Travels with Ann and Ken

Mesa Verde National Park sits on a plateau in far southwestern Colorado. It was made a protected site by Teddy Roosevelt in 1906. I visited here shortly after moving to Colorado in 1974. At that time you were allowed to wander through many of the ruins on your own. It was also believed to be the home of a people called the Anasazi or the "Ancient Ones." At that time in the 1970's we were told no one knew what happened to those people. What we learned on our visit this time is that the people that lived here are the ancestors of the current-day Pueblo Indian tribes. Things change, huh!? The photo above is of the Cliff Palace, the largest of the cliff dwellings. It was closed due to stabilization work. Forty years ago my friends and I crawled all over this. We were able to go on a guided tour of another of the cliff dwellings called Balcony House. The tour was led by a Park Ranger who never let us out of his sight and had lots of instructions about what not to do (ba...

We left the town of Escalante, UT and headed in the general direction of Mesa Verde in Colorado where we had a reservation in the campground that began the day after. Looking on the map we saw Natural Bridges National Monument (not to be confused with Natural Bridge in Virginia :-). We had a night to kill so we headed that way hoping we could get into their campground (they don't take reservations). Along the way we were driving through more canyonlands. In the photo above you can see a mountain in the distance above the canyons. It is not so evident in the picture but to our eyes there was a strip of brilliant green just below the top. After all the desert colors it was really intriguing. As we drove along we learned the mountain is called Boulder Mountain. After a lot of climbing we reached the summit at over 9,000 feet and the green we saw from a distance was aspen trees just leafing out. From the top we could look out over the desert we had just come from. ...

After leaving Bryce we drove to the town of Escalante, UT. It sits surrounded by Dixie National Forest to the north and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (GSENM) to the south. This name might be familiar to you because it has been in the news recently.  Our dear President has rescinded a designation made by his predecessor that expanded the monument. Anyway, it is still here and quite beautiful (if you like desert canyons etc.). After taking a day for house keeping (laundry etc.) we hired a shuttle driver to take us to the trailhead that leads to two very narrow canyons called slot canyons. Getting to the first of the slot canyons is about a 2 1/4 mile hike through the desert that has been cut by a much wider conventional canyon. This is the first of the slot canyons called Zebra, I guess because of the stripes or striations in the rock. At places it is just wide enough to squeeze through. I had to take off my backpack to get through. This i...

From Zion we went directly to Bryce Canyon NP. The elevation at Zion was around 3,800 feet at the base of the canyon. At Bryce, unless you climb down into the canyon, you are at over 8,000 feet at the rim. We arrived shortly before noon and it was partly cloudy, a bit of a breeze with a temperature of 45 degrees and intermittent, very light snow flurries! Big change. Bryce is not a very big park and the big attraction is an area called the Amphitheater that contains the largest collection of hoodoos in the area. A hoodoo is a pillar of stone (relatively soft sandstone) that has been eroded into odd shapes. You can view the hoodoos from various angles along the rim in about an hour and that is what we did. If you look closely in to the shadows of the pillars you can see snowflakes Panorama of the whole amphitheater. Ann bundled up.

From Jacob Lake we drove to Kanab, Utah then on to the eastern entrance to Zion National Park. We had reservations at an RV park in Springdale but you have to enter the park then exit on the south side to get here. The RV park was pretty good - although sites were close together there were trees between each site. It also had the benefit of the cliffs overlooking the park. The whole town of Springdale seems to owe its existence to the National Park. It looks very new and there is a lot of construction going on. It also has a very mountain-town, hippy chic. The park restricts cars during the summer months and this regimen was already in effect. You can only drive your car through the very southern end of the park (the part we had already traversed). To get to the areas up the canyon you must ride the shuttles. There is a town shuttle that will take you from your hotel or RV park tot he park entrance then you enter the park and get on a park shuttle. In the morning to wait to...