Time for another blog post! First a very short update on my current situation: we're in the middle of Utah, at St George after spending a perfect hike on Angels Landing in Zion Park. I'm saying we, because I picked up a Navajo hitchhiker near Monument Valley. He's heading the same way, knows the local country like his back pocket and has no schedule, so we've already spent four days on the road together. Actually one day in Page (a nearby city) as well, at friends of his, which was really fun, but more on that in a future blog post. First back to a week ago: The last attractions in the Camp Verde / Sedona area, and then on to Grand Canyon!
The last attraction on the list for Camp Verde was the petroglyphs. Ofcourse I had planned on getting up really early, but because of the cold I stayed in a little longer... took at slow breakfast etc. I ended up arriving at the V-bar-V petroglyphs near the end of the morning.
The reason that they're called V-Bar-V is not because of a local script, but because the ranch on which the terrain the petroglyphs had a V-bar-V marking (this is the chimney, which, together with the kitchen counter, furnace, chimney and written history are the only things remaining of the ranch). The area, is again, very very nice. It is located near the beaver creek valley, which is a fertile string of land which runs through the whole area (the Montezuma's sites are also on it). Again: walking around the lush fields, under the shady trees, with the cool river nearby: you can totally understand why the Natives were here.
After the short walk to the site you get to a little fenced rock cliff, where there are a lot of markings on the wall. Luckily there's a 'Docent' around, who could tell us a lot about the markings, and answer questions about them. Actually, not really answer, because most of his answers were of the form 'maybe its ... or maybe it's not'. The stories were pretty interesting though, so I'll try to share a few.
First of all there's two reasons why the petroglpyhs are where they are. First: there are large cracks in the cliffs, which the natives believed (just like the ancient Greek) were entrances to the 'underworld', making this a holy place. A few of the markings nearby to these cracks represent 'good spirits' which were put there to keep the bad spirits in the underworld.
The second reason for the location is because there are two projecting stones, which will cast two crisp shadows across a large flat piece of rock, with a nice beam of light in between: acting as a Natural sun dial. The natives believed this was a way of the gods talking to them. The local rangers did a year long survey of the beam of light and found some very interesting patterns.
First of all there is the symbol for the sun: three concentric circles with a horizontal bar across it. This symbol can be explained in the following fashion: the horizontal bar represents the horizon, and the upper half of the circle the arc the sun makes across the horizon during the day. The natives however believed, that when the sun goes down in our world, it comes up in the underworld. Hence, the lower half of the circle. The concentric circles represent the different seasonal arcs the sun describes: summer and winter solstices and the equinox in between (if my knowledge of astronomy is accurate enough). There are seven of these suns marked on the rock, and they correspond exactly with various moments in the year cycle: solstices, equinox etc are all marked.
Furthermore there are some vertical symbols with horizontal marks across them. These were described by archeologists from the 1900's as 'centipede like creatures'. However, by talking with local natives, we nowadays know that these symbols actually represent maize: their place on the sundial corresponds to the exact planting season! There were other interesting stories, and also various conflicting explanations by different native tribes, so all in all it made for an entertaining morning. After also having a big yellow butterfly landing on a person next to me, and after spending some time enjoying the feeding hummingbirds I left with a magical feeling as well, traveling back in time, trying to understand the people that made these drawings.
The drive up to Grand Canyon would take me through Sedona again, and via a scenic route up to the South Rim of Grand Canyon. The route was pretty scenic, and it was also fun to see some trees and forest again for the first time in weeks. At the end of the Sedona Valley were a lot of hairpins taking me up to greater heights. Turning up to the highway I got a great view of snowy peaks on the horizon: that's something different than the desert:
The drive up to Grand Canyon was pretty easy, and I was a the campsite at about 17:00. This one looked a lot better than the last camping experience: lots of camping sites, but hardly any people, the restroom area nearby. A nice firering with built-in grill, and near the entrance a little house where you could go to a coin-shower and do the laundry as well. Nice! It's too early for camping though, so first to the edge to see how Grand this Canyon really is. Well, I can tell ya: it's huge and stretches itself from horizon to horizon. Capturing this scale is very hard, so you can look at this picture, but better put it on the bucket list to see it for yourself.
