Rattle Snake in Kings Canyon

Yesterday my family went on a long hike on the Hotel Lewis Trails. It was eight miles in the Kings Canyon.

Lookout at the top.

We all walked up to the trail head. From there the trail was very steep and hard. I felt very puffed, hot and tired. We could see snow on the other side of the valley and thought it would be nice to roll around in it. When we started there was a nice soft flowing creek. Daddy almost stepped on a Rattle Snake. Every twenty minutes I got some cold Gatorade.

After a long uphill we got to the lookout and it was a stunning view. We could see the roaring river. We got up to a really high elevation and we could see the camp.

Coming down was the easy bit. We walked through a meadow which was lovely. We got tot he end of the walk and we were all glad.

Back at the campsite

My visit to an American School

After Easter I went to school with Tanner – a friend I made in Durango. They call it an elementary school not a primary school. The teacher’s name was Mrs McCue and she was lovely. I had already met another girl from the class, her name was Aspen. Aspen was born in Australia but now she lives in Durango, in Colorado.

Emma, Symi and Tanner all ready for school - complete with PBJ Sandwiches!

Tanner’s class had been learning about rocks. While I was there they told me what all the rocks were. They were metamorphic, sedimentary and igneous. The teacher gave colourful book to write down all the different type of rocks. At the end of the day I got to keep the book and take it home. Now I am using it for my schoolwork.

Some things that were different were that the kids did not have any uniforms. I wish we did not have to wear uniforms in Australia. At least I don’t have a wear a uniform in RV school. Sometimes I do school in my pyjamas. Another thing that is different is that all the classrooms are inside so the classroom door goes into a corridor. I found it a bit claustrophobic. The last think I thought was different was that the recess and lunch seemed very short.

I really liked spending time with lots of kids and everyone was kind. I miss all my friends so I was happy to spend time with lots of kids. I would like to thank Tanner and his Mum and Mrs McCue for arranging for me to come to the classroom.

Yosemite: Why would you welcome bad weather?

The biggest issue with one of America's most popular National Parks is the crowds and reservation only campground. You have to book five months in advance and when released campsites sell out in minutes. Having missed that boat it was plan B, turn up early to the campground reservation office and hope for a cancellation. The first attempt started just south of Yosemite, up at 6am (definitely this is not typical!) and we drove 1 hour to Wawona in time for the 7.30am opening of the office. Yes

Grizzly Giant

there was one night only available the Ranger apologised, we were very thankful. It was then a couple of hours of school work before going to Mariposa Grove on the shuttle bus to visit more Giant Sequoia's. We did a small walk as legs were still recovering from Kings Canyon but managed to take in some more giant Sequoia's including the Bachelor and Three Graves and the Grizzly Giant. Grizzly Giant is more than 1800 years old and stands only 209ft but has a base of 96ft circumference and 29ft diameter. In the photo the branch on the right that bends up has a diameter of 6ft!
 That afternoon we relaxed at another stunning campsite next to a river. However we were in the trees and there was none of the stunning granite dominated scenery that makes Yosemite famous. Our aim the next day was wake and be at the valley reservation office very early. There was rain forecast that night and the next two days, in our thinking improving the odds of fair weather campers cancelling. That night was wet with a large thunderstorm coming over us during the night!

Tunnel View, fresh snow on the hills

Setting off before 6am the next morning we drove the one hour to the valley. The roads were quiet and wet, from Wawona it climbed steadily to over 6500ft. We noticed what we thought was hail on the ground that gradually become more dense, yes that would be fresh snow! It did feel cold the evening before. The road enters the valley through a tunnel. We stopped for a quick view and photo of the cloud choked Yosemite Valley, it was bitterly cold. Then it was straight to the reservation office where we arrived first in line, just. Could we have three nights? We were in luck, no problem :). Not staying in the valley would have involved an hour drive to get to the nearest accommodation. Celebrating we caught the shuttle bus to the Yosemite Lodge for unfortunately an ordinary breakfast before walking to explore the village via the lower Yosemite falls. That afternoon Fiona and Symi attended a monotone bear talk while Rob explored the valley's 12 mile bike network. That night we went to a Search and Rescue talk at the village. We learnt of some careless ways to die at Yosemite, saw some great rescues of climbers via helicopter and came away with a new respect of white water, drowning being the most common way to die here. Basically falling into the white water is equivalent to falling off a cliff! Because we are here in spring the rivers are moving awesome amounts of water from the snow melt.

