canyons Archives • GloBelle Affairs

June 1, 2015

Weekend Of Canyoneering

I got a taste of the southern Utah and had to go back! With This BuzzFeed article as my inspiration, I decided to get active for my Memorial Day. I plotted my course to see it all in 4 days:

Grand Canyon National park
Antelope Canyon
Horseshoe Bend
Bryce Canyon National Park
Zion National park

I spent Friday night after work in Vegas where my co-worker was having an epic co-ed bachelor/bachelorette party in Vegas. I learned that I am much to old to be trying to keep up with recent college grads. It was a Friday night, I’d put in a full week’s worth of work and just drove three hours. I was ready to chill. they were ready to wild out. Standing in long lines while my stilettos pained my feet was not of interest to me tonight. I was also training for a fitness competition and couldn’t consume alcohol or carbs. So I kept it low-key, and turned in relatively early for a night in Las Vegas. I started my day as everyone else was going to bed and continued my journey. I had national parks to see!

See more Lake Havasu photo here

The same co-worker, a recent college grad, once spoke enthusiastically about wanting to have Spring Break party trips to Lake Havasu. I’d never heard of the place. Being a southern girl my initial thoughts were why would you go to a lake in the middle of the desert to spring break on a lake when there’s Panama City Beach, Destin, Myrtle Beach, or Hilton Head? But apparently for West Coast Kids, Lake Havasu is the place to spend a week-long break from school. Well, I passed the lake on my way to the grand Canyon. I was traveling solo and this wasn’t on the itinerary but after watching groups of friends zip around on jet skis I could certainly envision spring break memories here. Why on Earth was I just now being introduced to this desert paradise?

Grand Canyon.
About six hours later I finally made it to the Canyon of Canyons! Have you ever been to a place that reminds you of a song? Well, The whole time John Michael Montgomery’s “Ain’t Got Nuthin on Us” played in my mind as the sound track of this adventure.

Yes, the Grand Canyon was a sight to see. But I’d already seen Zion Canyon and quite frankly, although smaller, I found it more beautiful. That could also be partly to the low visibility and drizzly conditions I found the Grand Canyon. It was chilly and wet and smelled like donkey doo the whole walk.

Going all the way down to the bottom of the Canyon is a 20-mile, round trip and requires overnight camping, training, and planning. I did an 8 hour round-trip walk down the canyon using the Angel Trail. Clearly, this is an all day adventure. I think anyone with a strategy can handle the trip but it is strenuous even for the physically fit. You need to be well-researched and prepared. On this hike you are battling altitude, the elements, hunger (no vending machines on the trail) dehydration, and boredom! So hike smart. The trip down is faster than the trip up (of course) but be sure if you are planning an 8 hour trip you account for breaks and the harder journey back up. This is not a four hours down four hours back up kind of trip. It’s more like three hours down, five hours up.

The views were awe inspiring. I was just surrounded by greatness.


The views were captivating

And very serene and peaceful

After this eventful, physically straining, long day, I hoped in my car and continued the ride toward Horseshoe bend. It was pretty late once I made it to Page, AZ. Prior to leaving a did a google search for hotels here and not a darn one showed vacancies. Not being one to let a little detail like lodging derail my adventure I came anyway to try my luck at cancellations. I did some calling around (thank goodness for a smart phone) to no avail. I asked the lady at the gas station for names of near-by cities with hotels. she said, this was it. There was nothing between flag staff and Zion but Page, AZ. But she directed me to with Wal-Mart parking lot. She said everyone keep coming in and asking for advice on lodging options but the town is small and there just aren’t hotels. But they were building more to accommodate the tourist flow. But the Wal-Mart just across the street seemed ot be the overflow favorite. Sure enough, midnight in Wal-Mart was poppin’ with everyone there buying pillows, blankets, and all that other good stuff. So, I did the same. The back parking lot was a makeshift camp ground. Actual RV camping vehicles were interspersed with cars and trucks lodging tourists like me. Being 4 foot, 4 1/4 inches tall does have its benefits. I found the backseat of my sedan comfortable and it wasn’t long before I was knocked out. It rained that night.

I woke up like this! In the back seat of my Japanese car.

I woke up to a nearly empty parking lot at dawn’s first light. Droves of Wal-Mart campers were making the trek across the parking lot, toiletry bag in hand, inside the super store to use the restroom. It was quite the sight to see. Everyone brushing their teeth and straightening up in the public bathroom.

Horseshoe Bend

I made it to Horseshoe bend down the street from the Wal-mart before 6 am and before all the crowds. Entrance to this natural wonder is free. It’s a walk up a steep hill plus a bout 3/4 of a mile walk to the bend. It’s quiet and peaceful on the Colorado River in the morning. Plenty of time and space to take pictures. It also has the potential to be very dangerous as there are no natural fall prevention features so if you’re with children, stay vigilant.

