After a good night of sleep for me and a shitty night of sleep for Kristi, we wake up balls early to get to Bryce Canyon National Park before the crowds. We don’t normally wake up early, but I’m glad we did. Especially with how Kristi’s neck is feeling I wouldn’t want her to have to climb in a shuttle bus with a bunch of tourists. Anyway, we get to the park by 8am and find sweet parking at the main amphitheater (sunset or sunrise point, I can’t remember) attraction. Bryce Canyon is basically a huge area of hoodoos and other winds carved rock structures with a tall rim around them. Not a true canyon, but still damn cool. We walk the rim a bit and gaze at the rock structures and decide to do a popular trail named the Queen’s Garden. This entails walking down into the hoodoos, which is exactly what we were looking for. Even though Kristi’s neck is still awful, she doesn’t want to miss out on a cool attraction.
We walk down into the canyon and you know what, it’s pretty ok. Bryce is neat. That’s all I got for it. The hike down was pleasant and the “queen” structure was pretty cool. We hike back out of the fake canyon and stroll along the rim for a bit longer. I decide I want to go see inspiration point which is a steep climb to the highest point of the fake canyon wall. Kristi is in too much pain after the hike out of the queen’s garden, so she decides to just lay down on the trail. She looks like she has died. No one stops to ask if she’s ok. A chipmunk tried to jump on her lifeless body….
Inspiration point was the best part of the park. There, I said it. Glad I hiked up there because the view was phenomenal. I walked down to find Kristi’s body, kicked away the coyotes gnawing on her arms, and hoisted her up so we could walk back to the car. There’s one other part of the park named “Bristlecone Trail” that I’m dying to see. I want to see a Bristlecone pine so bad, especially after I was denied in California due to snow. We drive uphill to the tallest part of the park, making a few stops along the way.
Once at the Bristlecone Pine area, we get out and start our hike. We’re looking for pines and condors here, and soaking in some decent views. We start the walk and immediately notice that a fire has recently swept through this area. Almost everything is dead. Maybe it was beetle kill as well? I can’t tell and the educational signage is complete shit. We walk the mile loop trying our hardest to pick out a bristlecone pine out of the multiple pine species there. We finally get to one that has a sign saying bristlecone, but it’s dead as a door nail. Too bad. Don’t worry I still took pics.
After our disappointing bristlecone hunt, we head back to the car, and back towards the exit. The best part of the entire park was checking out the endangered Utah Prairie Dog! There was a cute little meadow where they were located so of course we had to stop and say hello. After prairie dog spotting, we stop and get some snacks at a gift shop and head back to our camp spot from the night before. Kristi is in crazy pain so we’re calling it a short day. Going to stay near town so we can pick up her prescription tomorrow morning then head to Zion National Park.
We get back to camp and Kristi has to lay down. I mess around, collect firewood and read for a few hours. Nice to just chill ya know? She eventually gets up and we cook dinner over a fire, have a few drinks, and watch shooting stars for hours.
In the morning we wake up early, get muscle relaxers for Kristi, then head to Zion. You know, last night I thought my back tire looked low, but I was on uneven terrain so I couldn’t really tell. Now that we’re on the road and back on pavement, I can tell it’s low. We stop and get gas before getting into the Zion area and I pull out the tire gauge. Yup, low as shit. I do a quick scan and I can see a damn screw in the middle of the tire. There’s my culprit. I do a quick google search and find that there’s a shop about 20 miles away that does tire repairs. Then, Kristi spots that the gas station we’re at rents sand buggies. There are like 30 vehicles outside, they have to have some tools to do simple repairs, right?? Kristi asks the gas station attendant and we get some interesting info.
Kristi: Hey, there’s like, a bunch of vehicles out there. Can we throw some money at whoever fixes them up to patch a tire for us?
Woman at gas station: Oh, they don’t rent those. They are under investigation for fraud and everyone has left town. But, you can drive 5 miles back the way you came and there’s a gas station with a mechanic on duty who can patch you up!
