Monument Valley, Bryce Canyon & Zion National Parks

Monday, March 28- Lake Powell, Paige, Az

We were up early and prepped for the day. It was windy ,cool and in the fifties out. The heavy rains last night had cooled the area down. We gathered, in the hotel lobby, at 7:45 A.M. We were going to take a breakfast cruise, on Lake Powell, aboard the double decked “Canyon King.” The Lake Level was down almost 150 feet. A small bus ferried us down the incline to the new lowered lake level. We boarded the comfortable tour boat and sat in long benches near the windows. A breakfast buffet had been laid out for us down the center of the first deck.

We sat with a Canadian couple and Kim Durham, chatting while everyone trooped up to the breakfast bar. The skipper was giving us a run down on the shore formations now high above us. Towering white cliffs and eroded limestone formations surrounded us. It was like looking up form the bottom of a milk bowl. The cruise was pleasant enough. We took pictures and chatted with fellow passengers on both decks. It was windy and cool out. Scores of houseboats lay at anchor nearby. Business was down because of the lowered lake levels.

After a pleasant two hour cruise, we docked in the marina. Kim fed cheesits to a school of enormous fish. They were big enough to have a knife and fork in their fins, as they wolfed down the floating cheesbits. We rode back up to the lodge, then returned to our rooms for a half hour break, before we were to set off, in the landcruiser for Monument Valley, deep in the Navaho Reservation.

Bill and Kim rounded us up after a bit and we set off by 10:30 A.M for the 2 & 1/2 hour ride to Monument Valley. We followed Rte. 98 South, then Rte.#168 east and finally took Rte.#163 North into Monument Valley. Kim gave a continuous narration of Navaho history as we drove into the dusty valley. We could see cermonial “hogans” (rounded earthen huts) along the roadway, where several generations shared a farmstead. Mostly, the area topographically is like the high plains, grassed in, dusty and semi arid.

Entering Monument Valley is different. You first see the dusty Vermillion pillars from afar. They look mystical and enchanted even during a sunny day like this one. An electrical storm here must be magical. You first encounter the massive red sandstone pillars of “stagecoach butte, “ “the two mittens,” “rabbits ears” and many more colorful stone monuments. They are varied in shape and a dusty vermilion in color.You can read images into them like you do when staring at the clouds. It is easy to see where all of the mystical Navaho legends spring from. Even the cows are well trained in the area. When the bus came to a crossing, the lead cow stopped the ones behind it, until we crossed over the road. How is that for conditioning? Or, are the native animals that much smarter here in the wild west? Who knows for sure ?

We took a side road into the “Gouldings Trading Post.” It is a complex of gift shops, trading posts, a small museum, two dining rooms and a small hotel. The original Gouldings had come to Monument Valley in the early twentieth century and set up shop. They had helped and befriended the Navahos and were much respected as friends. Harry Goulding had taken pictures of the colorful Buttes and traveled to Hollywood, in the early 1930’s.He camped in director John Ford’s office, until he got in to show him these great vistas. Ford was so taken with the area, that he, John Wayne, Henry Fonda and Ward Bond filmed several classic Western epics in the valley. “She wore a Yellow Ribbon,” “The Searchers” and “Stage Coach” writ large on the American Psyche in telling the story of the American West. I remember well these scenes, from the many times I had watched the Western classics.And now, I was here amidst them. A small three-room adobe cabin stood near the trading post. It had been the quarters of “John Wayne, The Duke” when filming here. It is an enduring shrine to a virtual legend of the American West. A small room, off the trading post, also lists all the films that had been shot in these environs, including the “Eiger Sanction” and those crazy car commercials that show a vehicle airlifted onto huge pillars of stone.

Mary and I walked through the museum, the Duke’s shrine, the gift shop and then looked all around us at the towering mesas and wierd stone pillars, all covered in a dusty vermillion paint. It was breathtaking in every sense of the word. I couldn’t stop looking at the images, until they were burned into my retina forever. Next, we droped by the diner, where efficient and pleasant Navaho waitresses serves us some tasty “Navaho Tacos.” We much enjoyed them.

