Navaho Loop TrailView of steep switchback trail down to canyon floor |
While the Queen's Garden trail is fairly easy, as it travels near the bottom of the canyon among Ponderosa Pine and junipers, the other two trails are rated strenuous as they consist of numerous short steep climbs and descents, with beautiful vistas and views of the colorful, lacy, and very unusual "hoodoos" in the park around every turn. We quickly peeled off our outer layers and were quite comfortable for the rest of the day; the temperatures were mostly in the 60s with an occasonal portion of the trail in the low 70s (depending on elevation, orientation, and sun). We felt very lucky as down at lower elevations very nearby in Utah, today's high was 93! The southwest has just begun experiencing a heat wave, which we will be dealing with tomorrow at the lower-elevation Zion National Park, but today we were very happy to be at Bryce.
Queen's Garden TrailThis formation really looks like a castle in the pines!
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Peekaboo Loop |
We also ran into a nice couple from Green Bay, Wisconsin that Barry recognized from Arches a couple of days ago, so we had a nice chat with them on the trail. They are into hiking as well, around our ages, and enjoy staying in less busy, less touristy places. They recommended the bed & breakfast where they are staying in the nearby town of Tropic, should we ever come here again, and also a couple of good hikes in Zion, since they had already been there. We are finding that many people have a similar trip plan as us and are visiting all the national parks in Utah on the same trip, some also adding the Grand Canyon, Sedona, and other areas, as we did. Between our many stops for pictures, and this rather long chat, we ended up on these trails for a little over 4 hours, logging 7.22 miles and 1825' of climbing. |
We trekked on a little farther on a narrow ledge of pink gravel that was pretty washed out so a little scary (it was a long way down if we slipped!), and finally, after another switchback, we saw the campsite that was supposed to mark our right turn back up Swamp Canyon loop. But oops! The sign indicated that this was the Whiteman Connector trail, the next trail south, which confirmed that we'd made a mistake early on in our hike and gone farther than planned.
No problem; we knew we could descend quickly and go back the way we came, and that we did. The mile climb up Swamp Canyon Trail was a bit strenuous, but the end was in sight at this point. When we got nearly to the top of the trail, we saw the turn we should have taken to begin with, in order to do a 4.3-mile hike. Because of our mistake, we ended up with 5.8 miles and close to double the climbing (around 950' total) since we climbed up the canyon most of the way again, prior to coming to the Whiteman trail. We were both hungry and tired at this point but very pleased with a 13-mile day (our longest hiking day and with the most climbing since our Grand Canyon hike ten days ago). We also knew that we could go pretty crazy at Ruby's buffet tonight! |
Tomorrow we head to Springdale, Utah and Zion National Park; back to Vegas Saturday afternoon, then fly home on Sunday, arriving at our house just in time to catch the end of the "Survivor" finale, if I am lucky. I can hardly believe I'll be back at work on Monday. I wish this vacation never had to end, but it has been a wonderful one. Getting back to "reality" at home is going to take awhile!
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"Da Bear" with Da Bears! |