Best hike ever!

Wow, it's been quite a while since I have posted a blog, and man, what a lot has happened! Quick update on what the situation is now, and then on to the adventures from a week ago (the best hike ever!). Warning: this is probably going to be a long one again.
First of all: the van is now parked on the Walmart parking lot. Because I am in Saltlake city, and would like to be here again tomorrow morning I opted for another 'things you must have done before you die' activity: parking your RV at the Walmart parking lot for an overnight stay. And instead of using my mifi I am using Macdonald's wifi... all American here ;-).
Tyler changed his plans, so he didn't join me all the way to Salt Lake City, but instead stayed in Moab, Utah, some two days ago. It was actually great fun having him around and we have seen and hiked a lot together, of which more in this post, and probably also in the next two.

Route update:
(3543 miles or 5700km on the clock at the moment)

The 8th of April began with getting up relatively early (Cindy and Byron wake up really early to get the kids to school). First off: congratulations to Cindy for her birthday, and then a more relaxed morning then planned. To give something in return to their hospitality I offered to fix their laptop, which was filled with games, malware and other nonsense. Furthermore they lost access to a text editing program after a reinstall and their browser was also full of spam. Of course all this was easily fixed, so halfway in the morning we were ready to take a little hike. Cindy had also invited some friends of hers to join in (Dawn, and an old Navajo highschool friend with her daughter and granddaughter). The plan was to go to a local site for finding strange marble like rocks.

These things reminded me of pictures I had seen of the Marsrovers, which discovered very small marble like stones there as well. Later on in a museum I saw the two things side by side, so gladly I'm still sharp. It was fun to hike around a little in this area, figuring out where these stones come from, all the while enjoying the beautiful desert views, with lake Powell in the distance.

Cindy's Native friend showed us a nasty scar she had gotten from getting bit by a spider. There I was, thinking that only Australia is full of nasty little poisonous insects. Besides gathering stones, we also gathered trash that other people had left on the site. Just like yesterday Byron and Cindy returned home with a bag full of cans, glass and plastic.

As the others went back to Page, Tyler and I went on a trip to some local sites that we had to see. Horseshoe bend was on my list anyway, and Byron told me about a nearby slot Canyon which we could also check out.

More pictures are on picasa, to which the links will again be on the bottom of this page. Horseshoe bend was quite busy with tourists, and an impressive site, but not more than that. Exploring the slot canyon was more fun: first of all there was a sign that said that you would be violating tribal law and ceremony by entering if the gate was closed (which it was) and furthermore there were two unmarked white vans already parked there. Ofcourse Tyler is Navajo (or Deneh as they call themselves), so we guessed we had some leeway, but still it was exciting to worry what would happen if you bumped into a group of people around the next corner (or worse: a religious ceremony). 

Besides that exploring the canyon itself was sometimes also quite exciting: squeezing yourself through cracks, climbing on top of rock or jumping across small gaps: quite a lot of fun actually. We found some birds nests, in one of which we found a rabbits foot (good luck according to the Navajo) and some kind of animal lair (coyote or cougar, that remains a discussion). 

The road leading to Horseshoe bend and the canyon was actually closed south of that, due to a landslide about a month earlier. I had marked this on the map and forgotten all about it, so it was lucky that I ended up coming from Grand Canyon instead of from somewhere else. Tyler and I thought about visiting the site, as it looked kinda impressive, but after checking how far that would be we decided to head back to Page. We bought a small cake for Cindy, and did the rest of the shopping to fill the van with supplies that would last us the rest of the week.

We joined in on the festivities to celebrate Cindy's birthday, with Miss Nancy (her mother) and Ronnie (her brother) and Dawn (and daughter). We went to a local dinner and had a fun meal. Ronnie is a musician, brought his guitar as requested, and could whip out a few of the requested songs (Golden Earring, Beatles: while my guitar gently weeps), and he made up a song for Tyler along the way ('There is a werewolf in the inscription house'). Too bad he didn't join us afterwards for more songs. It was quite late by the time the evening ended, which was kinda bad because we had planned on leaving early the next day.

Of course the morning was again spent on being slow, fixing computers, other hardware (camera's) and getting them a new e-mail address. We had planned on leaving before the kids went to school, but since this didn't work, Byron decided to join us on another short hike, before saying goodbye. Cindy, Byron and Dawn took us to Glen Canyon Dam, the dam that has formed Lake Powell. Both had good stories about this place when they were young. When they were about 16 they would go to this site (which was not a tourist destination as it is now) to drink beer, and climb down to the river (if you see the route they took it scares the hell outta ya). 