We definitely got the local gossip in about 15 seconds flat… We thank the lady, air up the tire a bit, and head back the way we came to the Sinclair station. We pull in and the folks there are super friendly. The mechanic on duty looks to be about 19, but doesn’t matter. He gets the tire off in about 20 seconds and everything patched up in under 5 minutes. And what do they charge? $12. Cas, do you remember when we had to pay $50 in San Francisco for the same shit??? I do… I tip the kid $20. He has just saved me a lot of time and effort.
So, this gas station is a bit odd, let me explain. When you walk in, there’s a counter with a young lady working behind it selling tours. Jeep tours, canyoneering, hiking tours, all kinds of shit. While we’re waiting for the tire, we start talking to the folks here and learning more about what they are selling. We are super curious about the canyoneering, as it’s what we’ve been into for the past week. But this would include a guide taking us into Red Canyon (apparently a super cool spot) and repelling down multiple canyon walls. Our ears perked up. But, at $170 a person I’m skeptical. Sounds super cool, but this is basically going to eat up the rest of our day.
Kristi jumps in and pays for both of us. She tells me to live a little… She’s the best. We grab a burrito at a local food truck that turns out to be baller. Like, so damn good. We sit, devour our food, and then prep for our canyoneering expedition. We end up hanging out in the gas station talking with the staff and chilling with the locals. We actually had a lot of fun just meeting people here. Once it was time to go, we loaded up in one of the companies modified jeeps and head out to the desert.
Our guide was named Carson, and he was an adorable 20-something guy who was easy to talk to. Kristi and I chatted along the jeep trail when we weren’t redlining the engine to get through deep sand. While we weren’t totally excited about the “jeep” part of the tour, it was enjoyable. Especially because I wasn’t driving.
Once at the canyon, we had to hike about a half mile straight up to get to where we would be repelling in. Once there, we step into our harnesses and Carson explains how to repel. Super simple instructions. Basically don’t let go of the rope, and don’t fall over. Easy enough. Kristi goes first over the 100 foot cliff. She gets down no problem. Then, it’s my turn, not as smooth as Kristi but I made it down alive.
Once in the canyon, it’s cool and moist. Like stepping into a basement. We walk along the tall walls and look for fun things dropped on the canyon floor.
We do two more repels in the canyon, each one is totally different and fun and exciting. We really enjoyed it. Once out of the canyon we hike back to the jeep and start the drive back.
We thank Carson, tip him, then head off to Zion National Park. The problem with Zion is that you can only visit when the park’s free shuttles are operation. Now that it’s already 4PM, we need to be strategic about where we go and what we do so as not to get stranded 8 miles from our truck. We make a game plan to jump on a shuttle and visit The Narrows. If we can get there by 7PM that gives us enough time to hike in a bit, hike back and catch a bus home.
We end up getting to the narrows a little after 7PM. And PS, if you haven’t heard of the narrows, it’s a canyon with the Virgin River running through it. You basically hike along rocks and water through the canyon. People love this place. It’s THE PLACE to visit when going to Zion. So obviously we have to go see what it’s about.
The Narrows is shit. The hype is wrong. Don’t follow the sheep! If you don’t break your damn ankle walking on these huge ass rocks, the cold ass fast moving water will fuck you up. We hiked for an hour, then turned around and hiked back. We were cold. Wet. And thoroughly disappointed. So glad we came now when it was practically empty and didn’t have to fight a bunch of people to get here. We got back to the truck and headed up to a nearby camp area known as Eagle Crag.
So Freecampsites.net is amazing with details. As I read about this campsite, I knew there were going to be super sketchy roads and tons of signage telling us we’re on private property and no camping allowed. Without this knowledge, I would have turned around pretty early on. But we soldiered on through the dark and creepy handwritten signs until we got to a BLM sign saying we were on public property. Score! We found a campsite with maybe a view? It was dark as shit and quite warm. We settled in and went to bed right away. We had a pretty full day, and we have more adventure planned for tomorrow.
