Hiking at Bryce Canyon- Day 17

Yesterday we decided to explore Bryce Canyon by doing a 4.3 mile hike, connecting the Peek-a-boo Trail and the Navajo Trail.

We hiked down these switchbacks, walking through the maze of Hudos. 

We hiked through this fun tunnel!

The Hudos were huge and had a way of making us feel so small!

We were amazed by the size and shape. The Hudos were so different than anything we had ever seen and while it was beautiful it was also eerie in a way.

The squirrels here were tiny and so cute! Clearly they have been fed by humans because they were very friendly, pausing to pose for a photo shoot!

At the end the hike we were rewarded by seeing "Thor's Hammer"

It was a fun, beautiful hike but we were very tired afterwards from all the hiking we have been doing and the high elevation we were at (about 8,000 feet).

After our hike, we went to this small store to get ingredients to make tacos!

We then went back to our campsite and sat in the hot tub for a bit to relax our muscles. It was wonderful! We then spent a good part of the afternoon reading the books we brought that we haven't had time to read.  After reading and relaxing by the pool we went back to make our tacos. They were delicious. After dinner we made s'mores. Matt had the idea to add peanut butter to them. I'm not sure why I have never thought of doing so before, it was delicious and might be the most dangerous thing we have done this whole trip! Peanut butter will now be an essential ingredient for our s'mores! 

Today we are off to Arhes National Park! We will get there mid afternoon today and have all day tomorrow at the park. If you have suggestions as to what we should see and do, please share!

A Taste of Bryce Canyon- Day 16

Yesterday we left Zion National Park to head to Bryce Canyon National Park. It was a short two hour drive!

When we got there we reserved a campsite right outside of Bryce Canyon. We love the campground! It is so nice! We are surrounded by tall pine trees and a lake. All of the facilities are also really nice. The owner of the campground seems to own all of Bryce City because there is a hotel, grocery store, general store, and restaurant all attached to the campground we are staying at and there is not much else in the town outside of his ownership!

After setting up our tent, we drove to Bryce Canyon National Park. We were excited to drive under this little archway!

We pulled over at the roadside pull offs to get a closer look at the beauty. 

It was remarkable!

The tall pillars are calle Hudos. They are formed by the erosion of the rocks from wind and rain. The white rock on top forms as a protective layer and takes longer to erode. This is why the Hudos are sometimes thinner and thicker in various places.

Some of the rock even erodes in the middle to produce these archways.

After driving around Bryce Canyon, we went back to our campsite to cook dinner and plan our hike for the next day. It was a perfect day after our emotional/physically exhausting day the day before!

We still can't believe we are engaged! We have had fun calling each other fiancé rather than boyfriend/girlfriend. I am so happy to have found a man like Matt. He is truly one of a kind! I love the ring but I love even more what it represents. We are so excited for this new adventure and we are very appreciative for all the kind words, congratulations, and support! Thank you for sending your love our way!

The Most Rewarding Hike!- Day 15

Yesterday started out as a very chill day. We spent the morning and early afternoon relaxing and visiting the shops in Springdale. We wanted to give our bodies a rest and have plenty of time to hydrate before our next hike later that day to the top of Angel's Landing. 

While we were out visiting the shops we got these ridiculously, dorky hats. We needed a hat that would shade our face and ears better than our ball cap so we decided to go as dorky as possible!

After out relaxing morning, we started our 2.5 mile hike to Angel's Landing. Most of it was up hill and it was 99 degrees out so it was not an easy task!

The view was beautiful.

Matt taking it all in.

The views were very rewarding.

We saw some wildlife on the hike, including this cute chipmunk!

And this rattlesnake. Bleck! I was walking ahead of Matt when we heard something close to where I was walking. I thought it was just a lizard but when I looked down it was this! My brain registered it was a snake and I took off! I sprinted a half mile before I stopped! Luckily, Matt is braver than I am because he stayed back to snap this picture!

When we reached the last 0.5 mile of our hike, we saw this sign.

We were required to hang onto these chains to get to the top.

Here's the drop down.

We were going to the very top! I was terrified! I am very scared of heights. I can manage my fear if I reason with myself and convince myself I am safe but I couldn't in this case. I feared that if I let go of the chain for a second and slipped at all, I would fall to my death! I started crying because I was so scared! We were so close to the top so Matt pushed me and helped me to go further. When we reached the top, I sat down on a flat, level rock. I was too scared to look around at the view. I didn't want to see how high I was and I certainly didn't want to think about how I was going to get down! As my head was in my hands, Matt told me to look up. It took a bit of coaxing but when I did look up I saw him on one knee, with a box in his hand. He said a bunch of lovely things, asked me to marry him, and slipped the gorgeous ring onto my finger. Through my tears I said that I would definitely marry him if I make it alive down the trail! 

Showing off the ring at the top of Angel's Landing!

I'm pleased to announce that we made it safely back to ground! We are boh so happy and very excited to spend our lives together! :)

Hiking a River- Day 14

Our day started out early yesterday! We woke up at 5:00am to drive to Springdale, Utah from Hurricane, Utah to catch a shuttle for our next adventure! We planned to hike the Narrows from Top to Bottom at Zion National Park, it's a strenuous 10-12 hour hike. I was very nervous, Matt was pumped!

This was at the very beginning of the hike. At this point it was pretty easy because the water was calm and shallow.

We rented these shoes for a very fair price from an adventure company. It was a great investment because they kept us from slipping, we didn't have to ruin our hiking shoes, and the socks were made of scuba gear so they kept our feet warm in the cold water.