A nearby exhibition tells more about the geology of the place, which is a very interesting story in itself. There's millions of years of history in the various layers that form the Canyon. It is unique in the sense that the whole place that forms the canyon was uniformly uplifted from greater depths, which normally would cause all these layers to fracture, rotate and mix up the complete pattern. Not so at the canyon: in the whole area the same layers and stacks can be traced. Well, ofcourse all of this was very interesting, but there was something even better: Stromatolites!
The day ended with a somewhat dissapointing sunset over the Grand Canyon (clouds), and after that a nice BBQ on the firepit: perfect!
For the next day I had planned a hike: everyone tells you that it is impossible to go to the Colorado in one day, so I had already put that out of my head, but I did see 'plateau point' from up the viewpoint yesterday, and I wanted to make my way towards that (if possible). If you look carefully you can see a small trail on a triangular plateau jutting out towards the edge of the lower canyon in a number of the pictures: this is plateau point.Ofcourse my morning was again way too short due to the fact that I slept too long, so I actually started my walk at 11:20. The nearby maps described it as 'very hard' and a 6-9hr return journey. I made a deal with myself to turn back at 13:00 and see how far I would get.
Let me tell you that I put myself on a very hard pace: I raced down until 13:00 to make sure I would go as far as possible. About 3/4 of the way between the last (3 mile) hut and Indian gardens I had to turn back. This was however, already in the flatter part of the hike.
I took a little break on the lowest point, and left for the hike back up at 13:15, calculating that it would take about 3 times longer to hike back up than going down, which would get me out before sundown. Let me tell you: at 15:30 I was back at the car... and kinda cursing my cautiousness. However, my old hip injury from Norway was hurting again, so I did know that I set a too fast pace, and that the extra mile going to Plateau point might have been too much to get me back up again in one piece. Conclusion: great hike, incredible to just walk through the different layers of millions of years of history, and very rewarding to get to see the different views along the route. Total distance: 17,5km and about 900m of height difference in 4h and 10min.
For the rest I'll just leave you with some of the great views, and a lot of sweaty selfies.
And ofcourse, a lot more on Picasa:
Day 14: Camp Verde V-bar-V
Day 15: Grand Canyon hike
The evening program featured another camp fire, and going to bed early. More stories and pictures soon.
The last attraction on the list for Camp Verde was the petroglyphs. Ofcourse I had planned on getting up really early, but because of the cold I stayed in a little longer... took at slow breakfast etc. I ended up arriving at the V-bar-V petroglyphs near the end of the morning.
The reason that they're called V-Bar-V is not because of a local script, but because the ranch on which the terrain the petroglyphs had a V-bar-V marking (this is the chimney, which, together with the kitchen counter, furnace, chimney and written history are the only things remaining of the ranch). The area, is again, very very nice. It is located near the beaver creek valley, which is a fertile string of land which runs through the whole area (the Montezuma's sites are also on it). Again: walking around the lush fields, under the shady trees, with the cool river nearby: you can totally understand why the Natives were here.
After the short walk to the site you get to a little fenced rock cliff, where there are a lot of markings on the wall. Luckily there's a 'Docent' around, who could tell us a lot about the markings, and answer questions about them. Actually, not really answer, because most of his answers were of the form 'maybe its ... or maybe it's not'. The stories were pretty interesting though, so I'll try to share a few.
First of all there's two reasons why the petroglpyhs are where they are. First: there are large cracks in the cliffs, which the natives believed (just like the ancient Greek) were entrances to the 'underworld', making this a holy place. A few of the markings nearby to these cracks represent 'good spirits' which were put there to keep the bad spirits in the underworld.
The second reason for the location is because there are two projecting stones, which will cast two crisp shadows across a large flat piece of rock, with a nice beam of light in between: acting as a Natural sun dial. The natives believed this was a way of the gods talking to them. The local rangers did a year long survey of the beam of light and found some very interesting patterns.
