Leaving Bryce Canyon

Getting ready to leave Bryce and go to Capitol Reef National Park.  It's only 120 miles so we're planning to get off at the crack of 1000 am:-)  Time flies, we just got here.  
We had a pleasant drive here up a narrow canyon road that climbed up and over a pass at 9800'.  A little narrow and winding but worth it.

Long and winding road

That leads to your door,  whoops, got carried away!

Fall is in the air

We arrived pretty early at Ruby's Inn, the campground closest to Bryce Canyon, a full facility gravel parking lot, well, a little better than that.
Bryce is a fascinating place with the bright colors, the unusual erosion, magnificent views, and of course the famous Hoodoos.  We didn't hike this visit with all but me a bit under the weather, so we drove in the single 16 mile road, stopped at all the viewpoints, took lots of pictures, and went to a nearby town of Tropic for lunch.  Lots of Europeans here this time of year, enjoying the exchange rate.

Incredible erosion

What a view!

Natural Bridge, what colors!

Fairyland

Inspiration Point

How bout them Hoodoos?

Almost surreal

It was a quick visit, but we sure enjoyed this amazing part of this great country!  The weather has been spectacular, cool at night, 39 this am, and warm in the day, mid 70's, and clear as a bell, the smoke is finally gone!

Last day in Zion area

After a long day Monday, we took it pretty easy yesterday.  Started off late with a super lunch at Oscar's Cafe in Springdale.  It came highly recommended with good reason.  Then a leisurely drive out the Smithsonian Butte Scenic Backway with a detour to see the ghost town of Grafton.  It was first settled in 1859 by Mormons, but was abandoned for two years after a massive flood.  They tried to scrape out an existence growing cotton, but found it took all the land they could irrigate to raise enough food to get through the winters.  It was inhabited until the 1920's.  Also of interest, some scenes from "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" were filmed here.  A couple shots.

 The backway is a dirt road bordering on a 4wd trail in a couple places, but easily driven by our two Jeeps.  After a whole day yesterday in our dust, CT took the lead.  A gorgeous day after a storm blew through last night.

CT in the lead

Beautiful view

It was a nice quiet day getting back around 3pm, even time for a nap:)  I slept while CT extricated two plastic forks from his sewer macerator while loving the RV life:-)  Wonder how they got in there???
We're off to Bryce Canyon this morning.

Ups and downs of Zion

Before Nancy and Ct were to arrive, Jan and I ran up to Zion to get some info about the Narrows hike.  The entrance to the park is 12 miles from the campground, and we were commenting on how crowded the roads, campground, and surrounding area were.  As we joined 52 other vehicles at the entrance gate trying to get into the park, my enthusiasm was waning.  When I pulled into the visitor center and made a circuit trying to find a parking place and finally having Jan jump out and go in, my enthusiasm was essentially gone!  Those who know me realize my tolerance for crowds is basically nonexistent.   Jan came back with info on the Narrows hike that basically sealed the deal for us.  As far as we knew the Narrows hike is done mostly in the water up into a very narrow canyon.  Well that is true, but first you hike a mile and a half to get to the Virgin River, then into the 58 degree water that goes from ankle deep to thigh deep and deeper in places.  The weather is a bit unsettled right now so she was also warned that the chance of flash flood was great and there was no where to go to get out of the water.  Those things coupled with the fact you cannot drive your own car into the park, you have to ride on a park bus with 100 of your closest friends to the absolute terminus of the park made us decide not to attempt it.  But still even with the crowds it is a beautiful place so we drove out Rt 9 eastward switchbacking up the cliff and then through 2 tunnels.  The main tunnel was built in 1930 to allow travel out east of the park through a blind canyon towards Bryce and Grand Canyons.  It is 1.1 miles long and was restricted to one way traffic as any large vehicle such as a tour bus or RV has to be escorted through and drive right in the center of the road to avoid scraping the roof of the tunnel.  Pretty cool.  The scenery is fantastic, majestic sheer rock walls with stone that looks like it has been melted and flowed into place.

This is one of the "windows" out of the tunnel

It was a beautiful drive although the road was packed with people.  We got back in time to welcome Nancy and CT's arrival, and had a wonderful visit.

