunting and gathering trip to get more food gave us a hearty dinner of pasta and a plate of fruit and cheese.  Before dinner Roberta went for a evening stroll down towards Grafton, a nearby ghost town.  Having dinner on the table I gathered Patrick and we drove out to find Roberta.  She dragged us further to have us see the old town in the evening light, but as we headed the short distance along the road we found a fist-size tarantula walking done the road, which required a stop and a few photos from Patrick’s phone. After dinner a fun evening of reviewing and editing Patrick and Roberta’s photos and some stargazing to finish the night.

One of the many Bryce Canyon arches

Roberta woke us up to get ready for another day of hiking, this time in the northern reaches of the park, the Kolob Canyon area.  We began the trail by 9:30 AM and the temperature was a cool 70 degrees.  We had 14 miles of hiking of the La Verkin Canyon trail in front of us and the promise of scattered showers, or at least patchy clouds.  About halfway along the trail it was getting warm and we had only seen two other couples, the last couple we saw was only about a mile from the turn off to the Kolob Arch.  Shortly after our second meeting, with Roberta and Patrick in the lead, Bill stops dead in the same track as a rattlesnake had enough of the foot traffic and rattled up a storm of protest.  Rather quickly the snake uncoiled and headed off of trailside and slowly went towards the bush, but not before Patrick caught a fair number of photos of it.  The adrenaline rush was still a challenge to overcome. 

A curious Zion Bighorn Sheep

Kolob Arch seven miles in and seven more to go!

The final trek to Kolob Arch was relatively uneventful and when we got to the trails end we wondered – where’s the arch – as we came to a National Park sign that recommended that we end at the sign.  Someone with a bit of humor etched into the bottom of the sign – Arch, look up.  We smiled and yup, there it was.  It was a bit subtle, as the Arch had a backdrop of sandstone behind it and was not in strong contrast with it surroundings.  After lunch at the trails end, we hiked backed, stopping off along La Verkin River to cool our feet.  The last couple of miles on the trail took its toll.  With about four miles left to go we exhausted our water supply and we were at the hottest point of the day and the final climb back to the car park was still about 1000-2000 feet above us.

A welcomed (harmless) garter snake

Thank heaven we had Patrick, as he had a fair amount of stamina left and was able to take both his and our pack, leaving his struggling parents to carry their sorry bums up the final mile of trail.  Back in the car, we hightailed it back to the park entrance and quenched our thirst on the potable water at the ranger station.  Some ten miles further down the road and three big Gatorades made us all human again and reflect more favorably on the day’s hike.  A dinner of stir-fried shrimp and vegetables on a bed of mushroom rice and another Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand was a perfect finish to all the hikes and Kolob Arch. 

Dramatic scenes of building rain clouds

On Monday morning, before leaving for Salt Lake City, we took in a stop of Grafton, our local ghost town.  The town was originally built in the mid-1800s and was a Mormon out post in the Deseret Dixie territory (now that is something worth Googling…).  There are several buildings and sheds, as well as a cemetery with several graves dating from an Indian raid on the town, some of the retaliation raids between the Navajo and Mormon at the time.  The town of Grafton was used in about a half dozen movies, most notably, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (we suspect it was the from the scene with Katherine Ross and Paul Newman on a bike, but we need to check it out soon).

The end of the trail

Back in SLC, checking e-mail, ugh, dinner Italian, hotel, early afternoon flight, end of holidays and still smiling.