Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Surprise, Surpise!!

We had a nice evening at the moho, planning our hikes for the next day, having a huge salad and left-over pasta, watching NCIS and doing Halloween cards for the g-kids.  I  snapped this shot from our moho as the sun set on our Tuesday:


WELL!!  Best laid plans!   We woke up the next morning to this!!!


After feeling the pain (it was 60 degrees yesterday, 25 this morning!) we decided to launch on the scenic tour of Bryce and bag the 2-hour hike we planned.  We had wanted to do the Navajo/Wall Street loop but because of the snow, we decided against it.  I had purchased gloves at Target in Tucson for $4.99 because I thought they were a good deal, but Jeff had no gloves.. he bested me with a warmer coat, however, so it was a draw as to who was least prepared for this weather!

Heading into the park (we were less than 1 mile out), we show our Senior Pass and head to the first site after Sunrise/Sunset area (which we hiked the day before) Inspiration Point.  It is about 26 degrees now and the snow is slowly subsiding but it's very windy. Our elevation is about 8000'.


Next stop is Bryce Point, where we viewed this beautiful hoodoo:


After stopping at several short trails we see lots of examples of the skiff of snow we just received.


So many beautiful spots here in Bryce.  We had no idea!  We were recounting our favorite National Parks and find it hard to narrow down to the top five.  For me, it includes Glacier, Bryce, Great Smoky Mountains, Shenandoah and either Joshua Tree or Yellowstone.  For Jeff: Bryce, Crater Lake, Glacier, Yellowstone and the Tetons.  It's hard to eliminate Arches NP, as we were reminded of as we viewed Natural Bridge in Bryce:


We continue to marvel at the beautiful sandstone erosion swirls...(ok, that's my terminology!)



When we are frozen and have about 4000 steps, we head down (the highest spot we visited was 9115') to the Bryce Canyon Lodge area and try to make reservations for dinner.  They don't take reservations but we aren't thwarted and journey back to our moho to drop Casey Noodle off after a nice long walk and then go back to see the Bryce Canyon City area (touristy) but hey, it's 25 degrees!!

Note in the photo below, Jeff is in gunslinger garb but has covered the face of the female...doesn't matter what face is there???!! ;-)


Note that I leave my partner blank! 

We have been happy to see so many folks in the Park so late, but almost exclusively older couples or tours.  We had a good dinner at the Bryce Park Lodge:

We had previously checked out the cute cabins at the Lodge, built during the depression, again by the CCC.


We are excited to travel tomorrow to Ely (pronounced EE-lee) Nevada and hopefully leave the ultra cold weather and snow/ice.  It's a bit of a concern with the Beast!  Blog tomorrow!

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