We all got an early start in the morning to first have breakfast and then drive up north through the park on the Kolob Terrace Road to the Kolob Reservoir.  Again, gorgeous views in the varying scenery.

Great vistas

Through an old fire

Dense Aspen groves

 We are seeing more and more signs of fall with the foliage changing, the bright patches of Aspen are intense.

We got to the reservoir  and looking at the map we decided to continue north on dirt and  visit Cedar Breaks National Monument, where none of us had ever been.  It turned out to be an adventure, all on a dusty dirt road of which CT and Nancy got the brunt of, as they were following us in their car!  With the added frustration of a locked gate several miles in, added up to a 105 mile, mostly dirt trip to Cedar Breaks!  But it was fantastic, even with the brisk wind and 50 degree temps.

Incredible views

The colors are amazing!

Very cool, temp as well:)

 Our picnic that we had planned worked out to us being parked side by side in our Jeeps and eating in our respective vehicles, of course passing the Great Poupon back and forth.

We then cut back down to the campground by driving south on the North Fork Road that intersects with RT 9 and goes in the eastern entrance of Zion, so we got to experience that end of the park again.  We got an added thrill when 10-15 Bighorn sheep were passing through.  

The boys

and the girls

 It was a long day but exceptional scenery and great weather.  It was great buzzing around with Nancy and CT!

Zion

We finally got out of most of the smoke 200 miles south of Salt Lake City!  We left early to go to Speedco for a motorhome service.  As you travel around like we do, getting normal service is a challenge.  Where do you do your oil change, chassis lube, filter replacement?  We found out about Speedco about 4 years ago.  One of the unique things about having a motorhome, unlike a car, is although there are dealers around, they usually don't service ALL of your coach.  You go to your own engine manufacturer service facility for your engine issues, Cummins for Cummins, Cat for Cat,or Detroit for us.  You can go to these facilities for simple services, but it is hard to get in, and typically very expensive, a normal service may cost as much as $500 plus!  Well, think of Speedco as Jiffy Lube for big trucks.  They offer a drop in service facility with professional people to quickly service your big truck or diesel motorhome at a very reasonable price.  Example, we pulled into a bay at Speedco yesterday at 0810am, we had an oil change, rear end fluid change, oil, coolant, and fuel filters replaced, the chassis lubed, the coolant checked, tire pressures checked all for $350 and we pulled out at 0920!  They were careful and clean while they worked and they encourage you to watch.  Obviously, we are big fans of Speedco.

We then had a nice drive down to Virgin, UT, a small town about 8 miles from the entrance to Zion National Park.  We were here about 15 years ago when you could still drive your car into the park, now it is all shuttle buses, similar to Yosemite, we'll see.  We hope to attempt the Narrows hike while we are here.  It is a famous hike right up a stream in a very narrow canyon.  We have to get the details from a ranger to see if its a safe hike this time of year, it depends on the water flow.

We are looking forward to seeing Nancy and CT today, they should be pulling in this afternoon.  We'll spend the next 2 weeks with them traveling around southern Utah.  Should be fun!

Still here

We went back and forth yesterday as to what to do and decided to stay another day here in North Salt Lake.  As I said the park is nice, so we took advantage of being around civilization and got some errands done.  Got our Costco fix, got some groceries, found some wine, and had a great lunch at Pei Wei.  We got the new towbar mounted and realized we needed to add a drop receiver to make the arms line up better.  For safety the towbar arms should be level with the attachment points on the toad.  After we got everything lined up and connected, I started up the motorhome to allow it to come to its normal ride height and noticed the towbar tipped up to the front of the Jeep, a no no.  It's okay for it to tip down towards the vehicle by up to 4 inches, but not up.  If the towbar tips up towards the toad, in an emergency stop or worse a collision the toad can climb up and impact the back of the motorhome, not a good thing.  So we went out and found a drop receiver.  A drop receiver basically moves the point either up or down, up in our case, where the towbar mounts to the motorhome.  That is now all mounted and looks good.

We were heading down to Cedar City for two nights so we could visit Cedar Breaks National Monument, but blew that off as neither of us was too excited about going there.  So now our plan is to leave early in the morning, stop by Speedco and get the motorhome serviced, oil change, filters replaced, chassis lube etc, its yearly checkup, then we will go south to Zion if we have enough time.  We were meeting Nancy and CT in Zion on Sunday, so if all goes right, we'll be there a day early.  That way we can run up to Cedar Breaks in the Jeep.