After lunch, we saddled up in the back of two very large pick-ups for a tour of the valley. A see-through, plastic cover spared us from the ever present wind. The red dust soon coated us like everything else. Our guide, “Rosie” was a Navaho. She had a dry, self-deprecating sense of humor. We drove through a smaller Navaho Valley and enjoyed looking up at “Elephant Butte,” “The Camel,” “Mother holding child peak,” “Totem Pole Rock,” “Three Sisters” and “Mitchell Butte.” Even John Ford made the cut, with a Mesa named after him. The terrain is hilly from erosion and the roads earthen and rough, with no improvements.The spiky chapparal and sage didn’t do much to hold down the dry, red dust that coated everything and everyone. We stopped several times for pictures. Navahos were at every stop selling locally made jewelry, much of which was beautiful. At one stop, an obliging Navaho, sitting on his horse, posed on a stone mesa and let us all photograph him. It was a picture right out of the movies. He then approached and let all the tourists sit on his horse for individual pictures. Through it all, Rosie filled us in on Navaho customs and even tried to teach us some of the language. It is pretty hard to get your tongue around Navaho. The Movie “Wind talkers” had just aired a few years back. The U.S. Army had used Navaho radio-men during W.W.II in the Pacific. The Japanese could never decipher their language. Most of the residents of the reservation do what they can to survive economically, but I think they fair not well. The Valley is magical. It wouldn’t take a large mind-blink to revert back hundred of years here, to a land and a time when the gods of thunder had walked the earth and cast large shadows amongst and above the few primitives who huddled here.

All good things come to an end. We ended the tour and laughed at the film of red dust that covered all of us. It would wash off later. We reboarded the landcruiser and settled in for the 2 & 1/2 hour ride back to Lake Powell. The images of Monument Valley would be with us for a lifetime. I can see even now, the “Duke” charging at the head of a cavalry troop, or riding long, lonely days with Jeff Chandler in “The Searchers.” Every time that I see these great epics again, I will think of Monument Valley and smile. Kim put on a video of “October Sky.” We watched it during the ride back, our thoughts remembering what we had seen, and realizing that we would never this way walk again.

We arrived back in Lake Powell, just as the sun was settting at 7 P.M. Mary and I elected to wash off the trail dust and enjoyed a welcome shower before venturing over to the dining room. The resort had misjudged its visitor level and the dining service was glacial. We chilled out, had a glass of Mondavi Cabernet and enjoyed a decent, if very slowly served meal. ($66) When you travel, you have to rock and roll with whatever happens, not get excited about the little things.One table complained so loudly that the manager came by and picked up their check. Squeaky wheels often get greased first, I guess, but no one likes being around them.

After dinner, we returned to our room, to pack our gear and write up our notes. We had to track down some laundry from the hotel or leave it behind. I think the hotel manager has to kick some butt here to get ready for the coming tourist season. We read for a bit and then surrendered to the sandman. It had been a long day, in the dust- dry west. These cowpokes were tired as old logs in a swamp.

Tuesday, March 25- Lake Powelll Lodge- Paige,Az

We were up early. Our bags had to be out for pick up by 6:45 A.M. We breakfasted at the Lake Powell Lodge and then made ready for departure. The bus left at 8 A.M. .We waved goodbye to Lake Powell and then the Glen Canyon Dam complex. We might never this way come again. Driver Bill followed Rte.# 89 West into Utah. The land is semi-arid here, with high rolling plains and scrub brush. We arrived in Kanab (“willow basket” in Paiute) and stopped at a very prosperous “Denny’s Wigwam.” Besides the requisite jewlery, Denny’s carries an expensive line of Western clothing. It was interesting to see how fast the transition had occured from native American to “western” in only so few a number of miles. Utah looks rugged but prosperous.

Kanab, a small metropolis of eight thousand souls, had been an outpost for the early Mormons, who ran their buisinesses under a “United order” concept, something like a benevolent socialism, where “each got according to his need and gave according to his ability.” I found it interesting to see this pocket or socialism so deeply embedded in the American West. Kim talked of the Mormons and their history. Mary and I were familiar with the religion. It had started on a hill near Rochester, N.Y. when the Angel Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism. Each yeah an entire hillside, with hundreds of actors, draws tens of thousands of tourists there to watch a four-day pageant, acting out in light and song, the history of the mormons. It is a spectacular performance. Smith was killed by an angry mob in Missouri in 1844. Brigham Young took over the reigns of the religion, which exists and prospers today as the Church of the Latter Day Saints.