Antelope Canyon

Now the cool part of Antelope Canyon is Navajo Nation Park. Not a U.S. National park. So your annual park pass will not get you access. You’ll have to pay separately and plan ahead (four months) and get a reservation to see the cool sights like the wave. With your National Park pass you still get to see the gorgeous northern Arizona/Southern Utah views.

This is the cool part. You can learn more at discoverAmerica.com and more info at http://utah.com/the-wave

Other gorgeous views of The Utah-Arizona boarder!

I took a boat ride through the Northern part of Antelope Canyon. The boat tours offered an introduction to all the Navajo history you never learned in school. The Navajos here had a successful resistance against the U.S. Army who was sent on a mission to round up all the American in the area. The Navajos had to be invisible. That meant, no noise, no fires, no cooking. Many of them camped out right at the top of ridges like the ones in the pictures while the army cruised the Colorado River by boat.

Now, I will admit, I am not a Native American History guru by any means. All I ever learned in school was there was this Indian removal act of 1830 then The Trail of Tears. Then Indians went practically extinct, the end. It was really sad but a necessary evil for Manifest Destiny. Cus “Murica! That was high school. Even as a history major in undergrad, I was able to graduate without the acknowledgment of American Indians. In my graduate work, one of my cross-cultural professors was a blue-eyed, pale-skin Indian. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian was part of our reading list.

Although the views were beautiful on their own, photo editing works wonders.

There is an amazing stories of resilience and warrior spirit that is at the very heart of all that it means to be American in Native American history, and I find it a shame that it isn’t taught more in our schools. Even with the resistance a majority of Navajos still were captured and had to endure 13 miles a day at gunpoint during the event termed as “The Long Walk.” It’s a collective, historical trauma that unites Navajos with a common history as well as connect the Navajo’s Long walk with the Trail of Tears of the Cherokee, Seminole, Chickasaw, Choctaw and Muskogee.

The whole region is just a collection of interesting, natural beauty to see. I took the opportunity for an improve photoshoot in sandstone. I had visions of a high fashion photo shoot of models voguing on the sandstone in stilettos with wind blowing their impractical flowy gowns with striking, peacockesque make-up. But, since I don’t have the skill or resources, I got me, barefoot in a tee shirt and Capri pants.

Since I got up at the crack of dawn, I packed a lot in. I’d been on a boat cruise, seen the hanging garden (a little bit of a letdown…it’s just leaves growing on a rock wall), went on walks, splashed by the river. By noon, I’d seen and done all the highlights of the area. I took some time to rest and relax. do a little reflection, writing, reading, and picnicking.

After lunch, I revisited horseshoe bend under different lighting (and a higher tourist population). I started wrapping up to get on the road and travel onward before I got too tired and the roads got dark. The weather changed quickly. In fact, in the span of the day, it went from cold enough to sear long sleeves and a vest to sweating in short sleeves, then it poured down rain out of nowhere, to cold again.

After the rain on the way out of Arizona and into Utah.

I think I look a bit off here, but hey, I camped in the backseat of m y car.

Bryce Canyon

I continued the journey north, skipping Zion Canyon and heading straight to Bryce Canyon. I saved money on lodging in favor of camping out in my car again int he national park. That way, I’d skip the line and be able to start my day in the park.

Just an hour north

Bryce Canyon distinguishes itself from the others with it’s natural amphitheaters and hoodoos which I never learned about during geography class. I mean, I remember mesas, plateaus, mountains, and what not but hoodoo was a new one for me. But they are quite interesting to see. The temperature was significantly cooler as I hiked in higher altitudes.

I love Bryce Canyon because it is so distinctively different from the other four nearby canyons nearby and yet equal in beauty and charm. That’s similar to the discovery I made while living in Germany. In Germany, perfect blue skies are hard to come by. You learn to embrace the grey skies just as the blue and realize that beautiful days come during the rain, fog, and snow as well. Just like people. It seems like with the relatively new, American body positivity movement that America has had the epiphany that beauty can exist in different, even contrasting forms. You can have a group of women with different skin colors, hair lengths and textures, body shapes and sizes and all of them still be beautiful just like land forms. We are surrounded by beauty regardless if we are in canyons or suburbia or the big city whether or not we chose to see the beauty is up to us as individuals. It doesn’t have to be a competition. It’s okay to love all the canyons equally for different reasons. The Grand Canyon is humbling with it’s massive size and reminds me of that there are forces greater than one’s self out there. The same force that carved the canyon also designed the wonder of horseshoe bend. The history of Antelope Canyons is a reminder of strength and resilience.

I topped off my canyoneering weekend with a trip to Zion. Since I’d already spent some time here, I could relax more than explore. I took the opportunity to stretch out my muscles after sleeping in my car and taking on some hard hikes, I really needed a massage but stretch helped too.

It was an exhausting, physically challenging long weekend. I got comfortable sleeping without fancy accommodations, learned to appreciate and recognize beauty in differences more, had my breath taken away by the Grand Canyon, and did some killer hiking, climbing and overall canyoneering.

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