Spring Break - SOUTHWEST!
Lucas and I scheduled a packed spring break trip to the Grand Canyon, Paria Canyon/Vermillion Cliffs, and Bryce Canyon. We left Seatac airport early Saturday morning with minimal camping gear and food. We had no real intention of following through with every step of this trip, and we had no idea how intense the elements would be!
Saturday night we drove to the Grand Canyon, arriving around 10pm. We set up camp and immediately passed out. Lows were in the mid 20s (brrr...), and we had restless but adequate sleep to fuel our long days of hiking. Needless to say, we enjoyed our late night bonfires :)
Exhausted after long days of hiking (for those of you familiar with the area, we went a long ways down the South Kaibab trail on Saturday, and on Sunday we went down the hermit trail before walking the 10mi back to the visitor center), Lucas and I planned Tuesday to travel to Paria Canyon/Vermillion Cliffs, hike, and then arrive late in Bryce Canyon to meet up with a friend from Seattle.
It was a long day of travel, but we broke it up by hiking through Wire Pass to Buckskin Gulch, a narrow slot canyon in the Paria Canyon/Vermillion Cliffs area. It was an easy hike, and I highly recommend it to anyone passing through. Be warned, however, that flash floods as far as Bryce Canyon can transform this small canyon into a deadly debris flow, and the road to get to the trailhead must be dry - the road is rough enough without wet "clay gumbo" (as described by the lady in the visitor center)!
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| Goofing around in the slot canyon... Lucas and I were in serious need of a shower at this point :) |
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| Petroglyph at the Wire Pass/Buckskin Gulch confluence |
We made it to Bryce in the evening, successfully met up with Sanni, and set up for a very cold night (below 20!).
After a few more days of hiking and one very lazy camp day, we packed up camp early Saturday morning to head back to the Las Vegas airport. Along the way, we were stopped (and significantly delayed) by this:
Lucas and I were fully stopped on a bridge on US-15 with cowboys armed with guns and a SWAT team! Later, we found out we were right in the middle of the Nevada Cattle Round-Up Protest!
And while I was searching for that article, I came across this one... gross!
It was a great trip, but we were happy for cool, wet weather in Seattle after sunburn, extremely hot and dry days, strong winds, and below freezing weather at night! After the week, we're enjoying our quiet Saturday at home catching up on things before finding something else to explore... tomorrow!