Kanab was also an early practitioner of involving women in govt. An all female city council and mayor had first appeared here in the late nineteenth century and done a good job for the town too. The practice of Polygamy of course is the nettle that stuck in the rest of the country’s craw. We browsed through Denny’s., had some good coffee and delicious maple fudge and then took pictures of ourselves standing in front of a large wooden bear and a replica of an old stage coach. The Utah area, comprised formerly of native Paiutes and Utes tribes had first been scouted by the same Spanish priests, who recconoitered Arizona, Fathers Escalante and Dominguez in the late 1700’s. Then, the Mormons came to this forbidding land in the mid 1800’s to develop it as a mining and agricultural complex, which it remains today. Copper, gold, lead, zinc, coal and oil have all been found here in quantities.

The country side was getting more snow-covered as we rose in altitude towards Bryce Canyon. We could see Mt. Humphrey and Navaho Mountain often in the distance.They rise above the 12,000 ft. level and are snow-capped. Cattle ranching, sheep herding and limited agriculture abound in the area. It looks prosperous enough. I think the Winters here are hard and long. Finally, we arrived outside of Bryce Canyon and stopped at the very large and comfortable “Ruby’s Complex.” Conference center, lodge, diner, gift store, provisioner and “old town” amusement center, Ruby’s has everything. We wandered around the huge gift store and adjacent art gallery, admiring the western and native trinkets and baubles.Except for the pricey sculptings and paintings in the Gallery, things probably hadn’t changed much from the time when beef jerky and oxen feed were the staples.

The air is cold this high, even with the sun shining. We could see ranges of snow capped mountains along the skyline.Winter hangs long and departs slowly in these parts. We left Ruby’s and drove higher into Bryce Canyon.The snow pack was much deeper here, often several feet thick. Our immediate impressions of Bryce Canyon are favorable. It is filled with wide open canyons and lined with rank upon rank of hoodoos. A hard stone, cap rock made erosion eat away more slowly on some pillars of stone. They are called Hoodoos.What emerged are rank upon rank of wierdly carved stone pillars, all made of a bright orange, rust color.They looked to me like a visage of the terra cotta warriors found in China, standing mutely on guard.

At Bryce Point, we could look out over a vast plateau far into Utah. One hundred miles away we could see snow-capped Navaho Mountain. There are vast coal deposits there, a source of much wealth for Navahos in the future, should they elect to expolit their most sacred site. You become awestruck easily when faced with such sweeping grandeur before you. You can but gaze intently and try to capture the images in your minds eye, as you enjoy the vast panaroma before you. We took our pictures and enjoyed seeing nature at her finest and most magnificent.
The kids from Florida were laughing and throwing snowballs, unused to playing in the white powder. A park’s ranger was taking several tourist on a snow shoe walk down the trail. Each had on snow shoes, with iron pitons attached to the bottoms, for gripping the slick ice.

We listened for a bit, as another ranger was giving a geology lesson on the area. In brief, after an uplifting had raised the Colorado Plateau, from beneath an inland ocean to the 8,500 foot level, rivers and winds had eroded a huge portion of the upraised Colorado plateau, shaping it in the form of a Grand staircase, that runs from here, in Bryce Canyon at the 8,500 foot level, down through Utah, Arizona and Nevada and finally reaching the floor of the Grand Canyon at the 3,000 foot level. Along the way, weirdly beautiful shapes of all sizes and colors had been created by the forces of erosion. It gave me pause to think of how to explain it. I came up with this phrase. “The Gods breathed upon a sandstone canvass and created a weirdly beautiful Grande Escalier (grand staircase), peopled by bright orange hoodoos, dusty vermillion buttes and white ochre mesas.” It is a phantasmagoria of stone, left for us by nature, to wander in and be awed by.

