Mossy Cave and More

This past week, we led our first hike for the visitors at a place called Mossy Cave. It was not so much of a hike as it was a walk and learn session (interpretative hike). Fifteen people showed up, and they all stayed to the end, so that suggested we held their interest. Kathy talked about the plant life that could be found there as well as the main feature - running water, and I talked about the geology. We also may have spotted the smallest 'window' in Bryce Canyon - see if you can see it on the formation in the center of the picture. The week went fast, and this past Memorial Day weekend has had crummy weather, until today (Sunday). This part of Utah is not supposed to get prolonged "soaking rains", but that's what we had since Thursday night. I told visitors at the VC that the rain would be over pretty quickly as that's what it usually does. I hope they're not looking for me now to explain. We had a 3-day weekend and made the most of it. We made our first trip to the big city of Cedar City. I got a haircut, we did some shopping, and checked out the 'historic' part of the city where we picked ourselves up with some coffee. The ride over on State Route 14 was very interesting, we noted several National Forest spots and made a quick stop at Cedar Breaks. We hope to get back to the forest some more. We managed to fit in a hike on Kathy's favorite trail - Fairyland Loop yesterday. We also pulled off a side trip up Boat Mesa, had great views and called our friends HarunMuf from the top. We got to talk with Muffy but Harry was in the middle of a dog fight, more on that later I'm sure. Last night we had our neighbor and camp host Charlie over for dinner. Charlie winters in Baja and was working on getting us interested in going there, we shall see. Charlie is in the midst of getting his new ultralite plane ready for flight, Kathy hopes to be able to go up in it some day. Me, I'm not so sure as I'm a bit scared of heights but am fascinated with flying anyways. At this point, we have hiked all the trails in Bryce Canyon except for the Riggs Spring loop and a couple connector trails to the Under-the-Rim trail. If anyone needs any info on hiking here, we are establishing oursleves as the go-to people. Today we made another ride up the road on our bikes to Rainbow Point and checked out the Bristlecone Pine trail. We identified where some bristlecones were, they were mainly on the winward side of the point where no other trees want to grow. We also saw a 1500 year old Bristlecone that had died but is still standing. The poor Bristlecones, they have it rough. You all reading this need to start making your plans to come out of you haven't already. Hope to hear from you on that soon.

Down Under Weekend

Here is a report we provided to the Ranger in charge of the backcountry in Bryce:
Kathy and I hiked the UtRim trail Fri-Sun, from Rainbow Pt to Bryce Pt. We stayed at Natural Bridge and Sheep Creek campsites. As you had noted, the trail was passable, with some blowdown in areas, mostly to the south. One large tree had branches cut off beneath. There was also 3 areas where rain runoff threatened the trail. We can provide more detail or pictures if you want. We tore down 2 of 3 illegal fire rings, all in the 3 Yellow Creek sites. The guys we met at YC group site said they would tear their's down. A camper had alerted us to them and wondered why the park would be encouraging fires and trash by their presence. They had packed out the trash they found from one of the fire rings. Intermittent streams were running in many places, one most notable was just south of Iron Springs, this would be a better water source than the spring itself when it's running. Two more interesting notes: we met a thru-hiker of the Hayduke trail (900 miles) and 2 different reports of mountain lion tracks near Yellow Creek group site, one guy told us there were both adult and baby tracks. We couldn't spot them for ourselves as we hiked out. We encountered 16 other campers, including 3 of the group of 8 staying at YC group site, all had permits although we didn't inspect them, and all seemed to be knowledgable about handling things in backcountry. We enjoyed our trip, it was a great weekend and will be interested in doing it again.

