Sometimes Hubby and Wifey don't automatically agree. Sometimes Hubby fails horribly at his primary job of reading Wifey's mind. Today was one of those days. Wifey wanted pictures of the Saguaro cactus. We had considered going to Saguaro National Park, but decided against the extra few hours drive south of Phoenix to get there and instead to snap some pictures when we passed fields of cacti along the road.
As we entered the metro area of Phoenix, wifey realized our chance to capture the cacti along the road was slipping away. Which made her a tinge grumpy. Which made Hubby a tinge grumpy. Apparently Wifey needs to say "stop here for pictures" and not assume Hubby can see the perfect shot as we drive past.
Googling as we drove, wifey found the Phoenix Sonoran Preserve in north Phoenix, confirmed it had free admission, and navigated to this hoping for the desired landscape. It was not present.
Hubby saved the day, turning back north to where we'd just come from and driving until Wifey announced "stop here"! We pulled onto the shoulder and Wifey proceeded to traipse around the surrounding landscape with her DSLR.
Wifey's photography bug satisfied, our journey south to the airport resumed!
On our drive back south from Utah to the airport in Phoenix, AZ, we took a brief detour to visit the Montezuma Castle National Monument (MCNM). This had been on the schedule for day one, but had to be omitted due to the priority of purchasing our America the Beautiful Pass.
The MCNM was established in 1903 and has been a popular tourist destination for decades. Back in the 1930's tourists would climb up wooden ladders to access and tour the site. Today it is closed to all but archaeologists and historical preservation teams.
We did enjoy getting to 'hike' HA! the quarter mile trail accessing the viewpoint of this incredible piece of architecture.
Wupatki National Monument and the Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument are connected by a 34 mile scenic loop off of US-89. We were traveling south on US-89 from Flagstaff to Phoenix today and decided to take this detour! Going N->S we began our exploration at what we later learned to be the least impressive pueblos of the Wupatki National Monument. Basically this area contains a number of ancient buildings which have survived! Most impressive is that actual humans survived in this, a DESERT!
The pueblos often had no exterior doors and the interior doors were very small. This gave the locals an advantage should attackers try and invade.
At our 4th or 5th pueblo wifey was tired ... so she climbed onto the roof, found a spot of shade, and just took pretty pictures from there. The next two are both just that ... pictures of the roof of a Pueblo.
Reaching the visitors center, we continued trudging along. A family had just visited this area before us and the kids were eager to share about the Blowhole they had just experienced. Wifey's expectations were not significant. She was wrong.
The following is a summary of the video's audio -
Surprising find! This is called a blowhole. It has to do with an underground cavern and air pressure that results in very cold air coming out of the ground. It is seriously as cool as AC! It’s near some Native American Pueblo’s in Arizona. We’re in the middle of the desert and the outside temperature is around 94 degrees. Russ points out ... when I was a kid I wanted AC clothes before I was willing to go back to DC. They need blowholes there in DC! Russ also points out that this is stronger than the AC vents he experienced sitting on/near as a kid.
Surprising find!
This is called a blowhole. It has to do with an underground cavern and air pressure that results in very cold air coming out of the ground. It is seriously as cool as AC! It’s near some Native American Pueblo’s in Arizona. We’re in the middle of the desert and the outside temperature is around 94 degrees.
Russ points out ... when I was a kid I wanted AC clothes before I was willing to go back to DC. They need blowholes there in DC!
Russ also points out that this is stronger than the AC vents he experienced sitting on/near as a kid.
Leaving the Wupatki National Monument we proceeded to Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument. We decided to do a quick one mile hike to make the trip 'worth it'. Mid-way through the loop we ran into two other couples and began chatting. Turns out they are AoG as well and have a history of coaching JBQ! Our one mile took far longer than anticipated but the fellowship was still enjoyable.
We were also grateful we'd caught the weather before traveling. Our new friends had packed for winter and had to buy travel summer wardrobes on-site!
Wednesday morning we set our alarm and headed out bright and early to make our 8:00 shuttle appointment at Zion National Park. We didn't realize it at the time, but our GPS had us entering the park on the far end from the visitors center (and shuttle stop). Zion Canyon and a scenic portion of Highway 9 intersect at a T near the visitors center. The shuttle runs into the Canyon itself where personal vehicles are not allowed.
Several shuttle stops were closed during our visit due to COVID.
Our initial thoughts for the day was to either hike The Narrows or venture towards Angels Landing. The Narrows is a water hike, which, after a bit of research, Wifey voted against. We hadn't brought water friendly shoes and didn't really have the time/advance planning/desire to rent a couple pair.
Accessing the shuttle was easy-peasy. We were NOT asked for our ID (meaning we could have totally come the day before using our passes in Wifey's dad's name) and we were soon heading up the canyon to the Grotto Trailhead.
The path to Angels Landing is 2.5 miles each way, with the last .5 mile being a rather famous "chain" section. The decision on that last half mile was pending.
The 2 miles in consisted of a stretch of long exposed switchbacks, a pleasant walk through a mini-canoyn, and then more tiny switchbacks called Walters Wiggles. Walters Wiggles was built by the CCC during the 1930s.