First of all there is the symbol for the sun: three concentric circles with a horizontal bar across it. This symbol can be explained in the following fashion: the horizontal bar represents the horizon, and the upper half of the circle the arc the sun makes across the horizon during the day. The natives however believed, that when the sun goes down in our world, it comes up in the underworld. Hence, the lower half of the circle. The concentric circles represent the different seasonal arcs the sun describes: summer and winter solstices and the equinox in between (if my knowledge of astronomy is accurate enough). There are seven of these suns marked on the rock, and they correspond exactly with various moments in the year cycle: solstices, equinox etc are all marked.
Furthermore there are some vertical symbols with horizontal marks across them. These were described by archeologists from the 1900's as 'centipede like creatures'. However, by talking with local natives, we nowadays know that these symbols actually represent maize: their place on the sundial corresponds to the exact planting season! There were other interesting stories, and also various conflicting explanations by different native tribes, so all in all it made for an entertaining morning. After also having a big yellow butterfly landing on a person next to me, and after spending some time enjoying the feeding hummingbirds I left with a magical feeling as well, traveling back in time, trying to understand the people that made these drawings.
The drive up to Grand Canyon would take me through Sedona again, and via a scenic route up to the South Rim of Grand Canyon. The route was pretty scenic, and it was also fun to see some trees and forest again for the first time in weeks. At the end of the Sedona Valley were a lot of hairpins taking me up to greater heights. Turning up to the highway I got a great view of snowy peaks on the horizon: that's something different than the desert:
The drive up to Grand Canyon was pretty easy, and I was a the campsite at about 17:00. This one looked a lot better than the last camping experience: lots of camping sites, but hardly any people, the restroom area nearby. A nice firering with built-in grill, and near the entrance a little house where you could go to a coin-shower and do the laundry as well. Nice! It's too early for camping though, so first to the edge to see how Grand this Canyon really is. Well, I can tell ya: it's huge and stretches itself from horizon to horizon. Capturing this scale is very hard, so you can look at this picture, but better put it on the bucket list to see it for yourself.
A nearby exhibition tells more about the geology of the place, which is a very interesting story in itself. There's millions of years of history in the various layers that form the Canyon. It is unique in the sense that the whole place that forms the canyon was uniformly uplifted from greater depths, which normally would cause all these layers to fracture, rotate and mix up the complete pattern. Not so at the canyon: in the whole area the same layers and stacks can be traced. Well, ofcourse all of this was very interesting, but there was something even better: Stromatolites!
The day ended with a somewhat dissapointing sunset over the Grand Canyon (clouds), and after that a nice BBQ on the firepit: perfect!
For the next day I had planned a hike: everyone tells you that it is impossible to go to the Colorado in one day, so I had already put that out of my head, but I did see 'plateau point' from up the viewpoint yesterday, and I wanted to make my way towards that (if possible). If you look carefully you can see a small trail on a triangular plateau jutting out towards the edge of the lower canyon in a number of the pictures: this is plateau point.Ofcourse my morning was again way too short due to the fact that I slept too long, so I actually started my walk at 11:20. The nearby maps described it as 'very hard' and a 6-9hr return journey. I made a deal with myself to turn back at 13:00 and see how far I would get.
Let me tell you that I put myself on a very hard pace: I raced down until 13:00 to make sure I would go as far as possible. About 3/4 of the way between the last (3 mile) hut and Indian gardens I had to turn back. This was however, already in the flatter part of the hike.
I took a little break on the lowest point, and left for the hike back up at 13:15, calculating that it would take about 3 times longer to hike back up than going down, which would get me out before sundown. Let me tell you: at 15:30 I was back at the car... and kinda cursing my cautiousness. However, my old hip injury from Norway was hurting again, so I did know that I set a too fast pace, and that the extra mile going to Plateau point might have been too much to get me back up again in one piece. Conclusion: great hike, incredible to just walk through the different layers of millions of years of history, and very rewarding to get to see the different views along the route. Total distance: 17,5km and about 900m of height difference in 4h and 10min.
For the rest I'll just leave you with some of the great views, and a lot of sweaty selfies.
And ofcourse, a lot more on Picasa:
Day 14: Camp Verde V-bar-V
Day 15: Grand Canyon hike
The evening program featured another camp fire, and going to bed early. More stories and pictures soon.
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