A little break in the action

With our completed hike down into the Grand Canyon, and another trip planned in a few days, we took a few days to explore at a lower energy level.  First we headed over to Lees Ferry noting the Vermillion Cliffs on the drive.  More canyon beauty.

We set up camp at a small National Recreation Area campground and took a walk to where Lee's ferry was in operation at the turn of the 20th century.  When we got down to the "put in" place on the Colorado River, we realized that this was the place that we, along with Michael and our friends, had started our 5 day river raft trip.  It was great to see the River.

Then we headed to Desert View campground on the south rim of the Grand Canyon.  We had been here 4 years earlier, and as remembered, it was quiet with few tourists, and great views of the Canyon.  A day of rest and a time to recharge our batteries for what was to come!

once again, The Canyon is Calling

We hadn't been at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon for over 25 years.  For our return, we camped for 5 days with our motorhome.  The North Rim is a much quieter, more treed, and more rustic setting than the South Rim that we visited last time we were RVing out west.  Our campsite overlooked the rim and even had cell service transmitting from across the canyon from the south rim.




We spent a couple of days checking out the North Rim's Lodge and cabins, and some short walks at the rim.  But the big event came when our RV friends, Gail and Dan, arrived.

The last time we hiked into the canyon was in 1975; a two day trip from the south rim to Phantom Ranch and back.  One of our fondest memories was after we arrived back at the south rim early, we had to beg for a lodge room, and then the next day we could hardly climb the few stairs in the hallway.

This time, we hiked with Gail & Dan down the North Kaibab Trail leaving from the North Rim near the campground.  Our planned route included seven miles each way and 4,200 feet in elevation change, carrying full packs including our tent, sleeping bags, cookware, clothes and food.  We were unable to secure a back country permit earlier, but with our persistence stopping every morning at 8am at the office, we successfully got one of the last campsites at our chosen Cottonwood campground.

What an incredible hike!  There is nothing that compares to hiking into the Grand Canyon with the incredible vistas, the changing rocks, and the trail.  These pictures don't do the vastness and beauty of the canyon.

                 

For our overnight, we set up camp at Cottonwood campground.  Cooked a meal of Mountain House freeze dried food, and went to sleep on a one inch pad.  But who could complain with great company and then the stars came out. Up at 6am to trek back up the 4,200 feet elevation back to the Rim.






As I'm blogging the evening that we returned to our motorhome and the prospect of a nice comfy bed, I know I'll wake tomorrow feeling great.  It's been a few years after 1975, but both of us feel great!  And another change was that this time we hiked in late September with temperatures on the rim in the 50s/30s, and temps in the canyon in the low 70s/50s.  The leaf colors added to the canyon.  Our last canyon trip was in June, and it was hot!

Will the real Bryce Canyon please "stand" up

After spending the last week in red rock hoodoo land, and with our last stop at Bryce Canyon National Park, did we discover that there is more to Bryce than Bryce?  You decide.............
(The correct answer will be at the end of this blog.)

Location #1

Location #2

Location #3

For this trip to Bryce, we camped at
Sunset Campground; a great location being a short walk to the Rim and the Lodge.  The park shuttle now runs after Labor Day, and the bus stop in front of our campground also made it convenient for us to visit hoodoo land.  And the paved bike trail now runs 8 miles in Bryce, so we tried this out; but some pretty steep climbs.

But the best part of Bryce Canyon, is hiking the trails under the rim, in and out of the formations.  For this visit, we chose the Peekaboo Trail with a short connector from Bryce Point.  After a lunch break down in the canyon, we hiked out on the Navajo Trail to Sunset Point.  A shorter hike at under 4 miles, we still felt we got some cardio with some very steep climbs.  And once again, what a wonderful place with all of the rock formations, and a blue blue sky!

Oh........and the answer........#3!

Red Canyon, Dixie National Forest

How many times have we driven Utah Rt12 past this wondrous place.  We probably stopped at the visitor center, but never took any time here.  Well this time, we stopped, camped for three days at an almost full service National Forest campground (no hookups, but a shower!), with the view of the red rocks out of the front of our RV.

