4th of July Parade

We participated in a 4th of July parade here at Bryce. A group of us volunteers marched together. We represented hiking trails: Kathy dressed up as Fairyland and I dressed up as Peekaboo. It was a lot of fun and the surprised visitors got a good show.

We also went to Kolob Reservoir (just north of Zion N.P.) with our new neighbors and co-volunteers Jim and Jan. We had hopes of seeing California Condors but had no luck. We did however talk with others who had seen some and were able to find out that morning or evening are the best times to see them. There was a condor day there a couple weeks ago and about twenty condors were spotted that day. Condors can have a nine feet wing span look as large as airplanes when they are flying. A number on them is often visible as they are all tagged. About 300 are now in existence, they are coming back from near extinction. We will have to get back to Kolob or to the Grand Canyon to see them.

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.

Telluride Bluegrass Festival

I went to the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and volunteered, with the urging of my son Ben. We both worked at the gate checking bags (for glass and alcohol) or monitoring the exits and entrances. In return, we got our admission paid for. Even though I didn't get much sleep and drove for about 8 hours there and back, the festival exceeded my expectations: the music was great, the event was very well run, the setting was marvelous, the food and beer were wonderful and reasonably priced, and the residents were very welcoming and friendly. What a great place it would be to live year round. In the summer, they have a music festival every weekend but one. The area is also committed to sustainability, it has formed The New Community Coalition, focusing on energy efficiency, renewable energy, green building, food security, resource recovery/recycling, education, and economy. Composting collection is done at the festival and is used by a local organic farm, even the plates and plastic ware were compostable. As a bag checker, I was amused and amazed at the number of beer cups that people were reusing, this was encouraged by a reduction of $2 from the price. Telluride is in a box canyon, it is a unique setting and very beautiful with snow still visible on the surrounding peaks. We rode the gondola on Saturday to nearby Mountain Village, and Ben and I took a hike on Sunday to the base of Bridal Veil Falls, see pictures. We were also joined on the weekend by Ben's friends Andy and Jason, Andy's 4-year old son Cameron, Andy's Mom Nancy and Andy's friend from NC David who ran (and finished #53!) a 50 mile race at Lake City, over ten miles of it was along the Continental Divide during a blizzard. I stayed the first night in the Umcompaghre National Forest because I didn't have a camping pass in town with Ben and his friends, but then stayed the next three nights with them. The highlight was going to the Greensky Bluegrass "Nightgrass Concert". I amazed the young people by staying up until 2:30 AM to the conclusion of the concert. Thanks to my partner Kathy for covering for me back at Bryce during their Astronomy Festival and kudos to her for what she did on Saturday: a 24 mile hike in Bryce Canyon and then staying up until 1:30 AM to help with the barbecue after the astronomy show ended. What an amazing double extravaganza on her part. see www.bluegrass.com and www.lakecity50.com

Kolob Canyons

We had the pleasure of hiking to Kolob Arch in Kolob Canyons this past weekend, see photo. Kolob Arch and Landscape Arch (in Arches N.P.) are competing for "World's Longest Arch" - they are within a foot of each other, depends on how they are measured. That still has to be worked out. May the best arch win!! The hike was about 14 miles round trip and in the rain on the way out and under mainly clear skies on the way back, mostly pleasant cool temps compared with the hot spells that can happen this time of year where both the heat and the bugs will take a toll on you. We decided to do the hike as a day hike rather than a backpack, which most people opt for. I am still waiting for good weather so I don't have to lug the 6.5 pound tent and we can get by with just the fly. We also got to explore some areas of the Dixie National Forest and car camp there, both near Kolob Canyons and Cedar Breaks. Our second night was the best, had a great view looking south back towards Kolob Canyons and a stack of firewood which we felt obliged to partly use. We checked out some forest campgrounds, which are nice enough but we like to camp in the primitive areas, they are free and more peaceful. Cheers to the Virgin River Rim Trail also which we hiked a couple different portions of, although we never saw the Virgin River but knew it was down there somewhere.

The past week at Bryce saw us each lead hikes and do our customary work in the Visitor Center. It still amazes us that people try to hike down the Navajo Loop in flip-flops and don't know what is in the brochures they receive on entry into the park, but we try to help in both cases. Both Kathy and I had Emma, her two sisters and Mom on our hikes. Emma is seven and the only time she doesn't talk is when she is asleep. She and her sisters were likeable so we could tolerate the chatter and appreciate their enthusiasm, may they thrive in their new environs of Utah after moving here from California. I also had an interesting couple from Germany on my hike, they are both physicists working at GCI in heavy ion research. see www. gci.de - he said they have been studying minute particles in atoms, quarks and stuff, but have had no breakthroughs in ten years. A different project in the facility however has developed an effective treatment for brain cancer, so their work has produced some benefit. According to my German friends, physicists like to hike as a general rule, there must be something with studying the atom and feeling the need to explore our world on foot.

