leahgallo: 5Apr10 (Mon): Zion, UT - Bryce

We ate our daily camping breakfast in Zion: Eggs, toast and tea. We had planned a morning hike but ominous clouds changed our minds. We packed up and headed to Bryce Canyon instead. Our original plan was to camp in Bryce, but it was still cold and snowy there, and a storm headed that way to boot, so we decided just to take a scenic drive through, stopping at all the lookouts.

Bryce is another wonder of erosion, its sandstone often forming fantastical landscapes of uneven orange pillars (named hoodoos), that suggest city ruins, people turned to stone, animal shapes, and just about anything the mind can imagine.

By the time we entered the park it was freezing and sleeting. I was mopey because I desperately wanted Derek to have a chance to hike through the hoodoos but Derek, being his optimistic self, said it would just give us a chance to see the park with snow, which people didn’t as often see. To add to my growing disappointment, the wind and styrofoam ball hail reduced visibility. I had to psych myself up each time I left the car. Bryce became a torturous beauty – heaven on earth, if heaven were frozen in an ice storm. It was biting and uninviting, so that the day became an exercise in persistence and determination. Derek’s persistence was always greater than mine, to wait in the storm for the sun to glow through the clouds and brighten the scenery a bit. I would like to say this is because I’d already seen parts of Bryce, but I know its just because Derek’s willpower, when it comes to getting ‘the’ photo is limitless. Half a dozen times I gave up and fled to the car, nursing my windburned face, while he stood out in the snow and wind, returning sometimes fifteen minutes later, practically frozen to a block of ice. And never once did he bemoan the weather; instead he would exclaim excitedly over a bit of sun that shone through, illuminating some hoodoo or other.

We arrived at Inspiration Point in Bryce, which has a lower viewpoint, and a short but steep hike to a higher viewpoint. The path was snowed over, and we both agreed not to attempt the hike. But, for a change, my photographer’s instincts kicked in, and I just knew the view was going to be better from above, so while Derek was photographing below, I called out that I was headed up, and determinedly began the hike upwards. It was a steep and slippery quarter mile and I thanked my good hiking shoes several times. At the top, the view was breathtaking. Only one other couple had attempted the trek. As I was snapping away, I realized I saw a form struggling up the hill below me. There came Derek, in his moccasins no less, cutting a path up the hill. I scolded him, reminding him of the Bryce radio station, which had told us on loop how improper footwear was the leading cause of injury in Bryce. Derek didn’t care, he had the mad light in his eyes.

He joined me and we both waited up there for a bit of sun, which obliged after maybe ten minutes or so. Then we slid our way back down the hill, and how Derek didn’t become the next statistic in improper footwear, I have no idea, because in his shoes, I would have been flat on my rump.

I was feeling a little exhilarated that I had challenged myself and something good came out of it, and for the first time, despite being hit in the face with sleet and wind, I didn’t mind the storm as much.

We left the park four or five hours after we entered it, and the storm followed us. I noticed that the sun was fully visible despite the rain, and I mentioned it might be another rainbow. Derek was possessed by this thought (and getting a good photograph). He saw a dirt road and swiftly turned onto it, bumping us up the unmarked path to a hill near a transmission tower. “I knew it, I saw the transmission tower and knew there would be a good viewpoint up here!” Derek cried. We waited, hunched in the cold, for the rainbow we knew must be coming. It did, but it was just a little giblet of a rainbow, not a full arc, and after waiting for too long, we both finally gave it up and headed back to the main road. It was a beautiful drive, and despite the storm hanging over us the whole way, we were enjoying it. “You see what we have to drive through, how amazing it is!” Derek would shout out.

I looked up, and the sky was a heavy grey that threatened to envelope the car. I was glad we were only twenty-five miles or so from our destination. It began to snow again, and not long after, two deer darted in front of the car. Derek slammed on the brakes, throwing us both forward, and they hastened to a narrow escape. I breathed a delayed sheeeeyit. Derek, on the other hand, was bummed I didn’t get pictures. What a great jumpstart to the old nervous system.

We drove forward into an increasingly snowy landscape, and realized the road kept winding upwards in elevation. The snow worsened, and Derek downshifted to 2^nd gear, slowing the car.

“Scenic Byway,” Derek scowled. “More like scenic GOODbye way.”

I laughed nervously. The snowfall increased, and I took Derek’s camera away so he could concentrate on driving. It didn’t stop me from taking pictures, not until we entered whiteout conditions, and Derek asked me to help him stay towards the center of the road. I begged him to shift down to first, and when we drifted close to the side of an embankment with no guardrail, I practically squealed for him to put it in first. He obliged, and we crawled along, him gripping the steering wheel, both of us leaned forward, faces practically glued to the windshield. We didn’t know what to do – the driving conditions were so bad it was folly to continue forward, but there was nowhere to turn around, and stopping in the middle of the road sounded like a bad idea. And if we stopped, we weren’t certain we would be able to start his car again, since it was two wheel drive.

“We could actually be snowbound,” Derek said with a sense of wonder. “I’ve never actually faced this prospect. This is the worst I’ve ever driven in.” He was having trouble seeing the center lines, and he kept being deceived by the snow falling sideways towards my side of the road. Every time I thought he inched towards my side of the road, without any real shoulder and a steep drop, I would cry out. It was not so much the snow that filled us with so much anxiety as the knowledge that if we slid, we wouldn’t be able to stop, and we would plummet over the side. I sat ramrod straight, tension singing through my body, and I often made a lot of unintelligible strangled sounds, along with the more common curse words and a few breathless ‘ohs’. If the deer had jumpstarted my system, this storm was nearly flatlining it.

“I’m an excellent driver,” white knuckled Derek muttered as he squinted at the road.

“I know, I know baby,” I said consolingly.

“I was laughing about us being in the Shining before,” Derek said, referencing an earlier part of our drive. “Well ha ha ha. Now it f*cking is!”

We saw a snow covered scenic turnoff, and debated just stopping and staying put for the rest of the storm, however long that might be. We decided against it after Derek put on his news announcer voice and said “It was the last time they were ever seen, and little did they know, they were 200 yards from freedom.” But 200 yards we were not, and mile by mile passed, only becoming worse, so that we were driving over inches of snow, with no one else in sight.

“I love you baby,” Derek said gravely.

“Is that a goodbye?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No….” he trailed off. “But god forbid.”

I wanted to cry. THAT’S how bad it was. I switched our music to the Beatles, because if we were going down, I wanted to go down listening to great music.

And then we reached the summit, and knew that going downhill couldn’t be worse.

“We’re going to be ok,” Derek reassured me, and himself.

All total, we were stuck in the storm for fifteen miles, and half of that was near blinding whiteness. It took us over an hour and fifteen minutes to cross that distance.

Flying home free on the other side, towards what would turn out to be a Howard Johnson’s hotel, Derek relaxed, smiled and said “It’s been memorable. That’s what this trip is about.” He thought a moment. “As long as we don’t die.”

Captions:

1. Natural Bridge, Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah

2. Upper viewpoint of Inspiration Point, Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah

3.Pulling over to take a picture

4. The empty road (from the viewpoint of a transmission tower while in search of a rainbow)

5. Driving in the storm