Did some biking on the paved bike trail that travels from the US89 intersection, through the canyon, and all the way to Bryce Canyon entrance!  Better still was two great hikes.  Both gave us some climbs of almost 1,100 feet and distances of around 4.5 miles; but the views!!! Wow.  Mark these hikes down, so when you're in the area, you must stop and hike!

The Cassidy Trail to Ledge Point.

The Golden Wall to the Castle Ridge to the Buckthorn Trail -- and this one ended at our campground.

And while we were in the area, guess who we ran into??  Smokey was taking a break from all of the forest fires this year.

We're at Cedar Breaks National Monument (not Bryce Canyon!)

Time to head south to Utah and some of our favorite places...........

After a quick shop at the only Trader Joes in Salt Lake City (where we discovered that they don't sell wine in Utah at TJs), and stopping at a laundromat for our two week cycle; we headed down to a new stop for us, Cedar Breaks NM.

Unfortunately their campground was being renovated, so we stopped at the Cedar City KOA at a negotiated "bare" site rate of just $20.  This is the nicest KOA we've ever stayed at - it really was nice!  After Cedar Breaks, we checked in at Cedar Canyon National Forest campground which met all of our NF camping needs.

But, let's talk about Cedar Breaks.  I know I've been overusing this word, but quite magnificent! We went out to Spectra Point and then we hiked to the Ramparts.  Great views and nice hiking.  CB is a forgotten scenic place that has the Brycish look in a more compact area with more brilliant colors.

Back to the Tetons

Less than three weeks ago we were in the area to watch the Eclipse, but with all of the crowds and our limited schedule, we didn't have time to hike the iconic Cascade Canyon.  Well....the nice part of traveling in our motorhome is that it goes where ever we point it; and we pointed it back to the Tetons!

After driving all day from Red Fish Lake in Idaho, we arrived at Gros Ventre National Park campground.  As the Rangers always say, this campground never fills up, except maybe for a few weekends in August.  .....Well.....We arrived with one of the campground hosts signaling for us to come see him first; and we discovered that the campground was FULL!  Okay, now what to do?  All Teton NP campgrounds are full, and the Jackson KOA is full.  Last resort, Fireside Inn and Campground............they had a space.  Of course $90 instead of $14.  No choice we headed back through busy Jackson and secured a site.  At least there was a Jacuzzi (although not very hot).  The next morning we got up early, secured a campsite at Gros Ventre.

Then headed over to Jenny Lake for our many time delayed hike of Cascade Canyon.  We even got the last RV spot in the parking lot!  Caught one of the first Jenny Lake shuttle boats to the other side of the lake, and started our hike on a beautiful blue sky day.

We now understand why our RV friends did a backpack in this canyon.  Another beautiful hike with incredible views.

The next day, due to thunderstorms and being a little tired, and with company coming for the evening; we hung out and caught up on some house keeping, oops, I mean RV keeping.

Our NJ friends arrived for a wonderful meal and lots of great conversation!  When we decided to come back to the Tetons, we realized that our friends would be in the area on their vacation to Yellowstone.    So we all spent a nice evening together trading tales of our adventures.

Red Fish Lake, in the Sawtooths of Idaho

We found another "favorite place."  Two years ago, we first came to Red Fish Lake; we liked it, but THIS TIME, we loved the area.  Great campsites (this year at Sockeye in a great site overlooking the lake), great hikes, and a lodge that serves great dinners.  More on all of this!

Pulled into Red Fish around 2pm, drove quickly down to the campgrounds, and secured one of the last, but also one of the nicest, campsites.  We backed in with a view out our front windshield of Red Fish Lake, put out our awning, got out our chairs, even hooked up our solar cells (once again no need for a generator), and relaxed!

For the three days we stayed, we used our bikes to get to and from the Visitor Center and the Lodge; only 2 miles each way.  Nice paved roads, and mostly off the main auto routes.  Nice.

