Utah and Las Vegas

Talk about a study in contrast – Utah’s monumental, grandiose natural splendor versus Las Vegas’s monumental, grandiose manufactured opulence.

Donna and I got to experience both on a weeklong trip to the Western U.S. during which we logged a mind-boggling 57 miles of hiking and walking over six days.

We flew to Las Vegas and rented a car to drive to Zion National Park, then to Bryce Canyon National Park, and finally back to Vegas to spend a couple days with our son Jack.

ZION

On the drive from Vegas to Zion there are RV parks and campgrounds like at beach towns there are ice cream shops and mini golf courses.

We chose to go in early October to avoid the summer crowds and high temperatures and failed on both counts. Zion, the more beautiful of the parks in my opinion, with trails that wend through spectacular vistas, peaks, sheer cliffs, the Virgin River, and beautiful foliage, was hot and crowded. The park tries its best to absorb four million visitors a year with a large visitors’ center, a fleet of 120-passenger shuttle buses that continuously move tourists and hikers along the various stops, and Disneyesque queues to board said buses. Despite the crowds, the experience is well worth it.

The sky: Besides the incredible mountains, formations, canyons, and rivers, what really grabs your attention is the remarkable sky – deep, deep blue during the day thanks to the high elevation, low humidity, and lack of pollution, and at night the millions of stars visible without the light pollution from cities.

We did most of our hiking in the mornings to avoid the unseasonal daytime high temperatures nearing 100 degrees. We hired a guide from Wildland Trekking for the first day to help us get the lay of the land. He took us to popular and deserted sites, imparted fascinating information about the geology and history of the topography, and more. Here are a few highlights of our Zion experience:

West Rim Trail to Scout Lookout: The strenuous (1,000-foot elevation) 4.2-mile hike along this trail, like others in Zion, features long drop-offs, so you must watch your step to avoid becoming buzzard food. The lookout point at the end is where the famous Angel’s Landing stretch begins, with the steep climb up and back down a cliff with a single chain shared by hikers going in both directions.

We had opted beforehand to not to do it (you need to apply for a permit ahead of time), and watching those struggling to maneuver the gauntlet affirmed our decision. If you haven’t seen videos of Angel’s Landing, here’s a link.

Watchman Trail: This 3.3-mile, 2,600-feet elevation trail was our favorite hike. We arrived before dawn and for a few minutes got to use the nerdy headlamps we had from a Grand Canyon hike three years prior. As the sun rose it turned the massive peaks bright brilliant gold. It was stunning. At the top we had views of the Towers of the Virgin, the lower Zion Canyon, and Springdale, a terrific bohemian town where we stayed that is filled with coffee shops, fine restaurants, and interesting, iconoclastic people.

Kayenta Trail to the Emerald Pools: Another beautiful hike. We did this late in the morning, at prime time, so we shared the trail with hundreds of fellow hikers. Utah is in the midst of an extended drought, so the pools the trail led us to were neither emerald nor really pools, just dribbles of water. We did spot for an instant a snake of unknown species, one of a very few animals we saw, others being turkeys, chipmunks, and western deer. Not what you would call exotic.

BRYCE CANYON

After three nights in Zion, we packed up the rented Ford Explorer and headed northeast through the Dixie National Forest to Bryce Canyon National Park. On the afternoon we arrived we drove through the park to get our bearings and to find a good location to watch the sunrise and to figure out our hiking strategy for the next and our only day. The ranger at the entrance booth suggested Sunset Point instead of Sunrise Point, without irony.

Much smaller than Zion, Bryce also was less crowded. And while Zion is, to me, the more beautiful of the two, Bryce is unworldly and weirdly stunning with its rust-color hoodoo columns and windows and walls shaped by freezes, thaws, and wind erosion over millions of years. I expected to see the Mars Rover wheel by.

We stayed in Bryce Canyon City, which was similar to Springdale only in that it was about a mile from the entrance to its respective park. Where Springdale had a chill, chic vibe, Bryce Canyon City was a collection of fake cowboy diners, souvenir shops, and all-terrain vehicle rental shops. The next town over, Tropic, seemed nicer and had a very good pizza restaurant we patronized.

The next morning we left the motel at 6am – a half-hour before the complimentary breakfast buffet opened – and parked by Sunset Point at 6:15. The point is a large southeast-facing railinged concrete slab overlooking the vast hoodoo-filled canyon and the horizon beyond.

