canyon

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Revisiting Bryce canyon after 20+ years

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The previous post in this series is here..

The first plan was to start driving from Zion at 4 AM to see sunrise at Bryce. By majority vote (everyone except me that is), this plan was vetoed, torpedoed and buried faster than I could explain. So we left at 6:30 AM and drove to Bryce. It was a beautiful drive with the windows down for the most part.

We parked our car at the store and started hiking from there. The trail to sunrise point is close by. We went through sunrise point, the Navajo trail to Queen Victoria, then came back through the Two Bridges, a little steep but shorter. We ended up at sunset point. From there we walked to the Bryce lodge and had a nice lunch. We were the second group waiting in line to be seated. We had to wait for 15 minutes and they opened promptly at 11:30. We had finished lunch and were out of the gift store by 12:30. There was still time to add one more stop to our trip and still make it to Las Vegas airport in time. So we walked fast from the lodge to the store and I made a dash for the next stop.

This is is pretty much everything we got from the morning at Bryce.. the memories of the smiling faces.. priceless!

The nature galleries..

Portait format photos.. I clicked a lot more but these are the highlights.. as for why I am smiling so much, Angels landing. has been on the bucket list for a long long long time. So I was just feeling so happy!

A video highlight of the Bryce experience..

The pictures here do not do justice to the scenic beauty of Bryce canyon. If you go to Zion, don’t miss Bryce.

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Zion National Park- Narrows

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Over the last three days we made a quick visit to Zion National park as we got a permit a few months ago to hike up to Angel’s landing.

If there is one picture that will stay in my head for a long long time after this trip, it is this one.. she did not know I was clicking it. The sunbeam that hit the pole as though it was a magical light saber and the beatific smile of content…

We left early on a Friday morning from San Jose to Las Vegas, rented a car and drove to Zion. Took this photo from the flight while crossing over to Nevada and was worried that we might have to tredge through ice and snow.. Fortunately none of that in Zion.

It took us a little over 2 1/2 hours. We stopped right at Zion Guru to get the rented gear to walk through the Narrows. This process took us 30 plus minutes. We ate a quick packed lunch right after, then parked the car at our hotel and had to take a shuttle into the park visitor center which added 20 minutes. Then another shuttle from Visitor center all the way to the last stop which took another 40 minutes.

Two things threw us off. First, we were very disappointed with Avis. The van they gave us was smelling of cigarette smoke. Apparently a big problem in Vegas these days with returned rentals. There are signs everywhere on the van that say 450$ cleaning fee. Still no one checked. We could wait an hour to go back inside and try another van (minivans are not easy to come by) or start driving. So we called, complained and kept driving in hopes that there would be some other Avis location en route where we could swap cars. Time was precious. While some of the folks were doing the talking, I covered my nose and mouth and kept driving. We stopped at one place to get some chlorox (the van was dirty in the back) and febreeze and sprayed the car with no reprieve. Then we kept windows open and tried everything. This cost us another 30 minutes.

Then the clock changed forward an hour and our heart sank. It was also confusing as where we go through a sliver of Arizona state where the clocks flip back and forth. We had miscalculated the time difference. The extra 30 minutes we took could make a difference on how far we went in the Narrows. When we started hiking from the Temple of Shinawava shuttle stop it was almost 2:30 in the afternoon. The last shuttle back to the visitor center leaves at 7PM and the gear shop closes at 8PM. That meant we had 4 hours to hike up the river and get back with a 30 minute cushion in case of any emergencies.

The plan was to turn back after two hours no matter where we were. We had the gear, so the water being cold was not a problem. Now that we had all resigned to the time limitation, we made the most of it. The plan was to walk fast, but the beauty of the place and the experience made it impossible as we had to stop and take photos. Photographers had to walk faster! Doing this on a hiking trail is one thing. Doing this while wading through water and slippery rocks is a higher level challenge.

Happy wife makes for a happy life. She was smiling all through this trip and that made my day. Haven’t walked this fast anywhere in recent times. Here are photos of us..

and here are the few clicks of the scenery…

and a video highlights reel..

None of the images above or the video do any justice to the actual experience of walking the narrows. We went a little past “wall street” towards Floating rock, which was another 5 minutes away from that point maybe.. but we did not want to take a chance. so we came back. If you visit Zion, see if you can take the extra day to start on this early in the morning so you can spend a good 6 hours and catch everything. 4 hours is too tight.

Do not miss this experience though. Our first visit to Zion was in 2004 December (predates the blog) and our little one wasn’t born yet. With Jr. in a stroller we could only walk across a bridge from Zion lodge to the lower lake and stop by along the road to take photos. There was no shuttle then. You could just drive through the park. To think that 20 years later we could actually do this trip and hike to all these places is a dream come true. Kids are 20 year projects! The last twenty plus years flew by fast with the focus on getting them to be adults. Now we get to see places together with friends. We are lucky to have the energy, means and the one or two days off here and there each year to be able to do this.

Given the blog only goes forward in time and you can trace back from posts that easily I will write a summary of the trip after finishing all the posts with links to all posts.

In spite of the time crunch we made it to the last shuttle and returned gear on time. It was back to our cabins to have a packed dinner and go sleep. I did fall down once within sight of the place where we get out of the water. Had to walk a mile in wet shirt in the cold. A few tylenols later things were fine.

We saw folks walking without any gear. They did not go far but still they are blessed to be able to handle the cold.

Do not miss this experience if you are in Zion. Plan well ahead.

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Nature trip in Arizona Part 4: Antelope canyon boat tour

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The previous post in this series is here..

While eating the tamarind rice and choking on it, I asked San "arent we supposed to be on a boat tour today as well?" and she goes "In the interest of time I did not book it!".. a few tears and sentimental dialogues that would seriously make Sivaji Ganesan hand over his Chevalier award to me, we called the tour operator and were confirmed for the 5PM (last) boat tour of Antelope Canyon. We were asked to be at the dock 15 minutes before and the dock was 15 minutes from our hotel. 

We decided to take a power nap for an hour and head out..  

it was Antelope canyon day.. a tour all morning, a tour all afternoon and now for the evening a boat tour.

We realized while entering the dock that the boat tour fees did NOT include the entry to the dock which was part of the National park service. If you don't have a National park pass, you have to pay 30 $.. if you do enjoy national parks, strongly recommend you get the annual pass for 80 bucks.  It is always a good thing to support our national parks!

Seeing natural wonders gives me more goosebumps than visiting any temple. Keep telling my family that if you want to realize god, go to a National park and take a look from any vista point!  Or look at the smiling face of your spouse or children.. while the second option makes you mentally happy, you don't get the exercise.. so go to the parks!

The boat tour was great! we got waterbottles on the boat and a tourguide who was local and gave us a personalized tour as we spent an hour on a boat going through the canyon on water! 

Loved it through and through!

a photo gallery of the nature pics..

 

Once done, we decided to go find dinner in Page. The first mexican place we went to had a 45 minute wait. So we went to the second one and were promptly seated. The food was amazing as was the service. 

my models did not disappoint!

Video highlights reel of the boat tour and back..

The next morning was going to be an all day drive back to Phoenix after a few stops. So we decided to hit the one big super Walmart in the area before going to bed. Have not seen a store this big in my life! Stocked up on some yogurt, bottled water etc. for the return trip and made it back to the hotel.

Day 2 of the trip was done!

Copyright © 2012, Sundar Narayanan. All rights reserved.