While in Bryce Canyon, Joe and I wanted to do some of the trails for our daily exercise. In the Bryce Canyon information pamphlet that you get upon entering into the park, we checked out the list of hikes. Under the moderate hikes, there was listed the Queens/ Navajo Combination Loop. Under the name it stated it is the World's best 3-mile hike! With that read, we had to do it.
We start out and find many other people are doing it with us. Great weather, in the high 70's.
At first we are above the spirals and pinnacles.
But soon we are among them.
You know me and flowers!
Soon we wish we had shorts on as we descend down into the valley. It was rather cool in the shade, we we had started.
Look ahead at our path and you can see the doorway through the rock.
Good thing Joe isn't much taller.
This trail was just right for us. If you slipped and fell, you might break a limb, but you would not be killed.
Now we are under the spirals.
I had plenty of room in the doors of the rocks.
View through the doorway.
This is a magical walk amongst the Hoodoo. ( What the Paiutes called the pillars, " Legend People whom the Coyotes had cast a spell and turned them into stone.)
We make it into the valley where there was lots of shade and where many hikers had rested for the next leg of the trail. What goes down, must go back up! Some past hikers have stacked rocks on this tree stump.
It seems to me, many people were trying to put off the inevitable. They all try their hand at rock stacking.
A lot of work put into some of these rock piles.
And some creativity also.
So much different down here just 600 feet below where we started.
We started our ascend, knowing it would take awhile. But the grade was steep, so we figure this was a great lunch spot.
After a half an hour break we continued. Joe found some shade and we saw just how steep the climb was. And this is considered moderate? I guess we are getting old.
Here is a better angle of the steepness.
Switchbacks all the way up.
Every minute, I needed to rest.
This shows the switchback better.
Half way up we looked back, to see how far we had come.
Those small dots are people, coming up the switchbacks, and where we traveled a few minutes before.
We came to where we thought was the top, only to find, there was much more to go.
And now there are drop offs that if you fall, there will be not just broken limbs. At this point Joe, said he had to keep moving. His fear of heights has kicked in. For him, if he keeps moving and does not look down, he does better. If he waits for me, his anxiety gets worse. I told him, to just keep going and I would see him at the top.
I can not keep climbing, and have to rest every minute or two on such steep elevations. If I am stopped, and up against a wall I can take picture to take my mind off the heights. I look back and see what we thought was the top.
I was up against a wall as I took this picture.
After a rest, I started my continued climb hugging the inside wall.
Those people a head of me were wall huggers also.
Another wall hugger shot. I had to do something while I caught my breath.
This guy is not a wall hugger. He stood on the edge.
I looked down and saw the supposedly top, where you can see the pass between the two pillars in the foreground. Those people down there aren't wall huggers either. They walk down the path like they would walk down any old side walk. If Joe and I had started at the end of this trail, like those below are doing, ( going down, not up) we would have gone a few hundred feet and had turned back around.
Still hugging the wall, I peer down at the paths below. Those trees below , are where we came from.
It was a long ways down there, If you would had fallen.
I was almost to the top here. The real top.
I took one more look down, before I turned the corner and saw Joe waiting for me at the top. The trail took us to Sunset Point.
One last shot from the very top.
Now, all we had to do was to walk along the rim to Sunrise Point where our car was parked.
View from the rim. That was not a moderate trail. That was strenuous, in our book. Joe said he enjoyed the first two thirds of the hike, but the last 1/3 was not pleasurable at all.
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