Happy New Year
Hope everyone survived the holidays. For the lucky ones,
this was your first taste of the work week.
It is time for those New Year's Resolutions. So let's do
both of us a favor and make it a group weekend adventure...I know that
is a bit of a stretch but you need to work those holiday pounds off
somehow and what better way then in a raft, on an ATV, reeling in a
fish, or wrangling cattle.
All the best
_________________________
The Grand Circle
In place of the usual overview of a recent
trip, I decided to give a brief recap on the adventure I took at the end
of last year.
As you all recall from the
last installment where I
mentioned I was going to Utah to hike the Grand Circle.
The Grand Circle is a route that takes visitors from Las Vegas, East
through Utah to Colorado, and South through Arizona before returning to
Las Vegas. Along the way you visit 6 National Parks and a few State
parks.
On this trip I decided to record a daily blog entry recounting my
trials and tribulations from the day's events. Here is a link to that
blog (Scroll to the bottom to start from day 1 In Vegas):
(Complete
Daily)
The pictures on the left correspond to the 7 major parks I visited in
order. In all, the trip took 7 days, which breaks down to a new park
each day. The format was 1) hike 8 miles in the morning 2) drive the 2-3
hours to the next park 3) take the scenic drive before 4) setting camp,
5) building a fire, 6) dinner and then 7) popping open the laptop to vent
the day's frustrating experiences that confront the city mouse when he
ventures into the country.
I flew into Vegas on the 17th of November, grabbed a rental car and
was hiking in
Zion National Park by 2:00pm. That day's hike, Angel's
Landing, consisted of steep cliffs and brilliant views. Waiting until it
was dark to take the tent out of the package and try and read the
instructions was the comedy for day 1.
Day 2 started with a cold rain shower contraption followed by a waist
deep hike up a section of a river aptly named "The Narrows." The day
closed with a scenic drive of
Bryce Canyon and sunset on the rock
formations called "Hoodoos" (picture 2).
Day 3 was a challenging hike deep into the canyons of Bryce called
the "Fairyland Loop." After leaving Bryce I stopped briefly at a couple
local parks (Escalante and Kodachrome) before descending on Capital
Reef. The camp site was deserted with the exception of multiple
domesticated deer. In actuality, all the parks were empty this time of
year. If you can stand some cold mornings, I could not think of a better
time to visit.
A few brief hikes at
Capital Reef to the "Throne" and the
"Tanks" proved challenging as there were some opportunities to engage in
some novice bouldering. The day closed with a trip to Arches
National Park.
Arches
and Canyonlands
National Parks (pictures 4 and 5) are basically right across the street
from each other, sitting just on the outskirts of Moab. Moab is very
cool city that is populated by adrenaline junkies.
Arches was impressive, but it was the views from Canyonlands that
were by far the most incredible of the adventure. One can see on the
left, the section I hiked, "Island in the Sky", allowed one to view
canyons as if you were sitting above the Earth looking down. Canyonlands
was also one of the coldest mornings as all the water froze solid at 15
degrees.
I had Thanksgiving at a brewery in Moab and headed towards
Grand Canyon,
making a brief stop at National Monument (See Picture), which you might
recognize as the backdrop for many American Westerns. Grand Canyon was a
bit crowded, making it an easy decision to head north after a day hike
and catch the redeye out of Vegas.
A great trip, which I would recommend to anyone. If you are
interested in undertaking, shoot me an email and I can share my
thoughts.
Until Next time.
Darren Hitz
