"where bright angels feet have trod" (and a lot of German tourists', and mine too....)

 The title of this post refers to a traditional spiritual song, called "we'll gather by the river".  If you don't know it, here is Willie Nelson's version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u6KCzMc3Lw
I could not get it out of my head while climbing to the top of "angel's landing", probably the most famous trail in Zion.  It's about 2.5miles and goes up 1400 feet.  The bottom part of the trail is a wonder of trail construction and management:  Here is a view of one of the switchbacks, and a view of the bottom part from above.

 And here are the middle switchbacks, literally carved into the mountains.  It's pretty steep, but the trail is wide and very smooth, so it's quite easy.

 

Then, things get serious!  the trail goes straight up, often lined with welcomed chains that help with stability (2nd picture) and with pulling oneself up.  These pictures shows the last part of the trail (the rim of the rock in the first picture).

 But the view from the top is really worth the climb!
There were a lot of people there- a lot of Germans in particular, but also French, Japanese, Brits, Americans.... One middle aged Japanese woman was wearing city shoes (flats, not heels, but still...), was dressed as for the office, had no water, and did not look the slightest bit tired nor sweaty......

 Some of the trail is really scary, especially if you are afraid of heights or exposure:  Here the side of the trail opposite the rope is a straight drop 1400 feet to the canyon...  I stayed very close to the rope......

This is the warning sign at the bottom:  It says:  "6 people have died on this trail since 2004".  I was surprised it was only six.  Not because the trail is that hard (it really is fine, steep, but the sandstone have nice natural steps, and the ropes really help, anyone in decent shape can do it), but because there are so many people there who try to take pictures from the very edge ( the sheer 1400 foot drop shown on this picture), and also a lot of them who are completely unprepared:  city shoes, no water, etc....
Anyway, I highly recommend it!




Joe choose to take advantage of the woefully inaccurate weather forecast (which was predicting clouds and thunderstorms this morning...) to join fellow super-duper camera lens owners and catch the changes in colors as the sun first hits the mountains.

 It is indeed a thing of beauty!

 Then he strolled in the valley, catching the morning light...

 and the pretty flowers.

 And then, he hiked part of the Angel's landing trail, and met a couple of tarantulas... EEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKK!    I'm glad I was not there, or I may have fallen off the cliff.......

 Packing up this evening, and leaving beautiful Zion.  Going to Bryce and Grand canyons tomorrow!

This may not have been the smartest thing I ever did......

 Today, I planned on walking "the narrows", the top part of the canyon, where it narrows down and the only way, the "trail", is actually the riverbed. 

The weather was calling for 40% chance of thunderstorms, which is the most useless forecast ever - what are you supposed to do with this information?   What I did with it is get up very early again (5:30am), drag Joe out of bed at 6am (the man has the patience of a saint!), so that I could be on the first shuttle bus to the trail head.  After the easy 1 mile hike to the narrows "trail", the real fun begins.  When I started, the "trail" was actually opened - but within 1/2 hour, the sign below was posted (Joe took the picture), however, by then, I had no way of knowing that, so I kept on going...

The Virgin river, which yesterday was clear and a pleasant greenish blue had turned completely opaque with sediments as a results of last night storms.  So it was impossible to judge how deep it was at any point, or see any of the rocks in the bottom.  But I was determined! and I went on!
  This is a picture of the "trail" - no kidding, this is it! the trail is the river bed, and you just walk up it, knee deep most of the time, thigh deep some of the time, and waist deep occasionally.  The currents are pretty tough at times, but I only slipped once, bruising my knee....

The worry was that I was by myself, and only 2 other hikers had started slightly behind me before the trail was closed.  The good thing about that is that I had this magnificent place to myself!  the bad thing is...  well this was clearly a bit nutty....  but hey, I did live to blog another day...

I made it to the Orderville Canyon, 2.7 miles upstream- where I turned around, because (as is obvious from the picture), the canyon is very narrow, and if it floods, there is no high ground to wait out the storm - oh- and by that time it had started to rain...  I may be nutty, but I'm not completely insane...... 

This picture shows the water of the Orderville canyon mixing with the water of the Virgin river - the orderville water is much clearer, because it had not flooded (yet), but I did not want to take that risk.  

 At that point on the trail, the cliffs are 1500 feet high and straight up - it is an amazing sight.

On the way back, I met with the only 2 other hikers to make it today, and they offered to take this picture.....

 there were some welcomed but brief portions of the trail that were not in the water:

 Joe was there at my return to take pictures of the final crossing - here is me pondering how I'm going to do this.... , and fighting with the current.

 I would never have made it without this wonderful water boots and neoprene socks (what a fabulous material neoprene is!) - and a very strong walking stick!

It was REALLY worth it!  not just because it is just awe inspiring to be alone in the grand place that has been 6 millions years in the making (try to wrap you mind around that!), but also because it completely focuses the mind.  There is simply nothing else you can focus on but were to put your foot next.  Some people meditate - this is what I do...   :-)
The other reason it is worth it is that it justifies having lunch that look like this:

This afternoon was definitely tamer.   It was still overcast, but not raining, and we stopped by here an there to take short walks and admire the sights. 

 Here are the "3 prophets" (Jacob and.... I forget the other 2).  And the "great white throne (in the background, below).

 Driving back to our place, we admired the completely different rock formations on the east side of the parc

 And met a large family of desert big horn sheep:  I had been looking for them, but discovered that the best way to spot them is not to try to look for them.  Instead, look for very slow moving traffic and a lot of poeple out of their cars looking up!
The family had a bunch of wives and babies, and 2 magnificent males- see picture below.... we are, after all in Utah....   :-)

 I think these have been trained by the park rangers to pose for the tourists.....

