| Submitted by: Evelyn C. LeeperUnited States |
| Submission Date: 15 February 2005 |
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We
walked in that direction, but when we got to that end of the campground, he
was sitting catching his breath and said that he had found out it was almost
twice as long that way. So much for trusting amateurs.
We had been planning to attend a geology walk at 2:00 PM, but it turned
out to cover the Bright Angel Point Trail which we had already hiked. So we
decided to get a quick lunch at the snack bar and do a little shopping in
the gift shop.
At 2:05 PM, we drove to Cape Royal. This was a long way out on a
winding road, and we were going to end up driving back right after the first
hike for a 4:00 PM history talk and the lodge, then *back* to Cape Royal for
another trail. Grossly inefficient, but the morning closure of the road
meant we couldn't do the two between the two talk as we had planned.
The Cape Royal Trail was a short rail, mostly to observe the
vegetation, but also providing a good view of Angel's Window (a hole carved
through a promontory), and a view from on top of the promontory it is carved
from (called Angel's Window Point, one supposes). It's not a place for
someone with a fear of heights, since even though it is fenced, the sheer
drop-offs combined with the wind will make most people nervous. It does
have a magnificent view though.
We finished this by 15:25 and by driving like maniacs were able to be
back at the lodge only a couple of minutes late for the 4:00 PM talk. The
ranger was talking about the fact that prehistoric burial cairns have been
found, and that to the Indians this is still a sacred place, because the
Blue Colorado Gorge has a spring the Hopis call 'sipapu,' or 'place of
emergence,' the place where they believe their tribe emerged from the world
below.
The most well-known area tribe are the Havasupai (whose name means
'Guardians of the Canyon') who live in one of the side canyons. They used
to farm, but now tourism is their main source of income (from campsite and
horse rentals) and everything they use comes in by helicopter. (The ranger
said that the tribal police now use go-carts instead of horses or mules.)
And they have satellite dishes, even though the North Rim doesn't.
After the Indians came the Spanish. In the 1540s Coronado was looking
for the Seven Cities of Gold but found his way blocked by the Grand Canyon.
He had no idea how deep or wide the canyon was and thought the river was a
six-foot wide stream. Garcia Lopez de Cardenas of his party tried to get
down, but the Hopis wouldn't tell him where the trails were, so he failed.
No other Europeans tried until 1776, when a missionary (Anatnasio Dominguez
or Silvestre Velez de Escalante?) also didn't have much luck and left. In
1857 the Army thought of using the corridor to move men and equipment, sent
Lt. Joseph Christmas Ives with a paddle-wheeler to come upstream, but he
struck rocks and the boat sank. 'It [the Grand Canyon] looks like the Gates
of Hell,' he said. 'The region ... is, of course, altogether valueless.
Ours has been the first and will undoubtedly be the last, party of whites to
visit the locality. It seems intended by nature that the Colorado River
along the greater portion of its lonely and majestic way, shall be forever
unvisited and undisturbed.'
In 1869 Maj. John Wesley Powell, popularized the name 'Grand Canyon.'
He named most of the features of the region. For example, he named a clear
stream 'Bright Angel Creek' because he felt guilty about naming a dirty
stream 'Dirty Devil,' that being considered strong language at the time.
After this, 'the last blank spot on the map' of the United States was
filled in. Then exploration stopped and exploitation began, beginning with
miners. But mining wasn't very profitable, so some miners became tour
guides. One such, Capt. John Hance, has lost a finger in mining accident,
but when people asked him about it, claimed he wore it off pointing to all
the scenery.
The ranger claimed that it was only at the end of the last century that
people started thinking of landscape as scenery, but I suspect that is not
true, and will definitely check Maxine Feifer's TOURISM IN HISTORY when I
get home.
However, landscape is certainly scenery now, and with 50,000 cars a day
on the South Rim and only 7000 parking places, something has to change. A
shuttle is definitely in the works for South Rim, and maybe for the North
Rim as well. This will work if it's made attractive, but some of the
proposals I've seen seem unlikely to do much good. At Zion, for example,
they propose charging US$2.95 for a shuttle between the lodge and the main
road. For a family of four that's almost US$12 (one-way?).
There was the usual history of the National Park Service and this Park
in specific. Yellowstone was the first National Park. Theodore Roosevelt
loved the North Rim, and made it a National Monument, but economic interests
(miners et al) blocked National Park status until 1919. But finally
Roosevelt's request was honored: 'Leave it as it is. Nature's been at work
on it for millions of years and we can only mar it.' (Well, except for roads
along the rim and such.)
And what will happen in the future? (I idly wondered what would change
if we discover greater wonders on other planets. Will this be as
important.) The ranger closed with a quote from J. B. Priestly who, when
told some people are disappointed here, said, 'That's like being
disappointed at the Day of Judgement.'
