Bryce Canyon

Another awesome place during this trip was Bryce Canyon.

 

 There are a bunch of these formations called hoodoos.  A hoodoo is a rock formation that looks sort of like a chimney. The top of each hoodoo has a larger rock peak with a thin chimney underneath it , supporting it. This is because the top of each hoodoo is made of a harder, less easily eroded rock, while the sedimentary rock below is easier to wash away with time.

I highly recommend the hikes here. I'm really looking forward to going back so I can do the Rim Trail hikes.

Zion National Park

One of my favorite stops was at Zion National Park:

Zion has two amazing trails that everyone MUST do if they ever go to Zion: The Narrows and Angel's Landing.

The Narrows is a 4 mile hike upstream in very deep, very cold water. Now, on a normal person the water is near up to the shoulders. On me, I would be underwater if touching the ground. Good thing  there were walking sticks to help push me forward in the river. Thunderstorms started rolling in though, so pushing forward was a no go due to possible flash floods.

From there, on to Angel's Landing! The first few miles were super easy paved roads. The thunderstorms hit about 2/3 of the way up. We decided it was best to put on our rain jackets and seek shelter under a cliff overhang only moments before the rain hit. The lightning reflected all the way in the mountain face and we could literally see waterfalls forming down the adjacent mountainside. As 50 and 60 year old couples ran (literally, RAN) down the mountain, we decided it was a great time to practice a new art of hoboneering (aka we laid down in the middle of the pathway and did nothing for an hour).

Once the rain had stopped, the trek continued! The last half a mile was by far the most treacherous. 2000 feet up, and only a chain rail to hold on to on one side, a straight drop on the other. It was exhilarating. The rain had cleared out everyone else. To be all alone on Angel's Landing was incredible. there was a 360 degree view of Zion, peregrine falcons flying by, and a friendly little chipmunk that I followed around.

Unfortunately, the camera with all of the photos was stolen while at the Boiling River in Montana, so I don't have any of those photos to post.

Lone Peak, Big Sky, Montana

Hiked from 7000 ft to 11166 ft over about 2.5 miles. 1.5 of those miles were on this skree slope.

The first trek was pretty nice; trees, moss covered rocks, little creeks. When the trees left we had what was in the picture: lots and lots of rocks. It was a good 2000 or so feet of just rocks. Which is interesting since in the winter months this is a huge tourist attraction for ski/snowboard folk. Good thing enough snow covers the rocks. We saw quite a few jumps set out for snow jumps, as well as jumps for BMX bikers that ride down from the top.

For the last couple hundred feet, we were hiking through the snow. Fortunately, upon reaching the top, we all celebrated, then accidentally disturbed a herd of mountain goats. HUGE! I'd never seen any before, but they had this awesome beards, and were extremely angry we came near. There were 18 or so I believe. The alpha male stood over us on a large rock until we all vacated the area. Good thing they didn't chase us down!

On the way back down to the car, we stopped at about 15 raspberry bushes, and ate nearly all the the raspberries on each bush. Hope the bears didn't mind too much! It was a good back-to-the-car snack.

Overall, it took us all day to do this hike. Surprisingly going up was easy. Coming back down was so steep that I started to just ski-slide my was down the mountain. Which resulted in me falling. Hard. Oh well. I'd definitely do it again, and would definitely recommend it to other people. The view from the top was incredible!