Karen and Tom Wanderings

With the forecast indicating the weather taking a turn for the worse, we packed up in Kanab, and settled in for our 2-day drive back to Seattle.  But the morning was beautiful.  After passing a sign indicating that Zion National Park was only a right turn and 20 miles away, we looked at each other, and, in a somewhat uncharacteristic display of spontaneity, we took the turn! It went without saying that we were going to hike to the top of Angel's Landing ... a high narrow ridge extending into Zion Valley.  We had done this hike many years ago when the kids were little.  Tom had made the final, harrowing push to the top (complete with chains to grab onto) with Kelsey, but Karen had stayed behind with Brian.  Needless to say, Karen had a need to get to the top (perhaps partially due to her son telling her something to the effect that she was too old to do it now), so off we went.  The crowded trail tested our patience a bit, but we successfully made it to t...

After departing the Grand Canyon, our sights were set on Vermilion Cliffs National Monument.  Specifically, we were headed to Kanab, Utah, a small town situated a little north and west of the Grand Canyon, on the border with Arizona.  Previously unknown to us, it jumped onto our radar as the place you needed to go to get a permit to hike to The Wave ... which we had seen in our calendar.  Apparently, lots of other people across the world have seen pictures of The Wave, too (it was a Windows screen saver), since it seems the town has built a business model around housing, feeding, and providing alternate recreational opportunities for people trying day after day to get a permit.  Typically, there are 100-200 people trying to get the permits, and only 10 given out per day (another 10 are given out online in advance).  Since we were in that general neck of the woods, we thought we'd add it to our itinerary and try our luck. Our first morning in town, we headed o...

We headed to the Grand Canyon from Flagstaff with a sense of excitement, since it was both of our first visits.  And it has such an epic reputation!  An early morning departure delivered us to the South Rim village in late morning, and we immediately caught a bus to the South Kaibab trailhead ... with nary a peek at the canyon.  So, as we hopped off the bus and started down the trail, we got our first views ... and it's huge!!  We hiked down to Skeleton Point (3 miles, 2000' down), which is about half way to the bottom.  It's a well constructed trail, many switchbacks cut into what are essentially cliffs.  No water after the trailhead, and not much shade, either.  But the views were fantastic!  The crowds were a bit thick near the top, but thinned out nicely as we dropped further. Heading down the South Kaibab Trail View looking East from South Kaibab Trail Cliffs below Mather Point (looking west from South Kaibab Trail) Indi...

From Vegas, we headed through Arizona to Sedona.  WOW!  What a place!  The town is built around big red sandstone outcroppings ... definitely National-Park-caliber scenery!  It even came with some of the other features of some National Parks ... crowded trails and traffic jams!  It probably didn't help that we were in the middle of spring-break season!  Our exploration of the town was essentially limited to a drive through on the main drags, since we were staying in a private campground about 20 minutes outside of town.  But we definitely felt a distinct upscale (maybe even swanky) vibe.  Everything neat and tidy, looking "just so", and all the houses falling within a limited aesthetic window. But exploring the town wasn't our primary objective.  Instead, we spent two and half days hiking and biking around the area.  Our first hike was Bear Mountain, and it was awesome .... big views, interesting trail, and low crowds (likely due to t...