 Finally took one last picture of the checkerboard mesa (Up close, the walls looked etched in a checkerboard pattern),
And went home to the "ranch", where the grass looks really golden with the stormy sky in the background.

Tomorrow: the Angels landing trail, rising 1500 feet over the canyon on a narrow cliff!

Joe got himself a new super-duper lens!

Every time we go on vacation, Joe sees it as an opportunity to add to his already extensive collection of super-duper camera lenses.  This is no exception - seeing national parks apparently required a new super-duper (and super expensive) lens, to capture the magnificence of the landscape!
So, I wanted to make sure he got every opportunity to use it, and got up at 5am (combination of jet lag, and of the fact that I was asleep at 8:30pm last evening).  By 6:00am,  I kept asking Joe "do you want some coffee", and "are you awake", as a gentle way to get us going (the fact that the man has not killed me yet is a one of the purest sign of true devotion...).  It is pitch black here at 6am, because we are on the very west side of the time zone, but by 6:30am, we were on our way, and were rewarded by the sun rising on Zion:

(note the quality of the colors achieved by the new super-duper camera lens!)
We also got to meet a herd of long horned sheep, which apparently is pretty rare:

(note that the colors are not as pretty, because this was taken with my i-phone and not with the super-duper lens!)

We parked at the Zion National park visitor center- just the driving there is magnificent, with stunning views (in fact, so stunning that it is a bit dangerous, as one tends to look up and around, rather than pay attention to the rather steep switchbacks....)and even the parking lot is pretty....

and then we took various shortish hikes - to lovely pools and "weeping" rocks (rather than real water falls, the rocks here seem to weep, and create wonderful ecosystems of hanging gardens).

 (water falling from the rocks in front of the trail, on the way to emerald pond)

 Me, with a big overhanging rock on top of me....

Looking like a hiker!

On the way, we met some of the wildlife:  The already mentioned long-horned sheep, a few blue herons:

and squirrels who, in spite of the numerous signs asking tourists not to feed them, just come to you and beg for food.....

Also got to admire the many wild flowers that bloom this time of the year, including these gorgeous lilies (they smell as wonderful as they look pretty), and cactus pears:

And we got to the top of some spectacular overlooks!  Here is me waving at Joe from a footbridge that felt sturdier than it looks (I'm the blue dot waving back at Joe)

And a rare picture of Joe an I together - on top of the overlook trail - just to prove that he is in fact here too.....

By the time we made it back to the house, we were too tired to go back out for dinner, so we just grilled some steaks on the deck....

Tomorrow, I will try to hike the "narrows" - as the name indicates, the narrowest part of the canyon, requireing special water shoes, and hiking/wading in water that can be chest deep.  It depends a bit on the weather, which has been unstable, and the locals work very hard at scarring the tourists about flash floods....  will see early in the morning.  Joe will provide logistics support.
We did get some storms today too, but nothing to get the Virgin river to flood, just enough to provide pretty skies, and welcomed shade:

Staying in the old US of A!

Having traveled on just about every continent (getting to the last one -Antarctica - next January), we realized that there are a lot of places right here at home we (or at least I) have not seen.  These include most of the national parks. So this time, we are staying in the good old US of A, and starting to make a dent in the list of the BIG national parks (the only one I have seen so far is Yosemite, and I was - this is not too strong a word- enchanted).  This time around, we are doing Zion, Brice, and the grandest of them all, the grand canyon!

We left home unreasonably early:  woke up at 4am, got picked up at 4:30, got to JFK at 5:40am for our 6:50am flight to LasVegas.  Flying to LasVegas is just bizarre - you can clearly see from the air that this is a bad idea:  there is this huge and very dry desert, and then, in the middle of it, this huge, crazy place....  We escaped it as quickly as we could, and drove straight north on I15 through some other odd places....  Can anyone explain how the town of Mesquite, NV, came into existance, and, more puzzling yet, how it seems to be growing?  It is even more in a desert than LasVegas.  The temperature today was 106!!!!  AND  - it seems to be a resort town, with big casinos, etc....  who goes there?
Anyway, we then got into Utah, and the town of St George - which is prettier - and VERY Mormon....  Then the landscape changes dramatically - still very dry, but much more majestic.  Only a preview of what awaits us in Zion National park!  We just drove through the park to get to our resort, and tomorrow we will go back and really take in the sights, and do some serious hiking.  I may or may not do some "canyoneering" on Sunday - i'll think about it more when i'm less tired.
Trying to stay awake till 8pm - not sure it is going to work.  Pictures tomorrow.

the long treck back to reality begins.....

It was misty when we left beautiful Waiheke island - apparently, a cyclone is coming down from Fiji, so it's a good time to leave....  I still had time for a long walk this morning through Oneroa, and then one last dip in the pacific ocean, before taking the ferry back to Auckland.
We are staying at the airport Novotel for the night, because we have a very early flight.  There is nothing wrong with the airport Novotel - in fact, as big hotels go, it is rather nice - but.....
It is so different from the warm and lovely B&B's we have been staying at for the last 3 weeks, that we are indeed feeling reality start to creep back in....

Then again - Joe had a tomato, beet, pineapple, fried egg burger - right here at the Novotel, which is pretty interesting.... (he said it was good).

We are getting up at 4am - flying to Sydney (which BTW is the wrong way....), 5 hour layover, 14 hours flight to LA - 6 hours flight to NY.
We should be home by 11-ish on Tuesday night......
We had a fabulous time in New Zealand - it's unlikely we will see it again - it is soooooooooo far away.

So we will say goodbye, and remember fondly:

How strongly they feel about making every cup of coffee look special.

 the 30 millions sheep (I think we saw all of them...  I really like sheep.....)

The ever present silver ferns - the symbol of New Zealand,

And the glorious sunrises and sunsets!
Good bye, New Zealand!