Took two hikes, our first and the longest at over 9 miles, and a climb of 1,700 feet, was to Marshall Lake.  The best part was walking along the ridgeline, viewing the Sawtooth Mountains.  Magnificent.  Our second hike was along the Fish Hook Creek, ending at an idyllic meadow. 


This hike was under 5 miles, and much less climb.......a good relaxing walk.

Then there were two traditional meals.  First dinner at the Lodge; a wedge salad, gnocchi, and trout....oh and then to finish the meal with a baked peach cobbler.  Then the next morning, we headed over to Stanley to the Stanley Bakery for breakfast -- even better than remembered.

Route 63 to Ft. McMurray -- Way up North!

Being in western Canada, we headed to see Morey's sister, Terri, and her husband Chris.  We parked BIW in Red Deer, rented a car, and headed north.  On arrival in FtM, we met with Terri & Chris.  They had lost their home a year ago in May due to a wildfire, and are now living in an apartment, hoping to get back by the holidays in 2018 (problems with rebuilding).

Took Ruthie to see the reason for Ft. McMurray's existence, the Athabaca Oil Sand deposits.  There is estimated to be 1.7 to 2.5 trillion barrels of oil contained in the sand.  After over 30 years of open pit mining, work continues.

After leaving FtM, we headed back to Red Deer, dropped off our rental car, and headed back to the USA.  But first on the way, we had to stop at Canada's Deadliest Rockslide.  On April 9th, 1903 a huge rockslide traveling at over 80 mph, buried part of the town of Frank.  82 million tons of rock.

Finally, back across the border near Eureka, Montana.  Unfortunately the heavy smoke from wild fires in British Columbia, Montana, and Idaho caused us to alter our travel plans.  No bike trip on the Hiawatha; we headed straight down to Red Fish Lake, where the smoke was not a factor.  On the way, we did stop for the night at Flathead Lake, where we kept the windows closed and the air conditioner on, to filter the smoky air.

One more day in the Canadian Rockies

We almost missed a visit to Moraine Lake.  Only 12 miles from Lake Louise Village, we didn't have a viable way to get there since RVs are not allowed on the mountain road from 8am to 5:30pm.  Wait a minute!  We can do this, and we did.

Woke up at 6am and headed to Moraine Lake.  With surprising heavy early morning traffic, we arrived at the parking lot at 7:05am with ONE RV spot left!  So we made it.

Watched the sunrise and walked the path around the west shore.  Magnificent!  So glad we made it.

The Canadian Rockies

Leaving our quick two days at Glacier, we drove through the smoke around the Seely Lake, Montana wildfire, and arrived at Lake Louise.  There we met up with our NJ family, Becky, Derek, Shane & Anna.  While they stayed nearby, we camped at both Lake Louise and Jasper.

First stop was Emerald Lake, where Ruthie fulfilled her dream of canoeing on the lake.  This followed a walk around the entire lake with our NJ family.  We finished our nice day by having dinner at the Emerald Lake Lodge.

On our drive up the Icefield Parkway, we stopped for a great hike.  The Parker Ridge trail, led us up a climb of  750 feet, where we had a fabulous view of the Saskatchewan glacier; along with a small lake and even an iceberg! Finally a stop at Athabasca Falls before pulling into Whistler campground in Jasper.

In Jasper, we headed to Maligne Canyon, where we walked the many falls, and then making a wrong turn, we ended up with over six miles, and a climb...........but all beautiful.  Unfortunately, the smoke from nearby wildfires caused our next stop at picturesque Maligne Lake, to not be very picturesque.

Even with the smoke, our hike to Mt. Edith Cavell, was magnificent with Angel Glacier.

Then back to Lake Louise for a few days to finish up our time in the Canadian Rockies.  We took the hike, "Plain of six glaciers", to the Agnes Tea house.  After a 3.5 mile hike and 1200 feet of elevation climbing, we enjoyed a lunch with Becky, Derek, Shane, & Anna.  Then back down the trail to the Fairmont Hotel.  Then a beautiful afternoon to enjoy some wine and appetizers sitting on the veranda.