Day 8: Bryce Canyon NP to Zion NP

Stops:

Mt. Carmel, UT

Zion National Park, UT

Springdale, UT

We got up early to catch a sunrise at Bryce Point.  It was 5:30 am and a chilly 30 degrees.  As we packed up Moby and headed to the observation point, I was being followed by 2 tour buses full of Japanese tourist. Ok, I didn't actually know they were Japanese until later.  They had been following my every turn as I pulled onto the road to Bryce Point. That's when I knew they were doing the same thing I was, so I pulled up into the parking spot and grabbed my camera gear and ran to the point to quickly secure my spot before they got there.  

There were only a couple of people there before me but I let them know a massive flood of tourist were coming behind me.  The entire race up the hill to the lookout point was worth it as it was a beautiful sunrise that lit up Bryce Canyon just like a postcard shot.  I had met a guy whose girlfriend was an ultra distance runner and doing a race to Bryce that morning.  She was running 100 miles and it would take her 18 hrs.  Did I mention it was freezing too?  He was just there visiting for the rest of the day while waiting for her to finish.

Anyway, I packed up my gear and we drove Moby out to Zion NP.  On the way there, we saw two roadside attractions.  One was a rock shop where the building was shaped like a giant rock.  The owner was very nice and explained where he got some of the rocks and why he sells melted glass rocks that come from glass making factories. People go crazy over this stuff and no rock store will ever turn down a person selling these glass rocks. It's like easy money for them.  Anyway, B picked up a nice strand of citrine which is one of her favorite stones, for a darn good price.  At the end, the owner had us place a pin on his map which of course showed most of the people from the US came from the west coast.  However, there were also a significant number of people from around the world, but high concentrations from Germany and France.  He takes a picture of the map at the end of each year and then resets it for the next year.  Purely, from a statistical point, I would love to see the previous years of maps too see if the the trend held.

Just down the road in Mt. Carmel, UT is the Thunderbird restaurant roadside attraction with its famous and now controversial sign, "Home of the Ho-Made pies". You see it wasn't meant to cause controversy, but because the sign was made in an era where signs were custom made by people called tin men who built signs according to specifications, the word Home-made could not fit, so it was shortened.  Despite the controversy, the owners decided to make it their into a marketing point.  We had a slice of the thunder berry pie before continuing with our trip to Zion NP.

We finally made the 24 mile drive from Mt. Carmel to Zion and you see giant smooth faced rock mountains, one of the more famous ones is called checkerboard Mesa because if the natural checkerboard-like lines formed on it.

The guy at the rock shop told us to keep an eye out for bighorn sheep between the two tunnels, but after passing the first tunnel we only ran into a lady on the side of the road that said we just missed them.  Well, then wet got to the second tunnel.  This one was all dark inside and 1.1 miles long.  There were natural windows every once in awhile which we learned were the places they actually blew up the to get access into the side of the mountain to make the tunnels.  Apparently 4000 men worked on the tunnel and they completed it in under 3 years for less than 5 million dollars.  If they hadn't, the govt. was going to shut the park down.  Glad they were able to do it.  Only two fatalities.  One man was crushed t o death under a rock, and the other was the mine engineer who decided to walk through the tunnel first after completely but the dynamite blast fumes were in the sandstone and releasing themselves.  He breathed these fumes all the way through the tunnel and died 2 weeks later.

Anyway, we finally arrived at the visitors center only to find out that there were no campsites open for days.   We didn't know what to do huge to just hope that things would just work out later.

Instead we signed up of wait list for a ranger-led tour and then hopped onto the free shuttle and did the Zion Canyon scenic tour.  We went all the way up to the end at the Temple of Sinawava stop.  There we got off and walked the River Walk, about a 2.2 mile round trip.

Then we hopped the shuttle back to Zion Lodge and did the Emerald Pools hike where we encounter what sounded like muffled sheep sounds around the pools.  It turned out to the Canyon tree frog and it  was their mating season.

Finally, it was time to catch the bus back to the visitors center to catch the bus for the ranger-led tour. As we were on a wait-list with 6 people in front of us, we weren't  sure if we would make it as everyone showed up, except 2 people that had reservations and 6 people that were wait-listed before us.  Our lucky day I guess.  Great tour, btw, but sign up early in the morning to make sure not to get on the wait-list.

We decided to catch dinner over at the Bit and Spur based on a friend's recommendation of their Brie and Walnut chile relleno with jalapeño jelly. Best chile relleno I've ever had.  During that time, B was using the free wifi, there, to figure out where to stay.  She found a website called freecampsites.net which listed a free location on Lion Blvd. which would be our campsite for the next couple of nights.  Ahh, so if we were going to be homeless at least we knew where we could get away with it...