After this we decided to skip the second hike at Cape Royal and instead
drove to Imperial Point for a view of Zoroaster's Temple and the Painted
Desert from the 8803-foot (2683-meter) viewpoint.
We returned to Kanab, stopping in Fredonia for dinner at Nedra's about
8:00 PM (MDT). Service was very slow, and we didn't get back to Kanab until
9:00 PM. (We never did get to Pipe Springs National Monument.)
Minimum elevation: 4925 ft (1501 m).
Maximum elevation: 8803 ft (2683 m).
Distance driven: 230 miles (370 kilometers).
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After an early breakfast, we left Kanab and drove to
Zion National Park, arriving about 8:45 AM.
Because we came in from the east, we drove past a lot of what there was
to see before even arriving at the Visitors Center. A landslide in April
blocked a river, which changed course and washed out part of the road
loading from the crossroad through the Park to the lodge. Unfortunately,
this road is also the Scenic Drive, and most of the trailheads are near the
lodge and all this is inaccessible while they are rebuilding the road (which
they hope to have done by May 27). In spite of this, however, the admission
price is still the usual US$5 per car. (In the Netherlands, if a large part
of a museum is closed, they discount the admission.)
But even the 'non-scenic' drive had lots of scenery. At the east end
of the road, we saw mostly petrified sand dunes, but as we drove west, we
started seeing massive (and I mean *massive*) stone cliffs. (For some
reason, the word 'massy' comes to mind and sounded more massive than
massive.)
Because so few trails were open, we decided to do a moderate trail as
well as the one easy trail that was open. The moderate trail was the
Watchman Trail, a two-hour round-trip hike to the base of the Watchman, a
large stone formation overlooking the west entrance of the Park. This was
easier than some of the easy hikes we had done. First of all, we started
earlier (9:00 AM) in cooler temperatures than other hikes. Second, because
the climb is up the west face, we were in shade most of the way up. And
third, we did the climbing at the beginning of the hike; coming back was
downhill.
We took a break from hiking and retraced our driving to the east end
and back. Because Mark had been driving in, he hadn't had much chance to
photograph, or even observe, the scenery, so I drove this time and gave him
a chance to observe.
At 1:00 PM we went to walk to the Canyon Overlook. There is parking
for twelve cars at the trailhead and easily five times that number parked
along the road. Because this was the only easy trail open, everyone wanted
to hike it. Normally, everyone would be hiking the three or four easy
trails up by the lodge (and the lodge parking lot).
This trail, while not involving large elevation changes, is not for the
faint of heart, with drop-offs (mostly fenced but not always), slickrock,
and the general appearance of at least some danger. The view at the end is
impressive, including many of the points at the end of the Scenic Drive.
This took about an hour, and at 1:00 PM we left this part of Zion
National Park and drove north along I-15 to Kolob Canyons, another section
of the Park, which is accessible only by leaving the Park unless you have a
4-wheel-drive vehicle. In Kolob Canyons there is basically just the Scenic
Drive (this one is still open) and some strenuous trails. So we drove into
the canyons from an hour--actually it's more than one drives along the side
of a mountain facing the canyons.
At 3:15 PM we left and drove to Cedar City, right nearby, where we got
a room for US$37.06 including tax (a less touristed area, except in June
when the Utah Shakepeare Festival is held here). We did some grocery
shopping and then went to dinner at 4:30 PM at the Market Grill, a
restaurant at the livestock yard, which had very good barbecued beef ribs
(one doesn't see pork ribs around here).
After dinner, we stopped at Mountain West Books so I could research it
for the bookstore lists I maintain. This is the only bookstore in Cedar
City (except for a used book store which seems to be part of a comics
store), and is primarily LDS material. This means not just lots of
missionary books (including language tapes such as 'Japanese for Latter-Day
Saints' designed specifically for missionaries), LDS books, and LDS fiction,
but also missionary tchatchkas like baby t-shirts saying 'Future
Missionary,' key rings saying 'I (heart) my missionary,' and so on. I noted
that while they had most of Orson Scott Card's works, his historical novel
SAINTS was with his science fiction rather than either fiction or LDS
novels.
Minimum elevation: 4925 ft (1501 m).
Maximum elevation: 5054 ft (1540 m).
Distance driven: 149 miles (240 kilometers).
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Today is mostly a day for driving from one part of the
middle of nowhere to another, though a lot more of it.
After breakfast, we took Route 14 east for 40 miles (64 kilometers).
This took us past Cedar Breaks National Monument, which we had planned to
visit. However, in the Kolob Canyons Visitor Center there was a sign posted
that Cedar Breaks was still closed because of snow and would open May 27th.
Driving by, we could understand why: there was still two feet of snow on
the ground and getting the road to it plowed and cleared was a non-trivial
task.
We also did not get to Great Basin National Park this trip. This is
such a new National Park that it doesn't appear on any of our maps or in any
of the books. |
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| Copyright © - "Evelyn C. Leeper" |
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