Grand Canyon, Flagstaff, AZ National Monuments, AZ high point (sort of), & New Mexico National Monuments

I'm back at the same RV park in Albuquerque but closer to the office. Maybe the wifit will be better and I can actually catch up? We'll see.

From Lake Mead I started making my way toward New Mexico and since it was sorta’ on the way I zipped up to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. I was hoping to find a campsite and do a rim back to rim hike (down South Kaibab up Bright Angel) but the park was packed. No campsites and it took me an hour just to find a place to park for a day hike. I did a 10 mile hike along the rim an got out of there. It's the 4th time I've been to the south rim. Given the crowds, I didn't see a reason to linger but at least I got a good hike in and peered into the canyon (aka "The Big Ditch").






I made an appointment for an oil change in Flagstaff and headed there the next day. Once I got that done I stopped by a local outdoor shop for some “expert advice”. For weeks I’d been eyeing the high point in Arizona (Humphreys Peak). It’s 12,633’ tall so you can see it from MANY miles away. It was still buried in snow so I was assuming I wouldn’t be getting to the top of it anytime soon.  But the guy at the outdoor shop assured me “As long as you have microspikes and hiking poles, you’ll be fine.” Since that’s all I had to get to the top of Mt. Adams last August I figured I’d go for it. 

It's probably not a good sign of things to come when the trail head starts at a ski resort and they are actually skiing (although don't ask me why -- just this small portion of snow was groomed -- maybe it was a private party???).

Bad idea. Whereas the route up Mt. Adams didn’t require any challenging navigation, Humphreys certainly did. Just following footsteps in the snow in the dense trees wasn’t the answer; folks were going everywhere. I had an app that let me see where I was relative to the trail but I didn’t dare keep the phone in my hand as I was ascending the steep slope in the snow. If I had dropped it, it would have taken a wild slide down the snowy slope and I’d never see it again.  

My view from as high as I got on the highest peak in AZ. This photo doesn't really show how steep it is.

 

It was slow going; after several hours of struggling up the steep slope to 10,811’ it became apparent I wasn’t going to make it to the top and back to my van in the daylight so I headed down and route finding wasn’t any easier on the descent. That afternoon, someone posted a GPS track on the app I’m using “All Trails”; they wandered even worse than I did in attempting to find a route and didn’t get as far up the mountain. That made me feel ever so slightly better... I only had a short drive from there to where I was boondocking for the night -- down a forest service road.

The next day I took in 3 National Monuments very close to Flagstaff – Walnut Creek, Sunset Crater Volcano, and Wupatki (another area of ancient pueblos).  I was able to see all 3 in a day and hike all the trails they had available.

 

Walnut Creek was less than exciting. A loop trail to see a few crude structures under rock ledges. Had it not been nearby, I wouldn't have gone.

Sunset Crater Volcano had a few trails and a good view of Humphreys Peak so I could contemplate the previous day's 'folly'.

It was amazing that these yellow flowers could grow on ground covered with lava debris. They must have very long roots. That's Humphreys in the background; part of the San Francisco Mountains.

From there it was on to Wupatki, included in a loop of scenic driving.

Before too much longer (???) I'll run out of ancient crumbling walls to visit...

After that I made a long drive (the scenic route rather than I40) to New Mexico and took in a couple more National Monuments -- El Morro and El Malpais (The Badlands; so named due to the vast expanse of volcanic rock, which made it difficult to cross the area). 

At El Morro heading toward inscription rock.


It was the year-round water at the base of these rocks that drew travelers over time. A pueblo was built atop the rocks and the ancient puebloans left pictographs on the rocks along the base, as did historic travelers on military and exploratory journeys; earning the title "Inscription Rock".






In El Malpais I hiked to La Ventana (the window):


And along a trail on a bluff called "The Narrows" overlooking a vast expanse of volcanic rock that was a curse for historic travelers trying to get across it; earning the name El Malpais (The Badlands).

That's all lava below the bluff.

La Ventana from above.

A variety of types of lava flow can be seen along "Lave Falls" trail.

The last stop in El Malpais was the Sandstone Bluff Overlook.

More desert flowers and Lake Mead

 We'll see how far I get on this post while I've got good internet at the RV service center in Albuquerque.

After I’d hiked all that I could in Zion and hiked another trail on the outskirts of Zion as I was leaving, I headed into St. George UT to re-provision, explore the area, and enjoy the hospitality of a fellow Travato owner (Steve) that I’d met at the Phoenix RV gathering. I left St. George and headed into Nevada to catch the last day of the REI sales to replace my worn out trail-running shoes and a few other worn out hiking items and then headed to Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada. Interesting place. No campsites available in the park so I boondocked (free camping) about 10 miles away and spent a day and a half in the park hiking most of the available trails. I’m SO glad to see more desert wildflowers here (and in St. George), including blooming cacti. 

Hiking from Steve's neighborhood in St. George. 

Valley of Fire was a really pretty place; also with lots of flowers but mostly some great rock formations!

Not surprisingly, this is called Duck Rock.

From there I went to Lake Mead National Recreation Area. When I left the previous night’s boondock campsite, I didn’t really know where I’d end up that night. I stopped at several pull outs along the way to get some short hikes in, figuring it would be a ‘mostly driving’ day (not my favorite).  But the 3^rd place I pulled over to check out revealed a 31-mile bike-trail loop and a 7-mile roundtrip hike to Hoover Dam. With all those possibilities, I found a nearby campsite (with a shower) at 11 a.m. and took off on the bike ride (oops! In the heat of the day!). OOF! Nothing like riding in mid-80s heat up long hills, bucking head winds stiff enough to fly flags straight out from the poles, whipping in the wind. Thank goodness that the last 9 miles (of my 36.4-mile bike ride) was mostly downhill. I’m feeling pretty tired tonight; the long shower and some food didn’t perk me up. I’m assuming I’ll be fully recharged by tomorrow morning. The plan is to do the 7-mile hike in the morning and then keep heading somewhat south and east. Hard to say where I’ll end up tomorrow night. Time will tell…

It was a nice bike path; a long loop that only crossed a few roads. If you were training for something the long climbs (especially if you're facing stiff headwinds as I was!) would be a great resource, even though the scenery is a bit bleak once you leave the lake.

Sadly, it looks like I won’t be able to post any of this. The internet isn’t working (part of why I paid 3 times as much to be in an RV park, but I confess the biggest draw was the much-needed long shower). But at least it will be easier to get caught up when I DO get access to internet, now that the text is written for the post (or posts if I need to split it in 2).

This was a nice hike through the old railroad tunnels that they used to haul  all the parts up to build Hoover Dam.

It's now 12 days later and I still haven’t found wireless to get any of this posted. Meanwhile I’m taking lots more photos and visiting many more places. As I write this I am in Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico. I don’t even have enough cell coverage to send texts where I’m camped, much less post anything. Day after tomorrow I need to head back to Albuquerque for some quick warranty repairs on my RV (where I'm currently trying to make another post). Sorry, I know this is confusing to be changing from discussing the here and now that is well past once I can get around to posting it. Sometimes I go through and change text to make it flow but I'm going to post it as is and see if you can follow the flow.