Las Vegas

We went to Las Vegas last Friday so Kathy could get a flight back to Florida to be with her Mom for 10 days. The trip was the best Las Vegas trip I ever had, none of the other drivers on the road were rude and I got around the town pretty well. Kathy's flight was delayed an hour for a technical problem but she got to Florida ok. I had a good visit with my Aunt Ruby and Uncle Sam, who have lived there since 1959 except for a couple years in southern California. Uncle Sam ran circles around me, he was full of energy and excitement and thrilled to hear about our new lives. I also learned for the first time that he witnessed the first test of the hydrogen bomb ing in the Marshall Islands in 1952 under the direction of Edward Teller. Uncle Sam got choked up as he reminisced, it was a major event in the history of the world and there were big questions as to how it would go off, being a thousand times more powerful than the atom bomb. He also told me a great story of my father who had visited Las Vegas several years ago. My father was disgusted with the casino scene and derided "all those Las Vegas people". My uncle pointed out to him that the people who were visiting the casinos were from places like Rochester where my father was from. Hah. My aunt and uncle never frequented the casinos, as is true with most of the people who live in Las Vegas. Have to cut this short, as I am late for dinner, more to come later.

My sore-kneed little sister Cindy, her husband Kirt and youngest son Eric from Rochacha visited us at Bryce Canyon from Aug 11-14. They had been in the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, and were heading to Zion after their visit here. Cindy's knee was even sorer after I had them hike out to "Beyond Bryce Point" and then along the rim to Inspiration Point. They saw all the major sites in Bryce, and several of our wildlife, although we weren't able to see any Pronghorn. They all seem to have vanished, for now. Eric became a Junior Ranger the last morning we were here. Eric: work on the dendrochronology, the key is understanding the overlap of the years (where the tree rings match up), then you can date each tree. Besides seeing Bryce, we took a ride out Utah's Scenic Byway - Utah Rte 12, where it rides on top a high, narrow spectacular spit of land near Boulder. On the way back we were treated to a dazzling lightning storm while traveling, and came across a burning tree near the road where it had knocked out the power line. We also discovered where we can get real good pizza, at the Bryce Canyon Inn, we hadn't got around to checking it out until now. Cindy, Kirt and Eric enjoyed their visit, and Kirt thinks we have some crazy hoodoos. To see pics of their visit, go to http://picasaweb.google.com/lauffer.scott - I will try to put out more pictures when I can.

Kathy and I also hiked in Red Canyon yesterday, on the Golden Wall trail, it was very scenic and we saw only one other person. Did I mention that Red Canyon would be a national park if it were anywhere else? Today we hiked 20 miles in Bryce Canyon, more than half of it in the backcountry and the rest on the "Figure 8" - a combination of trails in the Bryce Ampitheater that I hadn't hiked yet. I'm a little sore now too, and a little crazy like the hoodoos?

Great Basin

Great Basin National Park is gem, and it's a big secret that it's a paradise, shhh. The Great Basin is better described as the Basin and Range, with a series of basins and ranges intermingled. We could see them, one after another, running north-south, as we were driving west from Utah into Nevada. Nevada also boasts that it is the most mountainous state in the U.S. We had no idea. It is based on having the most named mountain ranges, over 300. Great Basin is situated in the Snake Mountains and next to the Snake Valley, Wheeler Peak at 13,060 is the tallest peak in the park and is the tallest peak in Nevada that is totally within the state. Boundary Peak, on the border with Nevada and California in the Sierra Nevadas gets credit for being the state's tallest peak. We climbed Wheeler peak last Saturday after camping at the Wheeler Peak campground, the highest campground in the park at almost 10,000 feet. It was quite cool there but great hiking temperature.

We met a group from Boise, Idaho, and shared the summit with four of them, two were women in their seventies and the other two were a couple getting ready to climb the Annapurna Loop in Nepal this fall. It was cloudy as we approached the summit (see pic), but the clouds cleared after we got to the top. We enjoyed a marvelous hour on top, very calm and we had great views. The hike itself is comparable to hiking up Giant Mtn in the Adirondacks, about the same 3000 foot elevation gain, but Wheeler Peak had more switchbacks making it a little longer at 4+ miles but an easier hike in my estimation. We were above tree line during most of the hike also., which we liked.

In the canister on top was a note written by the daughter and son-in-law of Bill Wheeler. They had climbed the peak just days before as a tribute to him; he had died in 2004. Wheeler Peak was his favorite climb, we don't know if there is any relation to the Major George M. Wheeler who the peak was named after.

One of the woman we met up there spotted a rabbit in a shelter on top, we were in amazement as to how it could have gotten there and what it was living on, there were few alpine plants. Our new friend declared it was a pygmy rabbit, and later when looking into some animal books we realized she was right. But they normally live at much lower altitudes, so what it was doing there defied any explanation. We reported this to the ranger staff at the Visitor Center later and they were perplexed, although someone else had already reported the find. Kathy took a picture and is sending it to their naturalist. Sometimes animals will wander far from where they are supposed to be, maybe they can be like people.

