Anyway, the Grand Staircase refers to steps, so to speak, of different rock layers going down in geologic time. The big canyons are the theoretical steps.
This graphic kind of shows how it works.
This basically means that we've been seeing a whole lot of rocks, in every shape, size, and color. I didn't know that rocks could even DO the things we've been seeing.
Let's start at Bryce Canyon National Park. It's famous for formations called "hoodoos," which are really tall rock pinnacles formed by erosion, and have a bumpy, sandcastle-like appearance. Bryce Canyon is full of them! We did a short hike down into the canyon and back to explore up close. A huge snowstorm blew in while we were hiking, and thankfully blew away without snowing more than a few flurries. It was pretty dramatic. We camped there in the cold; it was definitely in the teens both nights we spent there. Let me share a few of our adventures trying to stay warm.
The campground in the park had a recently updated bathroom facility, which included a small indoor dishes room. This includes hot water and a counter. Let me just say, we were getting pretty stinky by this point, and this hot water was a godsend. We used this little dishroom as our private washrooms, taking sponge baths, doing our dishes, washing our hair, soaking our extremely cold feet. It was wonderful. And only one person walked in one me the whole time. Let's see... what else? Oh, in order to escape the ridiculous cold for a few more hours, we kinda parked ourselves in this motel lobby and used our computers to pirate their internet. We were there for hours, and the staff was eyeballing us pretty hard by the time we felt uncomfortable enough to leave.
Bryce Canyon vista.
Looking down at hoodoos.
Hiking into the canyon.
Hoodoos are even more impressive from below.
The aptly-named "Queen Victoria" formation.
So, this brings us to Zion National Park. It was quite a long drive through Utah to get there, and I think we passed like two cars the entire way. And maybe two houses and one or two gas stations. Whoever lives out there must be really self-sufficient, and really enjoy being isolated for long periods of time. Or "in nature," whatever you want to call it. Zion was a pretty cool park, but not all that distinguished in terms of rock formations or colors, really. The other parks had ridiculous formations like arches and hoodoos, but Zion was just plain cool, judging by sheer cliffs and scary hiking trails.
We spent our first afternoon hiking up the Watchman trail, a 3-ish mile hike switchbacking up a cliff wall. We saved Angel's Landing for the next day, which is about 5 miles up an even higher cliff, finished by a tight-rope walk of a trail across a knife-ridge mountain top that invokes lots of thought of impending death. Also, it was covered in ice. Christy made it all most all of the way, then turned back when the trail got too dangerous and scary. Connor finished it, though it was quite scary.
Zion Canyon.
Mule deer grazing on the canyon floor.
Looking up towards towards Angel's Landing.
Hiking up.
View from the top of Angel's Landing.
The knife-edge ridge.
After that experience, we headed down into Arizona to the Grand Canyon! We hadn't showered in quite a while, were getting really sick of camping in the cold, and were generally ready for a motel room. So, we got a cheap one in Williams, which is an old Route-66 town about an hour south of the Grand Canyon. It was luxurious to have a shower and heat and mattress. Very nice. The next day, we headed up into the canyon national park with hopes to hike a ways down into the canyon. We didn't get very far before slipping too much on the ice-covered trail and turning around to hike back to the rim. So, we didn't have that adventurous of a Grand Canyon experience, but that's just fine with us. Someday we'd like to go back and plan a hike down into the canyon, which would probably be real adventurous.
On the edge.
Flagstaff was next on our destination list, where we visited our friend Sean from William and Mary. We hung out there enjoying familiar faces and making new friends with his awesome housemates for a couple days. We cooked some good dinners together, and had a solid jam session with banjo, fiddle, accordion, djembe, and mandolin. While we were there, we also visited Walnut Canyon National Monument, and Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument during the day, which are both quite off the beaten path as far as National Monuments go. We saw some 800-year-old cliff dwellings, then went and checked out the 1000 year old volcano ash cone. Pretty cool stuff.
Cliff dwellings at Walnut Canyon.
Ash pile near an extinct volcano.
Sunset Crater.
After Flagstaff, we headed to Las Vegas!!! We got a cheap hotel room right on the Strip, casino on the ground floor and all. We pretty much spent the evening and night walking around gawking at the neon lights, celebrity impersonators, and elaborateness that is Vegas. We only gambled away a small portion of our fortunes, but were satisfied with the free drinks we got in exchange.
Hoover Dam.
Chinese New Year decorations.
Year of the Rabbit.
The fabulous ceiling of the Bellagio lobby.
Cher's outrageous costumes.
And after our one un-fortuitous night in Vegas, we high-tailed it down to San Diego, where we are now visiting with two more of our William and Mary friends who just happen to be here in a luxury vacation condo for the week. So here we are in sunny California, bumming around for the morning and then heading into downtown San Diego this afternoon.
AAAAAAAAAAND HERE'S THE GOOD NEWS!! Connor and I both got accepted to an apprenticeship with the Center for Environmental Farming Systems in Goldsboro, North Carolina. The position starts Feb. 21, so we'll be headed back east quite soon. Excitement, excitement.
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