There were some portions that had a trail along the edge of the river which made it a bit easier at times!

We were surrounded on both sides of the river by beautiful, colored rocks.

The rocks were so large, they were hard to capture!

The rocks contained a lot of reds, browns, and blacks. It was easy to get lost in the beauty.

The Narrows were so spectacular, we felt so small.

Clearly, Matt is loving it!

We came across these beautiful waterfalls. It was so peaceful and tranquil. 

After hiking 9.5 hours, we finally reached the end. It was such a beautiful hike. The rocks were very slippery so it was a bit difficult and we looked down often to jump from rock to rock to balance on. When we remembered to look up, we were always in awe and amazed by the beauty. 

After only eating a Cliff bar and a handful of trail mix on the hike, we were starving when we finished the trek so we decided to splurge and try out a restaurant that locals were suggesting. We went to a place called Oscar's. I ordered a burger and sweat potato fries, they were heavenly. Matt ordered a quesadilla/flatbread thing. I'm not sure what was on it but it was delicious!

This was our view from our table at the restaurant. We love the town surrounding Zion. It's small and full of one-of-a-kind shops, restaurants, and grocery stores. There seems to be no chain businesses in the town, which is refreshing! 

After filling our stomaches, we went across the street to reserve a campsite for the night. I was so excited to get a long, hot shower and to go to sleep! When we registered, we were handed two tokens for the shower. Each token allowed for 6 minutes of showering, we only got one token a peice. I was very upset. I'm not sure if I got all the river water and dirt off me but I managed to take a 6 minute shower! It was so nice to be clean and to finally be able to rest after such a long day!

The Race to Zion- Day 13

I'm going to go ahead and apologize in advance for the lack of pictures in this post. Yesterday was a long day of driving from Yosemite National Park in California to Zion National Park in Utah. We had to make it to the park office to get our backcountry wilderness passes for today's hike before 7:30pm and then to the rental place before 8:00pm to get our gear. It was a race!

We did drove through Las Vegas yesterday. When people say it's in the middle of the desert, they aren't kidding. It's literally in the middle of no where.

There were a lot of shiny hotels and casinos.

And something that looks like the Empire State Building. Clearly I've never been to Las Vegas so I'm not really sure what I was looking at!

After driving trough Las Vegas, we finally made it to Arizona.

And then to Utah.

Things were starting to look pretty.

We ended up getting to the visitor center around 6:30 to pick up our hiking permit, perfect timing. We had an hour to spare! But it was the wrong visitor center....the visitor center we arrived at was already closed. We had to drive 40 minutes to the other side of the park! Once we got there it was still confusing as to exactly where the visitor center was at! Once we found it, it was 7:25 (the center closes at 7:30). Matt hopped out of the car and ran to the visitor center. He was able to get the permit, enabling us to do the hike! After getting the permit, we took off to the adventure store to rent our gear. We got into the store around 7:45 so we were able to be fitted for our shoes and watch the required video! It was a close call! But everything got taken care of!

Today we are doing the Top to Bottoms hike at the narrows at Zion. It should be a tough, long one!

We hiked a half marathon at Yosemite!- Day 12

We woke up early yesterday to start our day long hike! We combined two hiking trails to make our all day hike. We started off with the Four Mile trail where we climbed 3,200 feet and then we took the Panorama Trail from Glacier Point to the Yosemite Valley. It was 13.1 miles in total and it took us 7.5 hours. It was a long and tiring day! 

This is the map of our hike. Our hike is highlighted in blue. It's hard to tell the river from our hiking trail so I am pointing to a portion of our trail on the map.

Matt at the beginning of the hike.

The incline was like this or steeper for 4.6 miles. The combination of this incline and the thinner air was exhausting! Do you see the bird on the path? We saw a lot of those. It almost looks like a Blue Jay but it's head is black and it's body is blue. They were beautiful!

This was our first rewarding view on our hike.

A second rewarding view.

We stopped at Glacier Point to refuel with food and water. The view was amazing and even better than the day before because we earned the view by hiking all the way up!

This crazy squirrel kept trying to take our food. It would get a foot or less from us. We kept throwing rocks in it's direction and yelling, hoping to scare it off. Nothing worked, we fought him for a good 10 minutes or more. Here he is hiding in the bushes behind us, waiting for the perfect moment to surprise us with an attack! Luckily we were able to out smart him!

Taking one last look of the view before beginning the second part of the hike.

The second part of the hike was downhill for the first 2 miles, we were feeling awesome!

Matt was very amused with the size of this pinecone. Our amusement didn't last long because after the 2 mile downgrade we had another 1.6 mile upgrade.

The upgrade took us to the top of this waterfall!

We then had to climb to the bottom. This is where we met the mass Memorial Day weekend crowd. For the last two miles of our hike we had to dodge a large number of people. After an all day hike, our patience was very thin and we became annoyed rather quickly with the large crowd of people!

Despite the crowd, the view was lovely!

This is us waiting on a shuttle to take us back to our car after our long hike.

It was a mess getting out of the park! Note to self: never go to Yosemite on Memorial Day weekend.

Our hike was long and exhausting and it didn't end in the most pleasant way (having to dodge the crowds and waiting in traffic for hours). Regardless, we are glad we did. It was such a great way to see the park! We even met a fellow Ohio State Alumni on our trip! He graduated from OSU in the 80s and he played in the marching band. Matt's dad was in the marching around the same time. We told him Matt's dad's name and the instrument he played and the guy seemed to remember Matt's dad! It was a neat connection and it showed just how small the world is!

After our strenuous day yesterday, we are spending all day today driving from Yosemite to Zion National Park!