Tuesday, October 24, 2000
Still Glendale, UT - Oct 24
We spent a day driving and hiking on Cedar Mountain, as it is called locally. It is technically the Markagunt Plateau. We went in lava tubes (Mammoth Cave), saw a big spring (Mammoth Spring), had a picnic at Cedar Breaks in the snow, went to where a waterfall is supposed to shoot out of a rock face (but was only a trickle) and out to a lovely scenic overlook (Strawberry Point). We also went to Ice Cave, which is supposed to "amazingly" have ice in it all year long. It's another lava cave. But since we drove (in 4wd) thru mud & ice & snow to get there & it was surrounded by snow, it wasn't too amazing to see the ice.We spent another very full day driving down to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. There's another place we could easily spend a month! It was technically "closed" but they allow you in and even to camp as long as there isn't a big snow storm. There were still quite a few people. We went to all the overlooks and hiked around some. We left just as the sun was setting and saw a bobcat on the way out. It stopped just before going into the trees to look us over, so we got a real good look at it. We also enjoyed seeing the Kaibab squirrels, a dark grey squirrel with a snow white fluffy tail, which is only found on the north rim. In addition to the NP, there is lots to see & do throughout the Kaibab Natl Forest, which surrounds the Grand Canyon. In our short time there we saw several "new" birds -- Williamson's Sapsucker, Townsend's Solitaire, Ruby Crowned Kinglet (we had "seen" these before but never well enough to identify them on their own, since they rarely sit still!), and Pine Grosbeak. Other interesting birds we have seen recently but forgot to put in the emails are Northern Goshawk (in trees at higher altitudes), American Dipper, Brown Creeper, House Wren, and Plumbeous Vireo.
We went back to Zion for one last hike, and it was a beauty. It was an 8-mile hike with 2150 elev gain up to Observation Point, the highest overlook in Zion. The view was spectacular! And the hike went through narrow Echo Canyon for about a mile as an added bonus. We also hiked in the Paria-Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness area, about halfway between Kanab, UT, and Page, AZ. We did a short (about 2 miles in) hike down a slot canyon called Wire Pass. It had several places where we had to scramble down some dry waterfalls (and back up!), so that added to the adventure. At the junction with Buckskin Gulch, there were some interesting petroglyphs.
Everywhere you drive around here has spectacular scenery. You want to take every side road just to see where it leads. Kanab, UT, is a very pleasant little town. It's slogan is "The Greatest Earth on Show" and that is the truth!
We continued to volunteer at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary every few days. We have enjoyed working with the cats there a lot and will miss spending time there.
We were planning to attend a community orchestra concert last Saturday. One person we met at Best Friends turned out to be the concertmaster. When he found out we had played in many community orchestras, he invited us to play. He even loaned Willie a violin! Since it was a pops concert, dress was casual, so that was no problem. So we made our Symphony of the Canyons debut, sightreading the music!
# posted by Doug and Willie @ 9:14 AM 