Yep it's busy, the 'death' stairs

The next day the weather improved but the cloud was still obscuring the higher granite and the famous Half Dome remained hidden. We set off on the parks most popular walks, the mist trail. It was a slow walk up to Vernal Falls and after the SAR talk the previous night we had a new respect

Vernal Falls

for some of the trail dangers. There is one point (see photo) were three people have died, they get bumped off the trail, from there is a very steep slope to the white water river. Knowing this makes some people's actions seem very casual! After Vernal Falls the crowd thinned by 95% and it was upward to the top of Nevada Fall completing a 1900ft climb (and 8.5miles round trip), the biggest climb yet this year. We descended the quieter John Muir trail. Of course the trail is popular for a reason. The waterfalls and views were stunning. Rob and Symi finished the day with a bike ride around the valley hoping to spot a bear. Just before sunset is a great time of day, the crowds have gone home or are back in camp.

Nevada Falls

Yosemite Falls

Our last day in Yosemite was clear and sunny, finally giving us the full view of the valley! It was another walk and the only way is up here. 1000ft and 58 switchbacks later we all arrived at the base

Yosemite Point, Half Dome top left

of the upper Yosemite Falls. Rob continued up another 2000ft to the top of the falls and then Yosemite point. It was of course another amazing walk, this time with the complete view of the valley. The view of Half Dome highlighted a very successful Yosemite trip. That evening we found the energy for another valley bike ride, again enjoying the solitude that evening brings.

Yosemite Point, observing climbers on top of Stolen Arrow

Meadow late in the day

Kings Canyon National Park

Following Zion we stopped in Las Vegas to have a quick look. The first night we went to the ‘strip’ for a look. If Singapore has shops, Vegas has slot machines. It’s hard to walk far without seeing the things. Fiona and Rob can think of nothing more pointless than gambling and did a tour that included the water fountains and wonderland at Bellegio, birds at Flamingo and French themed hotel, Paris. symi liked the fountains and animals but was generally not a fan of Vegas either. Unfortunately due to a high wind forecast (winds to 60mph) we stayed another night - high winds and RVs don't mix. We took the opportunity to do a buffet ($11 each) at the Sam’s town Casino that we were staying at. It was very meat orientated and Rob tried to taste as many ribs as possible. During the night the wind howled confirming the decision not to drive.

The next day (not much of a Mother's day for Fiona) we braved the subsiding wind and drove to Bakersfield. From Vegas there’s not much but dessert. A few points of interest being the solar energy generation just across the California border. It’s the largest solar thermal power plant in the world. At Mojave we drove past the aircraft boneyard, where planes go to die. We were intrigued about all the planes in the middle of nowhere and ‘googled’. Also Spaceship One was developed here. After Mojave the road climbs over a pass and finally we left the dessert into some green hills with trees.

Grant Grove, fallen Sequoia

After a stop for the night at Bakersfield we continued north on the Interstate 99 through the ‘Valley’ region of California. It’s basically flat and very agricultural. It’s also very populated with endless small towns and moderate sized farms that appear all a bit run down. Leaving the flat (at 500 ft elevation) at Orange Grove begins the surprisingly large climb to 6500ft at Kings Canyon NP. This would be a great driving road, just not in an RV! Kings Canyon has the advantage of campground availability, its neighbour Sequoia NP is reservation only at this time of year and full. The first two nights we camped at Grant Grove. On arrival we did the short walk to the visitors centre and had some bear education. The main thing we learnt was the local Black Bear is not aggressive and their scat is big compared to the other

Dead Giant

animals like Mule Deer. We started to see plenty of bear scat, some very fresh, over the next few days. Some were keen to see a bear, others maybe not so keen! We also learnt that Kings Canyon at Cedar Grove looked very impressive. One of the frustrations in planning the NP trips is getting good information, there is always plenty more information on the ground. We followed the trip to the visitors centre with a short walk to the General Grant tree, the second largest (by volume) tree in the world. We pondered the 2 000 year age of the tree and how much history the tree had lived through.



Birthday Champagne and cake

The following day was Fiona’s birthday. Following the typical morning of school work we went for a great walk through more giant Sequoia trees, ending at the Dead Giant. We then enjoyed a great birthday celebration with a bottle of Champagne, Salmon and a dessert of red velvet cake cooked by Symi.