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iix2EZexGlM

During the 70's and 80's Byron was a rafting guide on the Colorado river, taking two week trips all the way from Page down to Grand Canyon. During the commissioning of the dam he also took engineering divers up into the overflow channels: after filling up the lake, these started eroding into the rockbed, compromising the structural integrity of the dam! The company had to stop using them at the required rate, in effect having not enough capacity to stop the lake from overflowing. Luckily they found a solution by building new (rounded) corners into these overflow channels, preventing the collapse of the dam.

After this local anecdote it was time to say goodbye and head off to our next destination: Zion.

On the road to Zion we encountered two noteworthy sites (actually a few more, but those you can check out on Picasa). First was a Bureau of Land Management display on a local dinosaur find near Big Water, UT. Byron and Cindy had told us about it, and it did indeed look very promising. Apparently a very well preserved dinosaur was found a couple of miles from the center, so well conserved that even tendons had turned to stone. Tyler was asking the staff about local topographical maps (as he wants to do a lot of hiking) and we got talking with a local Paleontologist. 

First of all he told us one of the Navajo stories about Dinosaur prints (which the local guide had earlier told me there was not). Since the dinosaur footprints are very easily seen when there is a rainpuddle standing in them, the Navajo associated them with 'Thunderlizards': these prints would show up after thunderstorms, but the lizards themselves were nowhere to be found.

Have you ever heard of the Brontosaurus? That's one of those long-necked fella's right? Wrong, the Brontosaurus does not exist anymore. Apparently a lot of these long-necked fella's were found without their heads, or sometimes heads without bodies. In the 19th century paleontologists had linked the two together and named the combination 'Brontosaurus'. The paleontologist at Big Water explained to us that this was incorrect: apparently T-rexes loved to snack on these heads and took them with them (much easier to carry than the bus-sized bodies and necks). The 19th century fellas mistakenly linked the wrong heads to the wrong bodies, and nowadays the Brontosaurus has been split into two different species.

We talked about different topics as well, but you're probably bored or done with your commute by now, so I will stop about the dinosaurs. Next stop were a geographical feature: Toadstool rocks.

The combination of erosion, local sediment layers and their colors resulted in these amazing formations. More pictures on Picasa, especially the clay alcoves here were very impressive! But of course the main attraction we were heading for was Zion! A few road reconstructions projects caused us some delays, but we got there in the end. As it was supposed to be so impressive I put the GoPro on the windshield just before entering the park, expecting the entry fee station any second. We continuously checked if the video was still running, which it was when we arrived at the gate. After entering the gate the views quickly became stunning and more stunning, peaking when entering the valley after arriving at the end of a meandering tunnel drive. We drove all the way down to the visitor center taking in the enormous scenery around us, all the time thinking we were taking great footage.

When checking the GoPro at the end of the drive, and seeing that it was no longer powered on my heart sank. We proceeded to hook it up to the laptop to check what footage we had gotten. It had filmed just until the entrance gate... u can see Tyler checking if it was still on and then a little discussion with the guard about full camping grounds and that was it.... aaargh! 

We decided to do the drive again.

Youtube: http://youtu.be/X7fU_99qIm4

Bonus points for the people who know what song is playing in the background when we make the turn at the top of the mountain (we were enjoying that all the way down at high volume). As you can see, this place looks incredibly impressive, which is why we wanted to hike it the next day. I did not reserve a spot at the local campsite because in Grand Canyon the camping was only half full. This proved to be a mistake because Zion was completely full. There was no other option then to exit the park on the west side, and try to find a camping spot there. After a lot of no-overnight parking, no trespassing and no camping signs we found a promising road leading up into undeveloped hills. We followed it along and soon we found the first campers (two RV's). We had a chat with them and asked if we could put the van on the same site as they were on. This was not a problem, but they said that they were parked there because the other RV couldn't make it up the hill. The couple we were talking to had mountainbiked up there and said it was beautiful, that there were more camping spots and that our Van should be able to make it up there. So we tried.

Mission succesful: what a view, and just before sunset

We get a fire going and start making dinner. Tyler will sleep outside so we arrange a fire reflector and build up his campsite as good as possible. After a good dinner we go to sleep to be up early tomorrow for sunrise and hiking. 

Tyler got up before sunrise, I got to view it from my window a little bit, but we had a fire going and our breakfast finished before a lot of other people were awake. Quickly off to Zion again. A small video showing the process of getting back to civilization:

Youtube: http://youtu.be/TdjtlIDkR34

Inside Zion we opted for the one must do hike: Angels Landing. That's up there:

You can imagine that's strenuous hiking along vertigo inducing cliffs. It was very, very rewarding however, and will go into my memories as my best hike ever so far. Since it is very difficult to describe this in words, I will leave you with some video, and a lot of pictures on Picasa.

Youtube: http://youtu.be/nU_5NzNIXgM

Picasa albums:

Day 18: In and around Page

Day 19: To Zion

Day 20: Angels Landing