Added note: The long distance hiker we met went by the trail name "Dogwood". He chuckled when we told him ours were Tenderfoot and Brownie D. (D for dropout). When we first encountered him on the trail, we asked him where he was headed, he replied "Zion". We thought he was joking, but then found out that he was doing the Hayduke Trail (name comes from Edward Abbey's character in "The Monkeywrench Gang"). Before he gets to Zion though he dips down into Arizona and goes to both the north and south rims of the Grand Canyon. He started his hike on April 11, and encountered deep snow in the Henry Mtns. He also got sidetracked near Capitol Reef by going into the wrong canyon, he is only traveling with topo maps and compass, which can be tough in canyon country. He bemoaned the fact that his error cost him a full day. All he wore on his underside was hiking shorts, he admitted it was tough when he was postholing. He also wore light weight low cut trail shoes. He had a 7 ounce wool bivvy sack, he said it was very warm. He had a tarp but rarely used it. Sometimes he has to carry 25 pounds of water, he noted that Utah is very dry. So he can't always travel light. We talked with him at length about lightweight backpacking options. He has done all the other major long distance hikes, and said that not many more than ten have thru-hiked the Hayduke. We later met two other guys who had camped with Dogwood the night before. They spent the evening talking with him, said he was very interesting and since he had not talked with anyone in nine days he was very keen on talking. We wish we had been there, but hopefully we get a chance to spend time with another l.d. hiker, they are an interesting lot. We helped Dogwood with what to expect with water on the UtRim trail, and later I wish I had offered him the rest of our trail mix that never got eaten that day. We wish him well as he continues on his journey, finding water will be his biggest concern but he will complete it we have no doubt.

P.S. Today we were back at work, although our supervisor Jan counted our time on the trail this past weekend as 'time served'. The number of volunteer hours = $$ at the parks. But today I thought that some of the visitors at the VC seemed to be a little more annoying than usual. I guess those days happen. Jan felt the same and said yesterday was similar. I expect not all days will be so, just some. Tonight we heard 'Dox' talk about migrating birds at the Evening Program. Birds are amazing, wherever they are. Dox says that any day can be a good (and amazing) day, just go out and see what the birds are doing.

A Whirlwind

It's been a whirlwind and some time since we updated the blog. Larry B. reminded me of that. All I have time for right now are some random thoughts and incomplete sentences. Thanks for understanding. We are having a ball. Now working instead of training. Turns out we know more than the visitors. The Visitor Center (VC) is a very busy place, lots of excitement and unexpected events. Cars colliding in the parking lot, keys locked in car, woman weak and about to faint, French and German spoken in spades. We also get to 'rove' the trails half the day and talk to people, Kathy saw a person in a wheel chair down below the rim, that's ok but then she also saw a baby in a stroller who wasn't buckled in and was squirming. The good stuff: new Junior Rangers (not us, we swear them in), lots of smiles and appreciation, backcountry permits are picking up (we are going out ourselves today through Sunday) , the weather is always sunny and pleasant, my brother visited us for 2 days and I got him to go down a trail under the rim - wasn't sure he would get back up but he did, Wes Ernsberger, Gerri Wiley and her son Michael have been here the last two days and we have had a great time together. We have been doing a lot of hiking, a full moon hike, and once biked up to Rainbow Point. We have also managed to check out Grand Staircase Escalante (GSENM). We camped near some ancient dinosaur tracks last weekend, did a slot canyon (Zebra), hiked up to Calf Creek Falls and saw some 'rapellers' coming down on ropes - 120 feet, Kathy told them she hoped it was as good for them as it was for us. Also been to Kodachrome State Park, but need to get to Powell Point, Glen Canyon, other places in GSENM (but not slot canyons!), Boulder Mtn, Mt. Dutton, and so much more. Other random tidbits: Kathy got fingerprinted to be able to use the govt. computers, she doesn't have much of a print left (they may not be good enough - for govt. work), sunrise is popular at Bryce Point - Gerri got us out there, the wind blows a lot here but no bugs, 'Vive La France' gets a big cheer from the rowdy French group I ran into, we get asked to have our pictures taken a lot (even though we're just volunteers - must be the uniform), the night sky was great last night, a Utah Prairie Dog came right up to us and posed - oh oh, looking for handouts, that's not good, BUT THEY ARE SO DOGGONE CUTE AREN'T THEY? We rented our first NetFlix DVD over a week ago but haven't even had a chance to see it yet, season will be in 'full swing here' starting Memorial Day weekend, a tragedy involving one of our co-workers has sobered us all but also shown the best of our ranger staff, need to find a dentist soon - anyone know a good one within 80 miles? also anyone know a good free (or cheap) register cleaner for our laptop? We miss Bingo area, when friends visit, it especially reminds us of that, but so far everything we are involved in is exceeding our expectations. We have pics galore but our attach bug is back, sigh.