Dixie

     We started the final week of our trip from Dixie National Forest. I was up early and on the mountain bike for another loop on Thunder Mountain. I took some pictures as I rode on the paved Red Canyon Bike Trail that parallels UT-12, which is a very scenic highway that we would be following for the next few days. There were tunnels through the rock and lots of red rock stacks as I climbed up toward Coyote Hollow. I put out a little effort on Thunder Mountain with no camera stops today. I was surprised to come back and see that I was 7th fastest on the Strava leaderboard for the full singletrack section that is 7.2 miles long. On the first half with the climbing I was 6th overall. That made me want to go back and see just how fast I could really go. It's a good trail for me as it has some flow, some technical corners and descents, combined with some challenging, but short climbs. I can rip that kind of stuff. Plus, I have been out here long enough now that I am fairly adjusted to the elevation. After the set of pictures posted below is a GoPro video of my run through Thunder Mountain this morning.

UT-12 from the Red Canyon Bike Trail

Video: GoPro footage of the full Thunder Mountain Trail

     After my ride, Shannon and I linked up at the Red Canyon Visitor's Center to see what was inside and to do a little hiking. Our feet were still sore and a little blistered from Olympus, so we kept the hiking short today considering we had some bigger hikes planned for Bryce later this week. The visitor's center had some good info on the area and local history. I particularly like the story about the Quilt Walk in the winter of 1864-1865. There is a quilt made in memorial to some settlers that were stuck in deep snow during a particularly harsh winter. The town didn't harvest enough wheat to survive the winter and had to send seven men to the next town for food. The snow was so deep they had to abandon their wagons and oxen and go on foot. The snow was even too deep to negotiate on foot at one point. They were able to place quilts on top of the snow and it spread their weight out enough to allow them to pass over the snow. They moved the quilts in front of them over and over, eventually making it to their destination before returning to feed their starving town. Pretty cool story that you can read more about below.

     We saw that the flags at the office were at half-staff, which is never a good thing. We started asking around and that was when we first heard about the shooting in Las Vegas. We had been disconnected from radio and TV for a few days and had no idea it had happened.

    Our hike from the visitor's center was short, but full of features. The Hoodoo and Pink Ledges Trails make a loop of just 0.7 miles, but they include some good views and lots of rock formations. You get plenty of climbing too. It was a good short hike to work out some of that Olympus soreness that was still hanging around. Shannon kept stopping to smell ponderosa pines, which she told me either smell like vanilla or butterscotch. I didn't believe her at first, but after I took a good sniff between the ridges in the bark, I found a sweet butterscotch smell. The second tree I smelled was more like vanilla. They smelled really good!

Red rocks on the Hoodoo Trail

Rocks stacked in the branches of this dead tree along the trail

Shannon smelling a ponderosa pine

Pink Ledges Trail

Dead tree that looked cool

Looking out to the edge of the red rocks and beyond toward Panguitch

     After our hike, we made our way to the town of Bryce. The town is just a collection of tourist buildings. There is a couple of hotels, a few restaurants and gift shops and one campground, along with the bus station where you can shuttle into the park. Ruby's Inn RV Park & Campground sits about two miles from the Bryce Canyon National Park entrance station. It is perfectly situated and fairly priced. They have tipis you can rent for only a few bucks more a night than a tent campsite, so we opted to go for it and spend a few nights in a real tipi. It was worth the couple of dollars to not have to pack up our tent on the last morning. Other than a chipmunk visitor in the first hour as we unpacked, we enjoyed our time in the tipi.

Our tipi at Ruby's

     It was late in the afternoon when we got situated in the campground, so we decided not to go into the park. We kicked back and rested our feet, had a good dinner, and then braced for a 28-degree night in a canvas tipi. Brrr!