We also hiked to Rock Glacier the first night we were there, and realized the glacier is melting rapidly, it's much smaller than earlier photos we saw of it. That hike went through a Bristlecone Pine forest, where many of the trees are over 2000 years old, one was over 3200 years old. They are the oldest trees in existence. Back in the sixties there was a very old Bristlecone that was allowed to be cut down, and it was learned that it was about 5000 years old. The tree was given the name Prometheus, a cross section of it is on display in one of the park's two visitor centers. (Senator Harry Reid saw to it that the park has two VC's) What a shame that the tree was allowed to be cut down. Another tree, named Methusaleh, is also about 5000 years old and lives in the White Mountains of California, it's exact location is kept a secret.

On Sunday we took a tour of Lehman Cave, and it was a wonder. The original owner of the cave, Absalom Lehman, took people on tours by candlelight. We were given a demo of what the cave looked like by candlelight, and didn't see much. The original tourists also had no idea of the size of the cave. Although it has several passages and rooms, they felt it seemed smaller when they came back later and saw it under better lighting conditions. When you are in the dark you get the illusion of space being much larger, try it sometime.

The Most Incredible Day

Last Tuesday was the most incredible day I have had at Bryce. I was involved with two rescues, the first ones for me this summer. They were both late-middle age women, the first I helped walk out (with her husband) after giving her water and M&Ms. They had underestimated their ability, and should not have tried to do the 3-mile hike they were attempting. It took us the better part of an hour to get up, but we did get there and the woman and her husband were extremely grateful. The second woman bcame dizzy, she had a medical problem of which we were uncertain of. But by the time we carried her out on a litter her vital signs were good, although she still felt dizzy. We left her with her family, her husband thanked us several times profusely: they were taking her to a hospital to be checked out. Earlier in the day there were two medical emergencies right outside the Visitor Center. The first was a young boy who had fallen, hurting himself and then felt nauseous. He was alright. The second was a young girl who had fallen out of her family's van. She had a painful knee injury, and since the family didn't speak English very well it was hard to figure out what happened. Our EMT's pieced it together by seeing tire marks on her leg. The van ran over her, but the leg did not appear to be broken. They were going to take her to the emergency room. The day ended with a disturbance in our campground. A large group of young French people and a few adults (chaperones?) pulled into the campground late. The next thing I know they had a huge bonfire and were making a loud crescendo. I yelled for quiet but after getting no response went down with Kathy to talk with them. The language barrier probably prevented full communication, but I was able to convey that quiet was in order, since the 11:30 time was well after the 10:00 quiet hour. One of the adults who could speak broken English some wanted me to understand something, but I didn't give him the chance to explain, as it wasn't me who needed to understand anything. The next day they were written up by our law enforcement and were moved to a different campsite. One of the adults came into the VC the next day and showed Kathy a ticket that was written up, he thought they would have to pay something there, Kathy directed him back to the campground where payment was due. She also noted that they had violated about every rule in the campsite. The ticket had a separate note that stated: Quiet hour at 10:00 - NO EXCEPTIONS. The campground was quiet the next night, good.

It's August Already

We can't believe that it's already August, summer is sliding by quickly, as is our time at Bryce. That makes us aware that we have to start thinking seriously about where we will go after Bryce. We know we want to spend October doing some more touring out west. We have a permit for backcountry in the Grand Canyon towards the end of October, then there are numerous other parks/forests we want to visit. Plus we need to get back to NY for a visit sometime and Kathy needs to get down to Florida to see her Mom. We got to the Nankoweap area of the Grand Canyon last weekend, the trail there kicked our butt, and we only did 5 miles before we turned around, but probably did close to 2500 feet elevation gain. Again, we didn't see any Condors but saw a Golden Eagle (our second). Yesterday we visited and hiked in the Fishlake Forest near the Beaver Lakes Recreation Area. That trail was recently maintained and was easy, there were several long vistas in high meadow areas, but didn't see the elk we were hoping to see. Earlier today we took Mike (who was here for the past week running a survey) to Willis Creek, a canyon in the Grand Staircase Esclanate. See photo.

Things have been hopping at Bryce, visitation is up and we were given extra assignments handing out visitor surveys as well as the work we did with fire displays. This past week, we 'went out' three nights in a row, amazingly enough. We checked out the western show at the new Ebeneezer Barn & Grill, the food was good and the music by the Bar-G Wranglers was excellent. Then there was a meal put on by our big boss Dan in appreciation for the help we gave on the survey and a 23rd birthday party for one of our SCA's. We're sure the birthday party went on long after we left, they were mostly a bunch of young people.

August is a traditional vacation month, especially for Congress, therapists and Europeans. We will see how that affects the visitation at Bryce. Vacation can be a stressful time for many people. We just heard Garrison Keillor say that vacations are usually the low point of the year for Norwegian Lutherans. We hope we don't get too many of them here at Bryce, no offense. So a word of friendly advice: enjoy your vacations and make them stress free, it will help the workers and volunteers at the parks.