October 24, 2014

October 20, 2014

Our trip to southern Utah just keeps getting better.  Today we visited Bryce Canyon National Park, another treasure of the United States with beautiful vistas and rock formations that will absolutely take your breath away.

Here are some pictures, but as with all the parks here is southern Utah, they don’t even come close to portraying the actual beauty of them.

Bryce National Park

After touring the main part of the park, we decided to take a short hike to Mossy Cave.  The parking area for this beautiful section of the national park is actually ant five miles east on Highway 12.

Highway 12, east of Bryce National Park

After that, Joyce had seen a sign that pointed to Pine Lake so we thought, what the heck, let’s do it.  After driving fourteen miles on a paved road then another seven on gravel, we made it to the lake and camping area.

During the drive out we saw several deer camps and when we got to the lake, there was one lone boater battling the winds with a small electric motor.  When he got to the boat ramp, I asked what he was doing and he said he was hunting for Muskrats.

October 21, 2014

We had an easy 87 mile run over the mountains and down to Red Ledge RV Park in Kanarraville yesterday.  The weather was beautiful most of the way but we did run into some strong headwinds when we turned south onto I-70.

After getting setup in our parking site, we drove up to Cedar City to do some shopping.

Since we have been on the go for almost three weeks, we plan to just relax today.  I have a few maintenance issues that need addressing and then we may drive up to Cedar City to get haircuts.

October 23, 2014

So much for relaxing!  Heck, there is too much to see in this area of Utah so you just can’t sit around and waste the day away.

One of the purposes for us visiting Kanarraville is to tour Zion National Park.  There are actually two sections of the park and yesterday we visited Kolob Canyons, the northern section.  There is a short five mile scenic drive with several pull-outs and places to park if you are doing any hiking.

Kolob Canyons, Zion National Park

While we were having lunch the other day, we were told that we shouldn’t miss seeing Snow Canyon State Park which is just west of St. George.  Since we had a lot of day left, we headed down that way.  And, we are very glad we did too!

Snow Canyon State Park

October 24, 2007

Yesterday we drove down to Zion National Park, one of the most visited parks with over 2.5 million people a year.  Even in October and on a weekday, the parking lots were very full.

After going through the visitors center, we then boarded the shuttle bus for our trip into the canyon.  Yep, ya gotta ride the buses here, all the way up to the 26th and even on weekends in November.  Not a big deal and I can understand why they do it that way. There are plenty of them running to make the waits very short however, we didn’t like it as much as driving our own car.

Our first stop was at the museum where we viewed a twenty-two minute film about the park.  One of the facts about the evolution of the canyon that really got my attention was that, what is now called the Virgin River, removes 165 million tons of silt out of the canyon every year.  But what really is surprising is that it does that in just a few days as year during flooding.

After that stop, we jumped back on the bus and and road it all the way to the end where we ate our lunch and then took a short two mile hike into The Narrows.  After that, we road the bus to several stops and then called it a day.

All-in-all, Joyce and I both thought that Zion isn’t as pretty as Bryce NP but in it’s own way, it does have a lot to see and do.  If you like to hike, and are in good shape, there are some long trails that take you into Zion’s back country.  Oh, to be twenty-five again.

Zion National Park

More later.

Barry & Joyce