We just got back from a a great trip out west to Arizona and Utah. Sedona, the Grand Canyon, Bryce, Zion, and 24 hours in Las Vegas. Lots and lots of hiking. A good deal of driving. Epic scenic vistas galore.
Part of the purpose of this trip was for Jeannie and I to celebrate out thirtieth wedding anniversary, which was earlier this month. (We had thought we might do some kind of party or dinner for family and friends, but as it happened we weren’t much in the party spirit in the late summer and early fall. I ended up making a toast to Jeannie and thirty more years when we were visiting my parents a couple weeks ago.) In any event, Jeannie and I had taken a trip to Arizona the year we got married. It was our first vacation together, and my first time out west. So we visited a couple places we’d been to before, and some new places too. It was a good opportunity to reflect on our lives together so far and the way things change and stay the same across the grand passage of time.
The first stop on our itinerary was Sedona. We flew out Saturday morning. Our flight landed in Phoenix, and by the time we got our car and drove up there, it was late afternoon. We took a sunset hike up a nearby mountain, the first of many. It was only about two miles and maybe four or five hundred feet vertical, winding up from behind the local high school, which was across the street from our hotel, and took a little over an hour. But the view was amazing, looking down into the valley and across to the mesas and rock formations all around. Went out to dinner for Mexican food.
Next morning we explored the town a little more and did a little shopping because I needed new hiking boots, and we got some groceries too. Sedona has a vibe very much like a ski town because the main activity there is hiking. It’s pretty small with just one main drag, full of shops and restaurants, quite nice. If you leave town in any direction you’re five or ten minutes away from an epic hike. We chose one called Fay Canyon, which had a side quest to a natural stone arch, and a good scramble up the cliffside at the trail’s end to some great views. That one was maybe three or four miles and a thousand feet vertical. We followed it up another shorter, steeper hike to the top of another mesa, called Boynton if I recall.
When we were up in Buffalo a couple weeks ago, Chris and Mark told us that our old friend Keith, the crazy talented guitarist for Event Horizon, was living in Sedona, and gave us the name of the band he was in. We tried to find him but he didn’t have any gigs the weekend we were there. Nevertheless, we had dinner at a bar where he was scheduled to play the following weekend, and left a message. He was always a difficult one to get a hold of. It would be amazing to hear from him.
Anyway, Monday morning we lit out for our next destination, the Grand Canyon. On the way we stopped at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, after several hours of winding thru very scenic canyon and mountain roads. This is something we both had always wanted to see. Percival Lowell of course was a famous astronomer who discovered the once and future planet Pluto, mapped the famous canals of Mars, and contributed in many other areas. Other astronomers there mapped the moon in the 1960’s and discovered the cosmic redshift that led to the expanding universe model of cosmology. The tour was fascinating; they showed us several working telescopes and explained about their history, construction, operation, and how astronomers use them in their research. We would have liked to have been there at night to look thru the big telescope, but Flagstaff is very remote and we would have had to spend the night. As it was, we got to look thru a few ‘scopes in the daytime. One was trained on the sun and had filter at the alpha red wavelength emitted by hydrogen. As a result it showed mainly the surface of the sun and not the white and yellow light blasting from within. The sun actually looked like a ball and not just a disc, and was covered with the hairy fuzz of solar flares, each much larger than the earth. Another ‘scope showed Venus, which is apparently visible in the daytime if you know where to look and can block out the light of the sun.
After several hours more of driving thru very scenic mountains we arrived at the Grand Canyon, shortly before sunset. We were staying in a cabin at Bright Angel right in the park, at the very edge of the chasm. This was something we’d done thirty years before, and was a special memory for us to revisit. The room had a view looking right out over the canyon, and a fire place which was now gas but thirty years ago had been wood-burning. That evening we had dinner at El Tovar, the fancy classy restaurant there. When we were there the last time I declare the steak I ate that night the best I ever had, and over the years it has gained legendary status. I ordered the steak again, and I must say it was a damn good steak. But I supposed I’ve had plenty of great steaks over the last thirty years. For dessert the chef spelled out Happy Anniversary in chocolate on the plate, which was quite nice.
Tuesday was the biggest hike of the trip, down into the canyon itself. It was a beautiful day for it, although they’d had snow just a couple of days earlier. (We had perfect weather the whole trip, although the air was very dry and the elevation made the sunshine extra strong.) The trip was three miles in, going down more than 2,000 feet in elevation. It was basically endless switchbacks scratched out of the cliffside. But you know, breathtakingly beautiful, and fascinating to see the shift in perspective that came with the descent.
A word about the colors. Everywhere we went out there the rocks were really red, to the point where it affected the way you other colors. Basically all the colors were really vivid and seemed to pop. You’ve never seen a more intense blue sky (maybe that was the elevation too) or greener scraggly desert shrubberies. The pants I was were appeared tan under normal circumstances turned green on the trail. And Jeannie’s hiking boots, which were normally grey, turned blue. Totally wild.
It took us a little over two hours to get to the three mile point, which was about halfway to the bottom in terms of both distance and elevation. After we paused for lunch, it was the long slow climb back out, relentlessly uphill for three miles. We were told to plan on taking twice as much time to climb out, but for us the total trip was right around six hours.
After a rest we decided to walk along the rim trail to a vista point to watch the sunset. It was a bit further than we expected, another two miles or so, so we ended up taking the bus back to the village.
A word about sunrises and sunsets. You can really appreciate the optical effects of the earth’s atmosphere at the tops of these cliffs cuz you can see for miles and miles and miles (oh yeah). It’s best to look to the horizon opposite the sun. You can see the shadows climbing up the rocks in the opposite side of the canyon, and really get a feel for the earth turning. You’ll see a blue zone in the sky that creeps up underneath the pink. After the sun set it continues to rise, as the pink begins to fade. This is actually the shadow of the earth itself, causing the night to fall.
At the end of the night we went out a dark place at the end of a parking lot to watch the starts. Amazing, clear skies, just tons and tons of stars. I don’t think I remember ever seeing the Milky Way like that in the fall.
Next up: Utah!