The smoke is still thick even here in Salt Lake City, but much better than the Tetons.  they say that once we get to the south half of the state we will lose the smoke, we can't wait.  

Just so you believe we did see a moose, here's proof.

Munching away

SMOKE! A quick post

I'm just making a quick post until we can get the photos downloaded later today.  We did see a cow moose near the Grand Teton Park, but the intense smoke drove us out.  Our eyes were burning, and you could feel it breathing.  In fact, most of the time on the main park road, you could not even make out the mountains!  So we bailed.
We are now in Salt Lake City, got our new towbar and we're determining what we are going to do the next couple days.  I'll post for real soon.

Victor, ID behind the Grand Tetons

A quick 105 miles down to Victor, ID this morning.  Why Victor, you ask?  Because all the campgrounds in the Jackson Hole/Grand Teton area stink, at least in our opinion.  They are tight, not scenic, and so very expensive.  We found this campground here in Victor back in 1997, and it is even better now.  Nice, big full hook up sites with grass everywhere, nice views, and friendly people.

So, I have been having some issues with our tow bar the last few times we have towed.  The extending arms have been a little reluctant to extend, and a bit reluctant to compress.  Our towbar is a Blue Ox Aladdin, an all aluminum tow bar that is quite light, in fact we bought it for its weight because when we had the motorcycle lift on the back of the motorhome, we had to remove the towbar each time we wanted to ride the bike.   I called Blue Ox customer service and found out that while it was not yet unsafe our towbar has probably reached the end of its life.  After all we have towed over 65,000 miles with it!  Now since we don't have the bike any longer we can go to a different towbar, a Blue Ox Aventa LX, an all steel bar as we are no longer concerned with its weight.  Towbars are fairly expensive, but it is imperative that they work easily and securely to preclude a disaster losing your towed vehicle!  Vern and Viv many years ago lost their toad in the Badlands, miraculously nothing bad happened, but it sure made an impression on us of just how bad it could be on an interstate at speed, especially if it crossed over to the oncoming lane!  So our motto is, don't mess around with the towbar.

We're going to be in Salt Lake City day after tomorrow, so I have been online and calling around to find one.  So we are going to pick up our new towbar on Thursday, and Blue Ox is giving us a trade in allowance on our old bar so it's all good!

Smoke has been thick all day.  There are several fires in the area, we found out the elk preserve and many trails are closed around the Jackson area.  We plan to take a ride to find some moose tomorrow.  Several people have told us where they had seen moose, so we are going to give it a go.  Our moose sightings are even fewer than our grizzly and wolf sightings, so we will see.  Keep your fingers crossed for us.

Yellowstone Part 3, the Finale

We started our last day here with a departure for the park at 0445am in order to get to Lamar Valley by sunrise.  It turned into a white knuckle drive.  We had a pretty good rainstorm last night that got everything pretty wet, so with the wet roads, the temp about 26 degrees, dense fog, the darkness, avoiding the animals made for an interesting trip.  Our favorite view point looked a lot different with the fog filling the entire valley.

A bit before sunrise

We finally get over to Lamar Valley and it looks like a alien planet with the fog pouring down over the hillsides.  Very cool, but not conducive to animal, specifically wolf watching.

We did catch a Pronghorn Antelope buck on the way in.

Early morning in the fog

We cruise the whole valley getting a very good look at..........FOG!  We had to make a decision, should we wait and see if the fog lifts or run over to Hayden Valley?  We decide to compromise and drive out the northeast entrance to Cooke City and back and see if the fog is gone when we get back.  An hour later, no dice.  Oh well, we figure the park is looking very different and interesting even with the fog, and we have had a sensational visit this year so no big deal.  The fog and the cold temperatures gave some places a real winter look.

Brrrrrr

Anyway we head on around to Hayden Valley and man o man the spotting scopes are out at the overlook near the buffalo carcass!  We stop, set up our scope and watch 4 wolves eat and play and finally move off into the woods.  Icing on the cake for our last day in the park.  It's only about 1115am so we decide to do 2 short hikes on our way out of the park.  The hikes were only about a mile each and were into small lakes, Ice Lake and Harlequin Lake.  They couldn't have been more different, both were beautiful and peaceful, but one was surrounded by woods and deep and clear, and the other was covered with lily pads showing signs of the coming winter.

