Southern Utah: Bryce & Zion

Day 23 – Stops: Bryce Canyon National Park, UT; Zion National Park, UT

Hikes: Bryce Canyon – Queen’s Garden to Navajo Loop (3.0 miles).
Zion National Park – Observation Point (8.0 miles; elevation: 2100 feet)

 

Another early day. We awoke at 5:45am to head out for Bryce Canyon’s Sunrise point. My quads were super sore and I limped to the overlook as the sun’s rays hit each of the Hoodoos in Bryce’s amphitheater.

 

 

We then returned to the campsite for breakfast. We had hotdogs eggs and bacon and so a new breakfast option was born. Hotdogs on a bun topped with eggs, bacon, and ketchup: we termed them “Bryce Breakfast Boners”. We came up with a marketing plan as well, deciding to sell our idea to Jimmy Deans.

We started out from Sunrise Point to Queen’s Garden and took in the tall spires called Hoodoos that populate Bryce Canyon. It really doesn’t make much sense how they stand on such a precipice. This Canyon isn’t really a canyon as it was at one time a lake that eroded the terrain. We continued the long trek back up Navajo loop and back to Sunrise Point. Again my legs were screaming at me for completing this after the previous day’s race.

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

From there we headed to Zion, only an hour and a half west of Bryce. And the weather was around 35 degrees warmer. We camped at the Watchman campground and when Vinay and Vijay arrived we decided to eat lunch and shop for dinner in Springdale, UT before heading out to the Observation Point trailhead in Zion.

Zion

 

Observation Point is a fairly long climb with many switchbacks through these mountains with fantastic jagged rock faces. Words cannot describe it, but I’ll post some pictures that will help. As we reached the top of Observation point Zion jumped up on my list of favorite National Parks. The view into the Canyon is unreal and you can understand why they called this place Zion ( a place of refuge). We headed back down the trail in quarter of the time, arriving back before dark.

 

 

 

 

Vinay suggested we make these Hobos packs for dinner. Basically you combined meat with vegetables and some seasoning in tin foil like a burrito, place it directly on embers and slow cook it. Unfortunately for Jeremy his was not cooked all the way through when Vinay suggested he tasted the beef. It was little gooey. Jeremy stated “This is not done. If I get diarrhea tomorrow we’ll know why”.

Must Do: Bryce Canyon at Sunrise, Observation Point in Zion National Park, UT

SLC Half Marathon and Bryce

Day 22- Stops: SLC, UT; Bryce Canyon National Park, UT

Run: Salt Lake City Half Marathon
Hike: Navajo Loop (1^st half – 1.5 miles)

We awoke at 4am for the SLC Half Marathon. The first American marathon held since the Boston Marathon bombing on Monday. Oddly enough, Janae and I had signed up for this race back in January. We never had anticipated what was to come in April. To pay tribute to Boston we picked up a Run Now Boston t-shirt and boarded the train. At the U of U stop dogs also boarded to inspect the train car for explosives. It’s so sad that this has to be done. When we arrived at the start Janae and I were freezing and there were no space heaters or indoor waiting areas so Janae identified an elevator to the pedestrian bridge and there we stayed. We spent 45 minutes in that elevator during which we did a seductive pose, elevator photo shoot.

Finally it was time to head to the start where they played Sweet Caroline as is tradition at Boston events. 

I started the race off at a pretty good pace – running 7 minutes for the first few miles. The first 3 miles were downhill and then the next several were uphill. I threw Jeremy my hat at mile two and he snapped some pictures of me.Then it started to rain harder. After mile 8 I picked up the pace again and I had enough left to sprint it in at the end, running a half marathon personal best of 1:44 flat.

I finished and desperately needed a warm shower. We packed up at Janae’s place, met up with Janae as she finished and watched little Danielle compete in the Kids Marathon (a 1000 meter race).

I signed the Remember Boston Marathon, we drank our free beer, and headed out for Bryce Canyon, stopping at the GoLite outlet on the way for some new outdoor cold weather gear.

 

We arrived at Bryce around 5pm and headed out to start the Navajo Loop. I became aware that a 4 hour car ride after running a 13 mile race without stretching was a mistake as we descended into the canyon. We headed back up the switchbacks after completing the first mile and a half of the hike. It was windy and cold at Bryce Canyon- somewhere around 30 degrees and the evidence lied on our tent in the form of frost. Vinay and Vijay arrived late and we sipped some beers before bed, planning to be up for sunrise the next day.

