Tyler's family and Bryce

After our magnificent hike in Zion we drove to Tyler's hometown: St George. We stayed at his cousin Sonny's house. He lives there with his wife Marina and daughter Mia and has two guest bedrooms. Sonny had to work really late (he works in road construction) because a piece of road had to be finished before the weekend (it later became clear it was one of the road reconstructions that caused us delays ;-)). Sadly we could only chat for a little bit because he would have to get back to work again on Saturday morning (working long, long days). Mia, their little daughter was fun to have around, she first thought I was a robber because I used my english name Robert to introduce myself. It took some convincing to get her to think otherwise :-).
Saturday was a slow day for us. We did the laundry, recovered from the hike in Zion. I had another laptop to fix, pictures to upload and blog posts to write. We did some grocery shopping and by the end of the afternoon Tyler showed me around St George a little. We went to Dixie rock, a local viewpoint where a lot of family's were hiking around and barbecuing. Nice to climb a little and enjoy the nice views of the city (Tyler pointed out places where he had lived).

Afterwards he showed me the local paintball court (he does quite well in competitions), and we went to a nice nature area (Snow Canyon). We had no time to really explore it (entrance fee required), so instead I just drove up to a viewpoint, which actually had a very nice view of it, which Tyler did not know yet (there are a lot of lava fields from a volcano eruption years ago).
We wanted to be back in time to catch some time to chat with Sonny, but when we came back Tyler's Grandmother was actually there. Marina told us that Sonny would be late again, but Tyler had been telling me about the frybread that his grandmother makes (the best there is), and she offered to make us some. See below to learn how that is done.

Youtube: http://youtu.be/YyxL8jj71xs

We had a nice meal of frybread with taco filling by the time Sonny was home and it ended up a very nice evening chatting with everyone in the family. And indeed, the frybread was the best I've ever tasted!

Next morning it was time to leave: the family had to go to a kite festival to celebrate Mia's reading accomplishments and Tyler and I had to get to Bryce. Bryce is something else all together. It is a place where rock colors and erosion have created a surreal landscape of pillars (called hoodoo's), canyons, arches, trees and cliffs. Words do not suffice to describe it, so I shall drop a few pictures here, but please check out the large galery on Picasa if you want to get an idea of what Bryce is like.

The black dots on the cliff on the right are people

Almost at 9100ft, a US height record for me so far

The first day we used the car to drive along all the different viewpoints, which was quite a drive. Ofcourse sometimes we got out and hiked a small way to a viewpoint, but it was mostly driving, all the way to the heighest point at 9100ft above sea level. We planned on doing a hike in the canyon the next day, but before that Tyler had a little 'hat hunting' thing going on. He didn't have anything to cover his head with at Zion, which, after all the sweating, convinced him that he would need something. At Bryce he spotted a hat down a little chute someone had left behind (wisely, because it was a large drop down the cliff if you slipped and fell). Ofcourse Tyler had to get and get it. 

He actually got two baseball caps for the effort of getting one. However, what he really wanted was a full hat (to be continued). By the time we started our drive back to the campsite (we got a camp site on the park's campgrounds when we entered) it was getting towards dusk. This is the time the local wildlife gets out, and we spotted two groups of deer along the way.

By the time we got to the campsite it was nearly dark, so I prepared a meal really fast, while Tyler got his camping gear out. We wanted to go to an astronomy and star watching evening at the visiotr center, so we rushed cooking, eating, and getting more warmly dressed. Five minutes before it would start we rushed off to the visitor center. Once there we found a ranger in front of a fence, telling us that the visitor center would soon be closing and that there was only this reading going on which would end very soon. We were like wtf?! Chatting a little more exposed the problem: Bryce is on Mountain time, just as the Navajo reservation but not the rest of Arizona :-(. -1 for Tyler and his local knowledge ;-).

We went back to the campsite and got ready for the night, which had come one hour sooner than we had expected. For Tyler's campsite we positioned the table in such a way that it would block the wind and be close to the fire, with my poncho draped across it to make a wind shield. 

The next morning we woke up to discover snow! However, the tent worked and Tyler actually got some sleep. We dressed very warmly because we wanted to do the hike in Bryce Canyon. When we showed up at the canyon the sun was out, and once we got into the canyon and out of the wind it was waaaaay too warm. The canyon itself looks very nice though, with the sun really getting the colors of the rocks to pop out. Once we're about half a mile onto the track, Tyler spots another hat, and this time the one he really wants. It is located on a very steep chute though, with no way down (except a sheer drop). After some deliberation, and me declaring him nuts, he jumps in when there's no other tourists around and grabs the hat. His first attempt at scrambling back up fails however... There are already some people coming by and asking if everything is alright... Tyler takes his shoes off and attempts another time. This time he makes it halfway up, and with a hand from me he makes it out of the chute.... crazy adventures but he has the hat he wanted (and for free!).

The walk itself is amazing again. Now you're right in the middle of all the crazy shapes and colors, and each turn has new surprises to it. You also get a much better sense of scale of the canyon. There were warnings about Cougars and other wildlife inside the canyon, and once you start walking around in it, you really get a sense of how big it is and how many hiding places there are: we even spot a deer inside the canyon! Again, I will add some pictures here, but please check out Picasa for the full set.

Note the 'new' hat

When we get out of the canyon the weather turns: it is snowing and a little while after also hailing: this is turning into a storm! We have to get into the car to get to Moab, so this is not that much of a problem (as long as the weather is better in Moab). Along the way it gets worse and worse however...

At Moab itself however the skies were blue again. I checked internet for recommendations on local campsites and found some nice roads to check out. Kane Creek Canyon looked most promising, but more about the campsite we found there in the next post.

Picasa links:
Day 21: St George
Day 22: (Road to) Bryce
Day 23: Bryce hike and road to Moab