ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, we didn't get a bad start this morning. By the time we have breakfast in the hotel's buffet ($5.49 for all you can eat of an enormous variety of items) we're only about an hour behind our planned schedule - and we'll gain an hour crossing into Utah anyway. Our first experiment at meeting somewhere we've never been before at a time we could only guess at works out pretty well. We arrive at the Valley of Fire visitor center only about fifteen minutes ahead of Mary and Lou. There is a little confusion over whether the Visitor Center or the place where we paid admission is the proper meeting place, but it works out. Throughout the trip, we will constantly be making adjustments for meeting times and places, but all in all, we never were more than a few minutes off, even when we took entirely different routes and side stops.

The Valley of Fire, less than 100 miles outside of Las Vegas, is far more impressive than we'd expected, with huge, jagged rock formations of deep red and cream white. Not as well known as the National Parks in Utah, it can only be reached by driving several miles down a roughly paved road leading apparently nowhere. Cars appear to be scarce, and, without any clue from the featureless, creosote-dotted desert of what lies ahead, we wonder if we'd made a wrong turn. The first hint of the valley is a large, red rock formation over to the left of the road, with the admissions area on the right. Not a Visitor's Center (that would be another mile or two into the park), but just a restroom station and parking lot, with a covered picnic table area and a couple display maps. At a post here there is a box and envelopes with instructions to insert four dollars and slip the envelope into a slot in the hollow post. A ranger comes around occasionally and empties out the envelopes. The honor system is alive and well in Nevada.

Leaving the entry station, the road makes a sweeping turn to the left and descends into a valley of breathtaking rock formations surrounded by equally awesome mountains. We didn't expect to spend much time here, just a drive-through on our way to Zion National Park. We all agree that the Valley of Fire would be worth revisiting on another Las Vegas trip. We continue our circle of the Valley of Fire area along Nevada state highway 169, driving through the small towns of Overton and Logandale, and picking up Interstate 15 again at Glendale. From here the drive is through really big desert country with large, craggy mountains jutting up on the horizon.

The difference in appearance is much less subtle just a few miles later as we enter Utah. Although the basic ground color remains a kind of khaki, the color of the rocky crags and hills abruptly changes from dark brown to bright red. It's like having storm clouds break to reveal a sunset. We leave Interstate 15 a little north of St. George and drive northeast on Utah state highway 9 through the towns of Virgin (named, apparently, for the river, not the physical condition of any particular citizen), and Rockville (imaginatively named for some of the surrounding features).

THE GLORIES of Zion National Park can be imagined for miles before you actually get there. We are driving along what is essentially the canyon floor, and the rocks and mountains around us are becoming increasingly larger. Still, off in the distance we can see absolutely enormous peaks. The stones we'd gotten used to were the size of houses, maybe even department stores; Zion is made up of cathedrals. We meet at the Visitors' Center again, and try to agree on whether to spend more time here than we'd planned.

There are hikes we could go on that would take us wading through ankle-deep water between sheer rock walls over six hundred feet high… and only four feet apart! There are lovely areas along the shallow Virgin River, which cut this glorious canyon out of the Utah rock. There are, in fact, lots of reasons why Zion would be a great place to spend several days, but we decide we would rather spend more of what little time we have at Bryce Canyon, and that's still a couple hours away.

Leaving Zion National Park to the north may be even more spectacular than entering it from the south. As state highway 9 continues out of the park, it climbs the sheer canyon walls in a series of sharp switchbacks, each with an awesome view of the canyons and gorges below. There are two tunnels here that are unlike any other I've ever seen. Although the road through them is two lanes, just like the rest of the road, there are stop points at the entrances so that traffic is allowed in only one direction a time. That's so that people can safely gawk as they're driving through, for the tunnels have windows cut into them, through which views of the canyon can be seen.

At the crest of the canyon wall, the road winds through stone canyons, the surfaces of which have been cut by wind and water into chessboard patterns and large, sweeping swirls. They look just like petrified sand dunes.

As we descend into Mt. Carmel Junction and join U.S. 89, the land has begun to look more agricultural. Small farms and horse ranches line the Virgin River (still not much more than a stream) as we follow it north toward Long Valley Junction and Hatch. The high mountains and small fields with cows and sheep join with the natural wood houses to give an Alpine Swiss look to the area.We reach Hatch by 4:45, and find the Riverside Motel and R.V. Camp, where we will be staying tonight. Upon checking in, we learn that the manager is waiting for news of the birth of his second grandchild. His daughter-in-law went into the hospital this morning and he has been on pins and needles all day. Mary and Lou (who we haven't seen since we were at the Visitor's Center in Zion together) arrived only about a half hour before us, and they checked in, too. But they have left for Bryce Canyon already, about twenty miles up U.S. 89 from the motel, and then another fourteen miles east on state highway 12.

Not far from the junction of those two highways is an area that is almost unknown to the rest of the tourist world, but which practically knocks Linda right out of her seat. Well-known locally simply as Red Canyon, it is a place of incredibly intense colors and shapes - maybe even more (in its small area) than Bryce Canyon itself. We note this place as one to recommend to anyone coming to this part of the country.

Brilliantly shaded formations in little-known Red Canyon, on the way to Bryce Canyon National Park

Ohhh! Aaaahh! Oh, Wow! Hundreds of shapes and forms in stone (called "hoodoos") conjure up all sorts of images: walls and windows, castles, cartoon characters, pagodas, pedestals, and temples. One writer likened them to "platoons of Turkish soldiers in pantaloons". The Paiute Indians who once lived here didn't even have an actual name for the area, but only a description translating simply as: "Red rocks standing like men in a bowl-shaped canyon."

Photos usually emphasize this other-worldly magnificence of Bryce Canyon National Park, and rightly so. The intricacy of form and brilliancy of color are astounding, as though in this particular spot the forces of creation went temporarily bonkers.

Giant "hoodoos" give Bryce Canyon the look of an alien planet landscape.
Throughout the West are scenes reminiscent of Sci-Fi cover art.

As was to become standard procedure on this trip, we run into Mary, Lou, and Lizzy at the Visitors' Center, where we have arrived within fifteen minutes of each other. Leaving their car in the parking lot, we all drive in our car along the road lining the rim of the cliffs. It seems that Bryce Canyon is not really a canyon at all, but rather a series of amphitheaters carved out of the Pink Cliffs. We stop at several viewpoints and get out to walk the trails along the rim. After unsuccessfully trying to get all or any of us to join him, Lou goes even further than that, hiking one trail several hundred feet down into and amongst the towering rockforms. And back up. We take lots of photographs here (although none will ever do the place justice), including one of a chipmunk who we swear must be accustomed to posing for pictures. He stood right up on his hind legs and virtually smiled at us until he got bored and went off to find another group of tourists to beguile.There are a lot of people visiting Bryce Canyon; it would have seemed much more crowded if it weren't so vast in scale. And hardly any of these people are speaking English. Linda notes German, Dutch, Belgian, French, Italian, and Spanish being spoken by the various groups of people around us.

		The roots of this tree show clearly how much this surface has already eroded during its lifetime.

We get back to the motel at 11:00, and the grandchild has not arrived yet.

We drove 358 miles today.

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Story and original photography copyright ©1996-1997 by John Lipman. All rights reserved.
Descriptions, observations, and characterizations expressed are solely those of the author.
Background music is copyright ©1996 by Jim Lynch. All rights reserved.

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