Ice Lake

Harlequin Lake

We got one more goodie on the way out when we spied this elk mom and her calf crossing the Madison River.

Come on little one!

So this ends our visit with Yellowstone Park for this year.  We were very fortunate to see all we did.  It was spectacular!  On to the Tetons for a quick visit,

Yellowstone Part Deux

We have been busy, busy, busy, and having a fantastic time, hence the long break in posts.  It has been an absolutely spectacular visit to the park this year!  It always is wonderful, but we have observed things we have never seen before and feel very fortunate to have done so.  I'll get to that in a bit.  This is a long post, I hope I don't wear you out or worse, drive you away.  There is a ton of pictures that mostly I will keep small to save some room, remember you can enlarge them by double clicking.  

Here we go.  Karen left us Thursday headed to Albuquerque, so we took advantage of that day by washing the coach and the Jeep, pretty exciting so far, huh?  Anyway, up very early and into the park we went.  

First we pass a lone Bison enjoying the peaceful moment.

Taking a rest

Working our way around by the falls on the Yellowstone River and the canyon it formed.

Lower Falls in the distance

Lower Falls

Another beautiful view out to Mt Holmes, a 10,336' peak.

Mt Holmes

After passing one of the guard sentinels of the park,

Watching

we came upon a Coyote intent on catching lunch.  We watched for awhile, and after numerous leaps, he was successful in his endeavors.

Success, and Yummy!

As I mentioned earlier, Jan and I have a favorite overlook where we have heard elk bugling in the distance.  We did get a chance to hear one up close and personal in our entry to the park the next morning well before sunrise, in fact it was almost TOO close and personal!

On the road with velvet still hanging from his rack

He did bugle for us though!  We made our way into Lamar Valley by sunrise, a mere 72 miles from our campground, yeah, I can hear the groans.  It's worth it, believe me.

Sunrise in Lamar Valley

There are two major places in the park where you can possibly see wolves, Lamar Valley and Hayden Valley.  Wolves are what interest us the most, we enjoy the other wildlife, but the wolves are icing on the cake.  This morning we almost missed them.  We drove up the valley searching and searching, going as far east as we had ever seen them, turned around, went back and forth and decided it wasn't our day, so we headed out of the valley.  We were almost all the way out when we noticed a car in a pull off with radio antennas all over it.  A lot of the official wolfers track the wolves that are collared, so we pulled in, and as we did the girl in the car, backed out and headed back into the valley, we turned around again and followed her to the far eastern reaches of the valley to find a gaggle of people out on a knoll about 1/4mile off the highway with tons of spotting scopes.  When you see people with spotting scopes gathered it is usually a sign of something special.  We grabbed our scope and binoculars and camera and off we went in time to see 8 wolves!  The gentleman next to us said they had been watching them all morning and there were actually 9, but we weren't able to see them all.  You have to understand in most cases these wolves are a LONG way off, perhaps as much as a mile, so the scope is a real asset.  Jan did try to take some pictures, but it really was too far.  I have one photo and if you look hard you can make out a black wolf in the center of the picture.  Understand with the scope you can almost count their whiskers!

Black wolf in the middle

Lamar Valley is where most of the Bison move to for the winter, lots of forage, and they are making their way there now.  We saw hundreds of Buff all over the valley.  In addition there were many Pronghorn Antelope as well.  The Elk, the primary food source of the wolves are still scattered about in anticipation of the rut, so they haven't moved into the Valley yet or down towards Jackson, WY, another huge wintering area for them.

Munching away

Calling to his buddies

An Antelope commingling

A teenager

Children playing around

A  Pronghorn Antelope buck

After our fun in Lamar Valley we headed around to Hayden Valley.  They are doing raod construction near Tower Falls on a very narrow road perched over a canyon.  It's down to one lane traffic and right in the midst of the construction, we encountered a bunch of Big Horn Sheep youngsters.

Hazy through the window

I guess the horns grow at different rates?