Overlooking Kings Canyon, the valley right is toward Cedar Grove

Next day, Wednesday, we moved to Cedar Grove campground, another with no reservations and plenty of availability. The drive there was spectacular with some views of the North and South Fork of the Kings River. The road in dropped back to 3 500ft before following the South Fork

Zumwalt Meadow

Kings River through a very tight and tall canyon. The campground was one of the best yet and we scored a great campsite via the river. That afternoon we rode the six miles to the road end taking in a walk to River Road falls and around the beautiful Zumwalt meadow. We met a couple who had just seen a bear, but we only saw some very fresh scat.

Cedar Grove Lookout, campground directly below

Thursday we went up the Hotel Creek trail ascending 1400 ft to the Cedar Grove Overlook for a grand view of Kings Canyon. The ascent was steep and strenuous involving many switchbacks. At one point we stopped for a photo, Rob failing to notice the rattle snake sunbaking on the trail a few feet away! After the overlook was the scenic walk through an open yellow pine forest meadow before descending the Lewis Creek Trail. We were all tired on return having completed about 15km.

Above Mist Fall

After a rest day we drove to road end and walked up to Mist Falls. The canyon here is narrow and steep and the Kings River falls rapidly producing an endless roar from the constant white water. After the falls we became ambitious and continued higher towards Paradise Valley. Turning around eventually and descending produced amazing views down the valley. However attention was frequently at our feet with three snake sightings on the descent, two Californian King Snakes and another Rattle Snake (we were thinking of how much Barbs would love this walk!!).  We decided to make the walk even longer by going back by the Kanawyer loop trail. This involved crossing a few creeks with only small logs to balance on. There was some great open meadow, great for bear spotting and one mile from the end we saw our first Black Bear about 30m away. The bear was totally unbothered by us and very casually walked up the hill. We watched the bear as long as we could, initially too mesmerised to grab the camera. All up this walk was 20km, Symi’s biggest yet!

Black Bear!

Kings Canyon was fantastic, the scenery is rated as comparable to Yosemite without the crowds. We met some locals who had been coming here for years, we were able to pick their brains on their favourite locations further north where we are heading, including for Yosemite our next stop.

Zion National Park

First in line, excited about the tunnel drive

After our only drive going over previous ground, the short drive from Kanab to the Zion turn-off, we made our way 
towards the east Zion entrance with Symi very excited about

One of the many bridges on the Pa'rus Trail

our drive through the Zion-Mt Carmel tunnel. Due to the RVs size we had to pay a special fee to make the tunnel one-way. Exiting the tunnel shot us into the spectacular main valley of the Zion NP, heading down numerous switchbacks to the valley floor. We were too late to get into the first come first serve South Campground and only had to drive one mile out of the park to find an overpriced RV spot for the night ($46 vs $16 in Zion!). We promptly returned at 8am the next morning to grab a prime spot and begin our exploration.

Angel's Landing looking from upper Zion Canyon

The first day we cycled up the Pa'rus trail and then the Canyon scenic drive that is closed to traffic except for the shuttle buses. The valley was coming to life with new leaves on all the many cottonwood trees and was extremely verdant. We have been in a repeating cycle of seeing new leaves, Sedona, Moab, Durango and now Zion. There was so much seed (surrounded by fluff that looks like cotton!) blowing in the wind it looked like snow. We parked the bikes at Zion Lodge and hiked up to Emerald Pools. Wow what a great introduction to the park.



On top of Angel's Landing, Zion Canyon 1400ft below

The next day we took on the more challenging and very famous Angel's landing. The warnings for this walk are scary: long drop-offs, not for anyone fearful of heights and the last section follows a steep narrow ridge to the summit. If that is not enough there have been 6 fatalities on this route since 2004. The walk starts up some steep switchbacks before getting to the many tight switchbacks up Walters wiggle. At the top you arrive at Scouts Landing where the walk gets

Descending the ridge

serious. The ridge looks very intimidating and Symi was not keen. Symi's parents were very keen and promptly promised her a horse ride on her birthday if she made it to the top. She did have to put up with the mantra 'keep one hand on the chain at all times' repeatedly. We quickly discovered just how narrow the ridge is, in some places only a few feet wide. There are chains to hang on to but at times they swap sides of the trail leaving you exposed between. Not for the faint hearted. A fall would send you off the side, a 1400 ft cliff! Two hours later the reward of course is the view at the top, thankfully the ridge up there is wider allowing some relaxation although the parents were happier when Symi was sitting. Symi was the only child up there when we went. We are still trying to work out if this means Symi is exceptionally brave or her parents foolhardy! The trip down was easier than the one up in terms of feeling exposed. As you can imagine we are all getting quite fit - especially as lots of this is at altitude.

