November 1, 2010 Highway 93 Part II

Side roads reap travel rewards.

On humble Hwy 93 we stumbled upon Craters of the Moon National Monument in southern Idaho and Great Basin National Park in northeast Nevada. These out-of-the-way gems supply days of interesting hiking and biking, plus free ranger-guided tours — a bonus for those on a fixed income.

Travelers fortunate enough to have purchased a car in Twin Falls, Idaho — and who are thus the recipient of a gratis firearm — need to know that new regulations have been enacted that may affect you.

I quote from the Great Basin Federal Parks brochure:

As of February 22, 2010 Nevada law does not restrict those in legal possession of a firearm from “open” carry. One may possess a concealed firearm as long as the individual has a valid concealed carry weapon (CCW) permit. Nevada does NOT recognize CCW permits from the state of Utah.

Apparently, while the residents of most states are free to hide a cannon upon their person, Nevadans do not trust Utahans to secrete weapons in their Federal Parks. How primitive.

Utah has been discriminated against in the veiled firearms department but the gods have been extraordinarily kind to it in the endowment of natural beauty. National Parks such as Bryce Canyon, Zion, Arches and Canyonlands are amongst the most beautiful on earth. Stratified rock — with red as the primary palate — has eroded into wondrous formations.

We hiked day after day, every step opening a new vista baffling the eye and humbling the spirit.

This comes from a guy who has seen the Giant Kobasa in Mundare, Alberta and stepped through the foyer of the Gopher Hole Museum in Torrington.

The effect of altitude on climate is remarkable. In Cedar City south of Salt Lake City, Utah we camped comfortably at 4000 feet. The following evening at Bryce Canyon just sixty miles away we shivered in near-freezing lows 8000 feet above sea level. Shivering gave way to frustration as we tried to gain noon access to Bryce’s hiking trails.

Busload hordes of Italian and Japanese tourists blocked all entry to the canyon. Japanese men snapped pictures willy-nilly while their wives followed obediently behind. Italian men stood mid-path, smugly wiping Bryce’s red dust from their Gucci shoes, while their purple-haired consorts stumbled about in stilettos. They were all in the way, one way or another.

A remarkable fact: the idiot zone of life is aggravating but brief. Mere steps from the paved path the vistas open, the air cleanses, homo sapiens abate and nature’s wonder begins. Bryce’s silent pink hoodoos are beautifully sculptured testaments to time’s erosive power.

The north rim of the Grand Canyon, though not technically in Utah (it is in Arizona), is more easily accessible through the Mormon State. A one hundred mile aside through surprisingly fertile high country of meadows and ponderosa pine brings a visitor upon this quiet northern access to the solar system’s largest canyon.

Actually Valles Marineris on Mars is much bigger but, as the Martian’s aren’t currently in a position to debate geological records, America once again lays unchallenged claim to the “biggest, deepest and best.”

The warning signs abutting the canyon are clear: “Do not under any circumstances attempt to hike to the bottom of the canyon and back in one day!” There are numerous testimonials to the folly of such an effort. A plaque honors the memory of 24-year-old Boston marathoner Margaret Bradley who died of heat exhaustion in June despite her high level of fitness.

So we began our descent — enveloped in fog — with a sense of trepidation and respect, despite our intention to hike for no more than four hours, a journey which would take us only a quarter of the way to the Colorado River fourteen miles and 6000 vertical feet distant.

The view from the edge was foreboding. The shear drop was invisible through the clouds beneath us. But after descending five hundred feet the canyon, still a mile below, opened up in remarkable hues of red, black and green, the south rim hazily visible in the distance.

We came upon four fit-looking gentlemen who told us they had left the south rim, twenty-four miles away, at 3am that morning. We were impressed. They had almost completed a rim-to-rim transit. As they bounded up above us into the clouds I thought it odd that they had begun so early, trudging for hours in utter darkness down the steep pitch of the south rim. They would complete the transit to the north well before dark.

Then I remembered poor Margaret and silently congratulated them for leaving such a large margin of error in case something went afoul. Three hours later, as we trudged our way back up the steep pitch to our van, we ran headlong into the same four fellows chatting gaily as they worked their way back into the canyon: “Oh, we’re doing a double,” they told us nonchalantly — forty-eight miles and twelve thousand feet of elevation change without stopping! We were dumbfounded.

As we reached the top in near-darkness we came upon two guys heading down, switching on their headlamps. “We’re doing a triple,” they explained — seventy-two miles on a steep rocky path with eighteen thousand feet of elevation gain (and loss) which they would complete before nightfall the next day. Margaret would roll over in her grave.

The next Grand Canyon morning was more fog and ice so we departed this gorge of lunacy and headed back to Utah where the road quickly descended into the fall wonders of Zion, a small, remarkable national park located only a few hours north of Las Vegas. Angel’s Landing is a five-mile hike to an overlook with a view 1800 feet down to the tame Virgin River, the innocuous author of Zion’s enormous canyon.

The first two miles of the climb are steep but busy and accessible. We sneered at the hiking novices around us until we reached the final climb to the summit.

This half-mile path of terror, often only a few feet wide, consists entirely of sheer thousand-foot drops from a slippery sandstone ledge.

One’s only protection from a direct plummet to the feeble Virgin below is irregular lengths of chain anchoring the ascent.

We walked softly and carried a big stick. And hung on like hell to the chains.

Gerry & Florence