June 1, 2010

We were up early again this morning.  After breakfast, each of us set about preparing for travel.  We have it down to a routine now.  Darlie makes the bed, washes the dishes and makes sure everything is buckled down so things don’t fly around when we are moving.  I dump the poop, disconnect the water, fill the water tank, wash the windshield and check everything outside to be sure nothing has been left unsecured.

We set out for Bryce Canyon NP on Rt 12 at about 9 AM.  The sign said it was only 116 miles.  We will do that in a couple of hours, I thought.  There was a large snow covered mountain way up ahead in the distance.  It never entered my mind that we would be going over it in a short time.

The scenery was beautiful.  We were in the midst of the Dixie National Forest.  The mountains were covered with Ponderosa Pines and AspenTrees.  Huge rocks bulged out of the ground everywhere.   They are giant beige colored things that look as though something melted and then froze in place.

It was a long climb up the mountain.  Near the 9600 foot summit we stopped to play in the snow.  We had a little snowball fight and we built a little snowman as a monument to  our visit.  

After we topped the summit the scene changed again.  If you don’t like the scenery in Utah just round a bend it all changes.  Seriously.   I have never seen a place with so many colors of rocks.  They come in pink, red, maroon, orange, beige, gray, green, blue, black, white, rust, and a multitude of off whites and creams.   

We entered the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.   Grand Staircase? Hmmmm?  Wonder what that is.   Soon I was climbing up very steep rock faces.  I had the MH down in low much of the time.  I knew anything this steep going up is going to be fun going down.  The road twisted and wound around the massive rock outcroppings.  Looking down the land fell away a thousand or fifteen hundred feet.  As I neared the summit, the road literally crossed the backbone of the mountaintop.  The road had no shoulders, no guard rail, no curb, nothing.  Each side of the road dropped off into oblivion.  My eyes were glued to the road.  Darlie was happily snapping pictures and I gripped the wheel and inched along taking my share of the road out of the middle.

Thankfully no cars came along in this narrowest of places.  The MH filled the entire lane.  Yellow line on my side, space on Darlie’s.  I am not exaggerating.   Make the trip.  See for yourself.  

I have since come to understand the grand staircase is actually a series of cliff faces of different colors, each at a higher elevation forming a staircase of sorts.

After topping the summit, a sign warned of 14% grade next 4 miles.  It was one of those signs with a truck pointing downhill.  14%!  I haven’t seen 14% anywhere.  I didn’t know hills came in 14%.  This was going to be the butt puckering ride of a lifetime.  

I eased into low gear and I started my decent.  The engine held back pretty well.  Slowly we accelerated up to about 25 mph.  I applied the brakes hard for a short time to bring us back to 15 mph.  Over and over again I went though this procedure.  At some points we were only inches from the edge of the non guardrailed road.  Let one wheel drop off the edge of the pavement met sure death.  Fortunately this is a lightly traveled road.  I was able to ride in the middle down much of the narrowest parts.  At the bottom of the “staircase” was the little town of Escalante.  It is a very neat little place that was just begging for us to stop.  I obliged.  I had to take a few minutes to let the blood flow back into my hands.

The sign said, “Bryce Canyon NP 69 miles”.  We had been driving for over two hours.  This quick little trip turned out to be much more.  The rest of the trip to Bryce was easy.

We made it there at about 1:30 PM.

Just before you enter the park is a place called Bryce City.  It is made up of all sorts of businesses owned by the descendants of Ruby and Minnie Syrett who settled in this area in 1916.  Ruby visited the canyon and was stunned with its beauty.  He began to tell all his family and friends about the beautiful canyon.  Soon people started showing up who wanted to visit the canyon.  That was the beginning of Ruby’s Inn.  They set up tents for visitors and fed them meals.  The business has grown considerably since those days and it is still run by his children and grandchildren.  There is a restaurant, stores, lodging, campground, RV and auto service center to name a few.

We entered the park and chose a campsite in North Campground.  It is a dry site up on top of a hill.  There are antelope grazing in the grass nearby.  It is very pleasant.

The park is serviced by a free shuttle service that takes you to all the major viewpoints in the park.  It originates at Ruby’s and runs a circuit through the park.  You can catch a shuttle at any number of stops about every 10 minutes.  We rode the shuttle to Inspiration Point.  Words cannot describe what we saw there.   I hope to post some photos sometime when we have a decent internet connection.  This has to be seen to be appreciated.  It is one of the most beautiful places on earth.  A photo cannot capture it.  It has to be experienced.

We signed up for a three and a half hour tour tomorrow.  It is free to holders of the Senior Pass.  Sometimes it is nice to be old.  The tour will take us to the far end of the park to Rainbow Overlook as well to other sites along the way.   

Darlie is cooking up some dinner.  We are both exhausted and will probably hit the hay early.  It has been quite a day for sure.