All week I've been meaning to call ahead to the ranger station at Bryce Canyon to make sure that there was going to be enough snow for our snowshoeing trip this weekend. When Friday came and I still hadn't called, I decided that it wasn't worth it anymore. I already had hotel reservations at Ruby's Inn and it was too late to cancel them even if there was no snow on the ground. Fortunately, I was with an adaptable group of people who were happy enough just to go hiking and sightseeing in Bryce when we discovered that there was very little snow on the ground.
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Of course I was familiar with Marci and Steve G. but this was my first time meeting Brenda and Steve L. who were both friends of Steve G. They were both a lot of fun to hang out with. Steve L. was kind enough to drive us down to Bryce in his pimped out Tahoe.
We did a short (roughly) 6 mile hike that started from Sunrise Point, walked along the rim to Sunset Point, descended into the canyon on the Navajo Loop Trail, continued through Queen's Garden and back up to Sunrise Point. Well that's how it would have gone anyway had we not decided in a moment of bravado to go off trail to hike to some formations that we could see in the distance.
Although Marci and I led the charge, Steve G. quickly passed us up and disappeared over the horizon trekking up and down the rolling hills. Eventually everyone else ended up stumbling onto an old horse trail, but we had already lost Steve. We spent a couple of minutes shouting into the canyon and hoping to hear Steve's response among the echoes of our voices. After a little bit of backtracking on the horse trail I spotted Steve G. in the distance standing atop aforementioned rock formation. I signaled, he descended, our group was reunited, and all was well.
All was well except for the fact that now we were kind of lost and disoriented. Of course, we could just backtrack up the horse trail, but what fun would that be? We voted and "pressing on" won out over "backtracking" three to two. A mile and a half of trail later we finally reconnected with the Queen's Garden Trail and then ascended back up to the canyon rim.
We did a short (roughly) 6 mile hike that started from Sunrise Point, walked along the rim to Sunset Point, descended into the canyon on the Navajo Loop Trail, continued through Queen's Garden and back up to Sunrise Point. Well that's how it would have gone anyway had we not decided in a moment of bravado to go off trail to hike to some formations that we could see in the distance.
Although Marci and I led the charge, Steve G. quickly passed us up and disappeared over the horizon trekking up and down the rolling hills. Eventually everyone else ended up stumbling onto an old horse trail, but we had already lost Steve. We spent a couple of minutes shouting into the canyon and hoping to hear Steve's response among the echoes of our voices. After a little bit of backtracking on the horse trail I spotted Steve G. in the distance standing atop aforementioned rock formation. I signaled, he descended, our group was reunited, and all was well.
All was well except for the fact that now we were kind of lost and disoriented. Of course, we could just backtrack up the horse trail, but what fun would that be? We voted and "pressing on" won out over "backtracking" three to two. A mile and a half of trail later we finally reconnected with the Queen's Garden Trail and then ascended back up to the canyon rim.
4 comments:
Just imagine how cool you would have been if you had a pimped out GPS!
Actually Steve L. did have a pimped out GPS. The problem was that we only marked our starting point and not our path. So we knew which way it was to the car (as the crow flies), but it was hard to place exactly where we were on the map.
wwbOGZ Good article! Thanks!
x6CLlo Hello! Great blog you have! My greetings!
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