Cathedral Valley

We went to Cathedral Valley Friday and Saturday, it is in the northern part of Capitol Reef N.P. A magnificent place. It requires driving down a rough road for almost 30 miles, but we went out a shorter route of 12 miles to the west through the National Forest. We had the campground to ourselves until a couple of guys pulled up later Friday night. They were friendly potato farmers from Idaho, and we had an interesting talk with them. They got their planting done and needed some getaway time. Saturday we did some exploring from the campground, found out that it is a loooooooooooong way down to get to the floor of the valley. We tried going down a side canyon a ways, but them it had a steep drop. Author Edward Abbey probably would have jumped down it, but we decided not to go down anything we couldn't get back up; getting seriously hurt in the attempt is another deterrent. We got up to some great viewpoints, and the 'nearby' peaks called but were a bit too far to reach.

Today we hiked from our trailer to the nearby town of Tropic. It was a 13 mile round trip, leaves Bryce Canyon into some BLM land. We ate lunch and did some grocery shopping and walked back. The weather has been up and down, high winds and some rain this weekend caused us to curtail our original plans to backpack Kolob Canyons, but today turned out to be splendid.

Afraid of Heights

I'm actually a bit afraid of heights, but that doesn't stop me from being in majestic places like Bryce Canyon (nothing there has really scared me) or the Grand Canyon. But after this picture was taken, I realized we were about 3000 feet directly above the Colorado River and I felt the sudden urge to move back from the precipice a little. I have heard that you can usually survive a fall of twenty feet, but not thirty feet, and I was not willing to test that. In any case, Toroweap was a special place and I was glad we made it there.

Toroweap

This past weekend we drove down to Toroweap, a remote part of the Grand Canyon on the north rim. The 61 mile drive in is on a gravel road, good going for most of the first 55 miles, then at the NPS boundary it turns very rough. It was the roughest road we have taken so far in our truck, and were told by two different people to expect a flat tire. We had a spare, but fortunately didn't need to use it. The highlight of the weekend was the Lava Falls Trail, the toughest 3 mile hike we ever took. It dropped 2450 feet to the Colorado River over 1.5 miles, much of it over loose rock and scree. The lower part was the worst, I would not have thought we could have done that, but we did and it only cost us our sunglasses as we lost them on the ascent somewhere. We didn't feel like going back down to look for them. My quads weren't quite up to that trip, were sore for the next two days. We did get to the Colorado River above Lava Falls, the biggest falls on the river where the rafts go. We were hoping to see some rafts when we were down there, but didn't. We saw them the next day, but they looked like dots from the top of the rim. We met another VIP named Steve, who was working at Pipe Springs N.P. We sat up Saturday night talking with him and then did a little more hiking around the area with him the next day.

The highlight of the previous week at Bryce was listening to NASA Ambassador Patrick Wiggins talk about NASA and other missions currently going on in the solar system. He is hoping that some form of life will be found elsewhere in the solar system, either on Mars, Jupiter's moon Europa, or icy Enceladas, a moon of Saturn's. Maybe we are not alone? Then we were treated to a view of the International Space Station as it raced across the sky 220 miles up. It looked like a very bright plane, except without the blinking lights. The crowd gathered outside gave it a big applause as it streaked across. Expedition 20 wias to start the next day with the arrival of three more astronauts, marking the first time all five partner agencies have a presence on the ISS, and the first time a six-person crew will be on board. You can find out how to see the ISS at http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/index.html In checking, I find that sightings aren't available currently from either Binghamton or Bryce now, but eventually I think it should be visible again. We tried to see it from Toroweap the next night but couldn't sight it there.

This evening I led about 20 people on a 'rim walk', filling in for an ill co-worker. It went well, I was able to fill them in on some of the interesting aspects of Bryce: things like how once we were even with the Table Cliffs Plateau, rising 2000 feet higher to the east, how the 'pink cliffs' here are the highest step on the 'Grand Staircase', a little history of how it became a national park (in 1928), a little history of John Wesley Powell and geologist Clarence Dutton, both instrumental in exploring the west and mapping it, lightning here at Bryce (yikes!) and fortunately none tonight, the Ponderosa Pine, the erosion process that continually reshapes the scenery here, and a few times I made intentional mistakes to see if any of our Junior Rangers were paying attention. Plus much more, I think our friends from the UK and Michigan enjoyed it immensely as I left them wanting more, that's what you want to achieve.

Kathy worked a 'double shift' today at the desk, also filling in for our ill co-worker. She is a bit more tired and sacked out on the couch as I write this. We had a long-awaited mild and pleasant evening, not too chilly and were able to sit around outside and enjoy our dinner. We expect more evenings like this as we progress into the summer. The weather will hopefully get better and more predictable. I am getting weary of the 30% chance of t-storms and telling visitors that it could happen, but who knows? We need the rain though, the west is still very dry, although this year things are better than years past. So wear sun screen, drink enough water and keep on eye on the sky for storms wherever you are.