At “Sunset Point” we saw a vast panorama of bright orange hoodoos, with alabaster tops. Though made of stone, they appeared as delicate as porcelain in their rocky splendor. Terra Cotta warriors, rank upon rank was my imagery for defining them. You could but look and silently admire them as they sat there in quiet stillness and let the wind and the snow swirl through and across them. It is a visage I hope to one day see again, but carry still in my mind’s eye. It is a portrait of nature’s wonder in bright orange and alabster.

It was cloudy and snow was falling, as the land cruiser carried us from Bryce Canyon. The sky looked dark and the clouds pregnant with snow. We were headed along Rte. # 12-West, for Zion National Park and our stop for the night at the Zion Park Lodge. We were descending in altitude as we headed for Zion. The snows were still falling and it was chilly and cold out. It is only a two-hour ride from Bryce to Zion, so we sat and enjoyed the changing scenery, as we descended in altitude. The land was getting softer and greener as we approached Zion National Park, Then, we were there. A large visitor’s center sits at the two ends of the Park. If you are not an over night guest, you must park here and ride the park shuttles into the Canyon. It is a way of controlling the park’s vehicular traffic and much enhancing the quality that you find here. We passed “checkerboard moutain.” Huge primordial sand dunes, standing over 600 feet high, had ossified over the eons. Weathering had traced a checkerborad pattern on their surface. I wondered at how long the area had been submerged beneath an inland ocean, to collect 600 feet of sand on its floor, and then the titanic forces that had heaved the entire area well up over 7,000 feet. You can’t help but be impressed by the geology of the area and the power of nature, and wonder about its connnection to the cosmos and the nature of religion and what lies behind it all. The area makes you think this way, even if unintentionally.

And then, we came to a man made wonder. The Mt.Carmel-Zion tunnel runs for a mile through solid rock. We entered the darkened tunnel somewhat apprehensively. And then, we came upon the first “window.” An enormous “window” had been carved from the rock and looked out over a vast canyon of stone. It drew an appreciative “ahhh” from the bus passengers. Then, another window appeared and another. The viewers were into the window surprise, as we flashed through the dark and winding cocoon of bored rock. And then, we emerged into an even more fantastic lanscape.The Virgin River had carved the canyon into weirdly shaped formations. The movie ‘Planet of the Apes” had been filmed here. It really is otherworldly. A series or road swicthbacks was carrying us down to the canyon below. Huge chunks of red sandstone, some bigger than the bus, lay along the roadside, testimory to the enormous rock falls that occurr here regularly. We could but look up, sit and wonder at the red sandstone beauty all around us. Finally, we reached the canyon floor. Eons of river silt, from Springtime flooding of the Virgin River, had created a small valley of grass, cotton willows and gentler surroundings. The temperature was much warmer on the Canyon floor, though it was still chilly.

The Zion Lodge is a complex of buildings. A peak-roofed,wooden sided, two-story dining room, reception area and gift shop are flanked by several two story wooden lodges with guest rooms. We off-loaded the bus and made our way to our rooms. They were pine-panelled and pleasant enough, with views to the Virgin River just across the grassy entrance way. Our baggage came a bit after. We had to help the young porters, who looked a bit challenged. Kim had called ahead for us and we had dinner reservations. We were dining this evening with Jane O’Neil, Michelle McKeown, Muriel Irvine and Gerry Godfrey at 6:00 P.M. We freshened up, changed our clothes and walked over to the dining hall.

The restaurant was”sro,” with guests. We waved to several of our fellow travellers and then were seated by “Jonathan” at a nice table for six. We enjoyed some decent cabernet, then availed ourselves of the salad bar. Everything was fresh and appetizing. I had a tuna steak, the others various cuts of meat and chicken. We all enjoyed our meals. Service was a little slow, but “Jonathan” was not to be hurried. I had never before heard a “lisp” with a southern drawl. He was funny and a good waiter. For dessert, Kim had reccomened the “Moose Tracks”. It is a chocolate sundae creation that is exquisite enough to be sinful. We ate it with relish, while we dined and enjoyed each others company. It had been a long day in nature’s most elegant backyard. We made our goodbyes, to our dinner companions, and walked back, through the inky and cool darkness, to our room. The quiet was noticeable and we enjoyed it. We read for a time and then surrendered to the arms of Morpheus, happy to be here in this palace of ossified wonders.

Joseph Xavier Martin