Bryce Canyon

 

Exploring SLC week 2

Day 17- Salt Lake City, UT; Sandy, UT

We woke up in Salt Lake to find that Jeremy had poison ivy as I had suspected. He later spoke with Dr.Ingebretson who suggested trying an over the counter product called Zanafel which washes off poison ivy's binding resin. It worked wonders in terms of reducing the itch compared to the 40mg of prednisone that Jeremy was taking.

We went climbing and running again. As we were leaving the climbing gym, my mom texted me about the Boston Marathon bombing. Jeremy and I were surprised by the lack of coverage here in SLC where they just mentioned it briefly on the radio. We have no access to a TV so our only source of information was really our I-phones. That evening Mike, Vinay and Vijay met us for some trivia at the Republican where we killed it in categories such as Movies with the name Girl in it, and Song titles, but got destroyed in the Adult Anime category. Who knows that anyway?! We ate some late night Mexican at Del Taco. The Nachos were delicious.
 

Day 18 – Salt Lake City, UT; Sandy, UT

During climbing today my right biceps tendonitis (self diagnosed) was getting significantly worse. I had to stop climbing early, but went for a run around the U of U.

Day 19 – Salt Lake City, UT; Sandy, UT; Thanksgiving Point, UT

Change of plans. I decided to run the half marathon on Saturday. Janae and I had signed up for it back in January, but I had been suffering some capsulitis in my foot back in February and March so I considered not doing it. But after the bombing at Boston I just really want to run to support our sport and Boston. So on 1.5 weeks of training and a long run of 4 miles, I’m going to race 13.1 miles on Saturday.  We hit up REI again (I think this is a record). And we finally accomplished our peak climbing of a 5.10a grade at Momentum. Unfortunately, while at Momentum a man fell 40 feet and likely fractured a vertebrae. He had plenty of medical care as a University of Utah  Emergency Medicine resident along with an Emergency nurse was present in addition to Jeremy and I. We then met Janae at Thanksgiving point for lunch with Janae and headed to the Outlets to pick up some engagement photo clothes at J.Crew.

Day 20 – Salt Lake City, UT; Antelope Island, UT

Hike: Hike to Frary Point on Antelope Island (3.0 miles ; elevation 1200)

Vinay and Vijay wanted to join u for Antelope Island. So we made our way out to these strange island in the middle of Salt Lake where Utah has decided to create a Bison refuge. We hiked up to Frary point and realized that Vijay had an intense love of panoramics as he quickly fell behind us on the trail.

Salt Lake

Antelope Island

Lots of Bison in the distance

 

 

 

After the hike we made our way to Brugges Waffles and Frites, known for their fry sauce and giant Belgian style waffles. We ordered a Machine Gun which is basically a sandwich of 3 Belgian sausage covered in frites and Andalouise fry sa uce (essentially flavored mayonnaise), frites with Samurai fry sauce, and a Monster Waffle which is a waffle ice cream sandwich filled with strawberries, cinnamon caramel graham cracker crumbles and ice cream.

The Machine Gun

The Monster Waffle

 

It was our last day of class and we became certified in Advanced Wilderness Life Support (AWLS) with a card to prove it. Scott McIntosh gave us an amazing lecture on populations that live at high altitude (Sherpas in particular) and their various physical evoluntionary adaptations which enable them to thrive at well over 20,000 feet. We met our class at the Beer hive Brewery to celebrate – I ordered a Polygamy porter and Jeremy a Latter Day Saints Stout. It was Jeremy's last medical school class.

Latter Day Saints Stout

 

Must Eat: Brugges Waffles and Frites

Day 21 – SLC, UT

We woke up early today to meet Carl from Red Rock Adventure at Big Cottonwood Canyon for some outdoor climbing lessons. Carl is actually from New Jersey but moved out to Salt Lake for obvious reasons and has no intentions from returning back east. I understand his sentiment. The climbing lessons were invaluable – learning about lead climbing, creating top down anchors, ground anchors, rappelling, bowlyn ties, equipment to buy, and various smearing and cracking techniques. Afterwards he suggested a fish burrito at Lonestar Taqueria which we obviously consumed. We took a quick drive up to Park City,  UT to see the town and then made our way back to Backcountry for snowpants that we will need in Crater Lake.

Outdoor lead climbing

Fish burrito

The Red Iguana came highly recommended for dinner. So we met Janae for a pre-race meal and tried their various moles. All were delicious, but as far as food in SLC I would prefer Brugges Waffles and Frites.

Mole at Red Iguana