Walters Wiggles!
Just past the top of the Wiggles, the decision on whether to tackle the last 1/2 mile was made for us:
We took the opportunity to break at Scout Lookout, avoiding the friendly chipmunks, lawbros, and take-their-lives-in-their hands airheads.
From Scouts Lookout we could see another landing just a bit further up the West Rim Trail so we hiked a bit further and enjoyed a quick lunch and some photos of the canyon.
We made our way back down the mountain successfully. Remember what time we started up? Around 9 am by the time we caught the shuttle etc. So the hike up, while exposed and not shaded was pleasant. It was tough hiking and a significant elevation change, but the weather was irrelevant. Moving back down, this was not the case. The sun was brutal. We kept thinking how un-fun it would be to be one of the hikers just beginning their assent a bit after noon.
In retrospect, skipping our 11:00 am shuttle passes for 8:00 am passes the next day was a huge blessing. In mid-early September, this is a early morning hike unless you enjoy baking.
Well after it was too late to turn around on the trail, Hubby mentioned to Wifey that he would have preferred to continue further along the West Rim Trail instead of turning around when we did. He waited on purpose. Knowing he was up for additional adventure, wifey consulted the trail maps and decided on a new destination. We'd already conquered one of the "difficult" hikes in Zion, so why not also knock out a "moderate" and an "easy". We rehydrated, and set out on the Middle Emerald Pools trail (moderate) which would end at the Emerald Pools (and waterfall) and then we could take the Lower Emerald Pool trail (easy) back out.
As we reached the pools we began looking for the trail change.
We found an out of date sign for the Lower Emerald Pools trail. The trail was no longer present. We had some serious debate at this point since we'd reached the end of Wifey's hiking tolerance and she did NOT want to take the Upper Emerald Pool trail. We eventually decided that want to or not, Upper Emerald Pool was our only way out and we continued uphill (later we found the fork for the new Lower Emerald Pool and took the easy way home).
The amazing waterfall at the end of the Emerald Pool trails. (Insert Eye Roll Here)
Video of our time in Zion. If you're viewing on mobile, you'll need to click the link.
Thanks to Wifey's mom we obtained shuttle tickets for Zion National Park for 11:00 am today! These tickets went on sale (at $1 each) well before we planned our trip out west, and again the day before at 9 am Mountain time. Sadly for us, at 9 am Mountain, we were on Bert and Pumpkin! Anyway, due to the time of our tickets we slept in a bit and began getting ready around 8 or 8:30 am. Wifey did a double check on the requirements for using the tickets and noticed a limitation that the named purchaser of the tickets had to be there for check-in. Our tickets were under Wifey's dad's name!
Do we risk it? We found an old ID with Wifey's maiden name that maybe we could use to talk our way on. It'd sure be a shame to drive to the park, and not be able to get in! Maybe we could just switch our Zion and Bryce days and buy new shuttle tickets under our names .... in 30 minutes when they went on sale! Cue ... more debate! Risks v. Rewards!
We decided to give it a try and were refreshing the Recreation.gov website at 9:00 mountain sharp. Between 300 and 400 tickets were available per hour. Wifey added 7:00 am tickets to our basket. She second guessed and went back to the home page ... now around 40 were available per hour (it was about 9:02). She added 8:00 am tickets instead. And we checked out. Now we were good to go for tomorrow and would head instead to Bryce today!
The drive to Bryce Canyon is about 2 hours from our AirBNB. We had lunch already packed for the day and ended up eating in enroute due to the late start. (We arrived at Bryce between 12 and 1 pm).
We looked for coffee along the way without much success, eventually stopping at a Subway with Espresso on its sign just outside the Bryce Park entrance. We received a sugary mess, but with 2 shots so we decided it was a success!
We began our experience at Bryce at the visitors center, gaining an understanding of the park layout and suggested hiking trails.
Our first stop would be at the far end of the Canyon where we listened to a ranger discuss the Grand Staircase and the geology of this area.
LOVE the Social Distancing Stickers on the ground!
From here we slowly made the drive back to the front portion of the canyon for an additional ranger discussion of the formation of Hoodoos, taking pictures of the scenery along the way.
We saw some fantastic scenery ... along with some evidence of #COVIDTRAVEL
Hubby decided to share with the world HIS view for most of the trip :)
After arriving in time, we 'enjoyed' the second ranger talk. Honestly, it was in the sun and pretty duplicative of the displays inside the visitors center.
Upon its conclusion, however, we embarked on a 3 mile hike of the Hoodoos! We took the Queens Garden Trail down to where it intersected with the Navajo trail and then followed the Wall Street portion of the Navajo trail back up the canyon. See below 2 videos of our hikes - one in real time and the other in 8X speed.
The view from within the canyon is stunning and worth the effort to hike down. The bottom of the canyon is full of trees which provide a pleasant shade for the middle section of the hike!
We were even able to pull out the selfie stick and capture us together :) Aweee!
As a reward for our hike (a reward we're pretty sure is actually meant for kids, but who cares!!) we received these stickers!
Back on top of the canyon, we spent some time taking pictures of each other instead of the scenery. You may have noticed these pop up on our FB profiles :)