Cute

Passed another Bald Eagle as we went.

Now, as to Hayden Valley.  There is a popular overlook that is usually busy as it affords a great view out and down the valley where another wolf pack hangs out.  We stopped there with Karen earlier in the week and talked to several people there.  One couple were telling us they had seen wolves very early that morning, but that they had left, and that there was a dying Buffalo up on the hill that had been there for a couple days, but had gone down and was unable to get up.  They pointed out the spot and said you couldn't see it at that point because it was down in the grass, but it would afford a great opportunity for Grizzlies and wolves in the future.  Well, you hear a lot of different things as you travel about, and we could not see any sign of any Buffalo on that slope so we weren't entirely sure if what they said was true.  So we pulled into this overlook after Lamar and looked around and sure enough up on the hillside was the signs of a carcass, several people said they had seen a Grizzly come down and feed on it, followed by several wolves, but all had left.  MAN O MAN, were we disappointed!!!  A few people said that they typically fed on a large animal for several days and that they would probably be back.  So we planned to return the next morning hoping we would be lucky.  I should attempt to describe Hayden Valley.  It is a beautiful expanse of undulating terrain mostly covered with golden grass this time of year, interspersed with patches of sagebrush, bordered by pine forest with the Yellowstone River meandering through.  It is gorgeous!  

We got up early the next morning and got to the Hayden overlook by sunrise to already find 20 people or so.  Sure enough up on the hillside about a mile away were two Grizzlies tearing into what was left of the carcass with a pack of 6 wolves off to the side about 25 yards away waiting their turn!  This was an extraordinary sight!  Again it is just too far to take pictures of, even the folks with huge lens weren't able to do it justice.  I have a photo that just gives the impression of what you could see with your naked eye, the black spot in the center is the carcass.

Dining area
The two larger black dots on the left side are
actually Grizzly bears

This is a scene most folks will never see.  We feel awful lucky to have experienced it.  It was so cool watching for several hours.  The wolf pack called Mollie's Pack and was led by an Alpha female, a dark wolf.  There were 4 grey wolf pups, essentially teenagers at this point.  The Alpha was just lying in the sage, while the pups were jumping and racing around.  Every once in a while one of the pups would go over to the carcass only to get swatted away by one of the Grizzlies, it was too cool!  After a bit, one of the Grizzlies wandered off into the woods, and the fact that there was only one left emboldened the wolves to move in to share in the bounty.  The remaining Grizzly tolerated them for the most part, only swatting when they got too close.  It was a stunning several hours until the Grizzly moved off, the wolves ate for awhile more then sauntered away as well.  What an experience!

While all this was going on a single elk cow wandered along the river about a mile away.

With all the excitement over, we had lunch and went around to Old Faithful.  In addition to Old Faithful itself, the Inn is quite special.  It was built in 1903 and 1904 and is the largest log hotel in the world.  It towers 7 stories all built with logs and limbs.  It has a massive stone fireplace that towers 85 feet tall and is comprised of over 500 tons of stone, it is 16 feet square on the bottom with a firebox on each side.  Most of the inside lobby area towers 70 plus feet above up to the "Crow's Nest", a treehouse looking balcony where musicians used to play.  An earthquake in 1959 damaged the integrity of the hotel so the Crow's Nest is closed to the public now, but construction is underweigh and hopefully soon it will again open to the public.  Here's a couple of shots of the hotel, Old Faithful, and the Upper Geyser Basin surrounding the hotel.

Chimney from the outside

Detail using limbs

Inside the lobby

Fireplace

Crow's Nest

View across the geysers

Old Faithful!

The minerals and acid in the geysers grow other worldly algae

A few Bison hanging out nearby

Water just gushing out of the ground

As we continued around we caught sight of an Osprey that had just caught a fish for his kids.

Lunch in hand

Coming with the groceries!

We did a short side trip along the Firehole River.  There is a very popular swimming hole there in which you can swim and ride the rapids.  We never expected to find anyone in the water at this time of year, but you never know!  I guess if you plan your trip to Yellowstone to swim the river, then by God, you are going to swim the river.

That pretty much winds up this post.  Sorry it's so long, but a lot has been happening.  We are chilling today and will head back into the park before the crack of dawn tomorrow, our last day here.