We had more than an hour to wait but wanted to be sure we had an unobstructed view. There were a few others there before us and over the next 45 minutes a pretty large gathering of hearty souls had assembled to see a singularly awe-inspiring, even spiritual event – something that wasn’t on our bucket list but should be on yours. The canyon’s walls and formations lit up with green, gold, red, brown, rust, and beige as the sun slowly lifted above the rim like a king ascending his throne.

The elevation of the rim of Bryce Canyon is about 8,000 feet, double that of Zion, and your body feels the lower amount of oxygen. Still, it was during our one day at Bryce that we hiked the most distance – a whopping 18 miles. It was not our plan and we weren’t fully prepared.

From Sunset Point on the rim we descended via the Navajo Loop Trail, hiking alongside the mammoth hoodoos and walls to where it picks up Queens Garden Trail in the valley, where plentiful trees and vegetation contrasted with the rocky higher elevations. Near the end of the three-mile hike is a stone that if you squint and are feeling the effects of lack of water may slightly resemble a seated Queen Victoria.

At the end of that trail we walked a mile to the park’s general store, which offers food, water, hiking clothing and gear, showers and laundry facilities. For us day hikers, food and water were sufficient. We bought sandwiches and filled our water bottles (we had brought two-liter water bladders for Zion but thought we wouldn’t need them for Bryce, so we left them in our room). From the store we walked another mile to the trailhead of Fairyland Loop Trail.

We planned to hike a mile and a half or so to Tower Bridge, a striking natural formation, then backtrack to the trailhead relatively near the store. But the hike down – a descent of 760 feet – was through barren, exposed, salt-like geography. Donna said it was like hiking through a quarry.

We arrived at the shaded, oasis-like viewing point for Tower Bridge, ate our sandwiches, and decided to bypass the quarry and take the long way up through what we hoped would be a more scenic hike. That way added a mile and a half to our route and spit us out miles north of the general store, which was a couple miles north of our car at the Sunset Point parking lot.

But we were dauntless, and off we went. The scenery was indeed more comely than on the way down. The ascent was alternately downhill and uphill, so we cursed the downhill sections because they foretold of future, bigger climbs. Our water diminished and the sun shone strongly.

At last we arrived where the trail ended at the rim trail. I was pretty dehydrated but we made our way to the store, found a picnic table, drank gallons (it seemed) of glorious water, ate salty snacks, and relived our arduous journey. Refreshed after a brief rest, we strode to our car, drove to our motel room, and collapsed.

LAS VEGAS

The next morning we enjoyed a huge breakfast at the motel’s buffet, packed up, and headed to fabulous Las Vegas. My friend and former boss Jennifer lives in Cedar City, midway between the two national parks, and we arranged to meet.

Our navigation system serendipitously directed us to the Route 16 Scenic Byway, with spectacular views through Dixie National Forest, with towering Ponderosa pines, shimmering aspens, and cottonwoods whose leaves had turned bright yellow, at elevations just under 10,000 feet.

We met up with Jennifer and had a nice reunion, catching up on our families and office colleagues, then finished our drive into Sin City. Donna had booked a room at the Fontainebleau, one of the newer hotels on the northern edge of the famed Strip, and we were assigned one on the top, 70^th floor. The views – of the city, the Sphere and its ever-changing skin, the nearby airport, and the Spring Mountains – were remarkable. We missed by one day the demolition of the fabled Tropicana hotel, one of the original venues that opened in 1957, to make way for the ballpark for the relocating Oakland A’s baseball team. As one publication put it, the continual destruction and replacement of buildings on the Strip is how Vegas molts.

Our son Jack had arranged to meet up with us and was staying in the same hotel. Jack and his wife are frequent visitors to Vegas and he served as guide and tour director. We saw the Cirque du Soleil’s Ka show (fabulous), ate at grand restaurants, and wound our way around the Strip, touring Jack and Erin’s haunts. Jack maneuvered through hallways that connected hotels, casinos and plazas to keep us out of the 100 degree heat as much as possible. Most important, we got to talk and laugh with each other for hours.

We had an outstanding, exhausting, joyous trip. We’re getting older and we don’t know how much longer we’ll be able to take on such travel, but as long as we’re able (and the money holds out), we’ll keep scheduling these mind-expanding adventures.

Here are more photos...

ZION