Hiking up the Narrows

Other walks included the Narrow's river walk and Hidden Canyon. The river walk starts at the Temple of Sinawava and stays on a path for 1 mile. Then follows a walk in and out of

Turn-around point

the river. We achieved our aim of getting to the where the Orderville canyon comes in, two hours upstream. The walk is a unique experience with it's soaring vertical canyon walls, hanging gardens and of course the river walking. Hidden Canyon was another exposed walk using a cliff face to get to the mouth of the canyon. We had attended a ranger bird walk that morning and were told that it was possible to see Mexican Spotted Owls in the canyon. No such luck, but another amazing walk was ticked off the list.

Heading up Hidden Canyon

The cliff access to Hidden Canyon

On May 5 it was Symi's birthday, her parents having trouble believing their daughter had turned 10. She did well with plenty of presents, yummy food and attention. As promised she did a horse ride from Zion lodge that afternoon, followed by some soccer and swim in the river. The river was a regular event, very refreshing at 9 degrees.

In pyjama's, birthday lunch, beautiful campground

Very happy birthday girl!

After six nights at Southern Campground we drove around to Kolob Canyons to do an overnight walk down the La Verkin Creek trail to the Kolob arch. The weather forecast for that

The white stuff is hail!

day wasn't great but the rain was forecast to clear that night. Undeterred we set off in a sunny patch in near freezing conditions, it wasn't long before a black cloud came over and dumped hail on us! Luckily the scenery was worth the effort. After six miles we came across the sign to our campsite, we just had to cross the La Verkin Creek! It was not possible at the usual spot so we trekked upstream until we found somewhere less threatening. Rob did the pack hauling across and we arrived at the camp relatively dry. However it was freezing and we had all retreated to the tent by 7pm! The next morning we awoke to clear skies.

In the wilderness

We did the short walk to see Kolob Arch, then casually set off on the walk back to the car about midday. We made good time and Symi did a great job on the final long climb, carrying significant weight for the first time. We high tailed it back to Hurricane and plugged into power for the first time in 8 days, the electronics breathed a sigh of relief. 

On the rough walk up to Kolob Arch

Big Bend, upper Zion, bucket list views

Cortez and Page

On the way from Durango, we made a stop for a mountain bike ride at Phil's world in Cortez. The rumor was that the trails were child friendly. The first challenge was finding the trail head just off Hwy 160, after

driving past it the first run we realised it was next to the riffle club and turned into an non-sign posted rough rocky track. Luckily a car with bike on top promptly came past showing the way. It turned out to be Gill a

Overlooking Cortez

member of the Kokopelli MTB club who helps maintaining the 31 miles trail network. He offered to show us around despite warnings that we would be slow. The day was freezing with the wind from the north and brisk. Gill thought it was great weather as it brought nice clear air. He lives just north of Mesa Verde and the snow storm we caught two three days prior had brought the biggest snowfall all season, 8 inches. It had promptly melted of course. We set off on a great ride of flowing trail, never climbing far but with descents that made the most of the elevation. It's the sort of place where you can nearly forget about brakes. At the top of the trail we overlooked Cortez and Gill showed us a large rock that moved be standing on it and rocking. We also discovered that by chance he had been involved in organising road and MTB courses for the Beijing Olympics. 

Rib Cage = roller coaster

Our descent started on the massively fun Rib Cage trail, as the name implies an undulating trail like a roller coaster. The fun continued down to the RV finishing our short 2.5 hour ride! If in the area - ride this place.

Cortez, as we have discovered is also the place of the largest manhunt in America since the earlier outlaw days of Butch and Sundance. We heard of the story from Jim, who happened to go to school with some of the fugitives. There has been a book just released (April), Dead Run by Dan Schultz, retelling the story as best possible. Rob is currently reading the story and it's fascinating, no doubt because we had seen the area and met people who knew the perpetrators.

After the ride we continued to the Four Corners National Monument to put a body part in four states at once (NM, Arizona, Utah and Colorado). It's an expensive exercise being charged $5 a head for the brief experience, but it had to be done.

Then it was onwards to Page for the night. The next morning we went to look at Lake Powell and Glen Canyon Dam. There was some great scenery to be had before we continued towards Zion NP.

Lake Powell