Powell Point

We see Powell Point from almost everywhere on the rim of Bryce Canyon. It is 15 miles away (the way the raven flies) and at over 10,000 feet elevation stands 2,000 feet taller than the rim of Bryce. It often catches the late evening sun and looks shiny and magnificent during those moments. We have been anxious to get there and finally did this last Sunday. The trip wasn't long and was pleasant enough up a pretty good forest road, but we got a flat tire from a sharp rock on the way up. That wasn't such a bad thing though as we got to figure out how to replace it with our spare under pleasant circumstances. I would hate to be changing a tire along a busy, noisy highway on hot pavement. We also saw our first Golden Eagle who was feasting on some road kill. It seemed annoyed and reluctant to leave, but then flew off and we lost sight of it in some distant trees.

Once up on top the Table Cliffs Plateau, we walked for about an hour along a jeep/ATV trail and came to the trailhead, which was only 3/4 mile and took us to the point. The views were as good as we had hoped for, looking to the west to Bryce's rim, to the south to the Grand Staircase Escalante, and to the east to more of the Grand Staircase and what could have been Boulder mountain (which is acutally a mesa). We had the whole place to ourselves, a little different than places in the National Parks usually are in that regard. Two guys who sounded like Aussies were coming in as we were going out, and then they had the whole place to themselves. We stopped to visit Pine Lake on the way out and took a little stroll along the lakeshore. We read a memorial erected there to honor a former campground host 'Smitty'.

This past week two more volunteer couples arrived to work with us at Bryce. We are thrilled to have them, there are now more people available to work and we are also given an extra "backcountry day" which we will gladly use. A moment that I can look back with humor from working at the Visitor Center this past week was some overreacting and distraught father. His teenage daughter had a nose bleed, and his poor English compounded the whole incident. When I looked at her nosebleed I could see that she had been successful in stopping it, but he persisted nevertheless to make sure she was alright. I suggested getting some more tissue paper from the restroom but his response was hard to decipher. He shook off the use of the tissue paper and said "fresh water, fresh water!" Again I pointed to the rest room for that but he continued with frantic gestures, before I interpreted his flailings to indicate that maybe he wanted to know the basic treatment for a nose bleed. No, fresh water won't help unless it's needed to clean up blood on the face. I held my head back in an effort to show them how to help stop the bleeding (although by now this should have been a moot point). They headed for the rest room after this. We often don't know if we are communicating enough with some of our international visitors, as even though we try to speak slowly and use gestures, if they have limited understanding our words can get lost on them. But we will keep trying and see the humor in the two-way attempts.