Trip Report--LV, Zion, Bryce, Boulder, Cedar Breaks
 

I enjoyed this trip so much I decided to record and write a trip report for the first time. I hope I can keep it to a minimum. Part 1 is the first two nights in Vegas.
Flew to Vegas on Monday 7/16. We boarded the USAirways Flight 777 and were seated one row behind the exit row. As luck would have it, there were two children with dad in that row, so we were asked to switch rows with them. This was the two children’s first flight, so unfortunately after moving DH got his seat kicked a lot. We arrived in Vegas at 10:00p.m. Caught a taxi to the Venetian after weaving through a huge taxi line with hundreds of others in the very hot Vegas evening. Poor DH was sweating like mad. You see, we do have a rental car reservation, but when DH made it, he accidently punched in the wrong date and booked it for Tuesday with Hotwire and it couldn't be changed. We arrived at the Venetian at 11:00 p.m. to be told our king non-smoking room wasn't ready. (BTW, The smell of the really strong air-freshener & smoke isn't a good first impression) The check-in agent attempted to give us a double queen smoking room with an ionizer but we said, no thanks. So after it was apparent we weren't budging, we were upgraded to the king room with a view of the strip but the catch was we had to wait another hour to check in—heck it was already 2:00 a.m. for us, what’s another hour, right? Once we checked in, we found the hotel room was an oasis in the middle of this crowded desert. Spacious, luxurious and comfortable with three flat screen tv’s, a work desk, gold velvet sectional sofa, granite counters and a tub and shower. We finally got to sleep at 1:00 a.m (4:00 a.m. to us).
Tuesday morning found us walking the strip to the Bellagio, Paris Paris and Wynn--it was about 108 that day. We entered the Bellagio and decided to go to the breakfast buffet (this was based on a tip from Rachel Ray’s Tasty Travels). There was a line to enter the buffet and we were seated about 10:45. So here is a tip we obtained from our wait. The breakfast buffet ends at 11:00 a.m. The price for breakfast is $14.95. If you enter just before the changeover to lunch, you also can partake in the lunch buffet. Plus, at 11:00 a.m. the price changes to $19.95. So you save $5pp and get to enjoy both—which we found the buffet tasty with a wide array of choices and some great desserts! After touring the strip, we returned to the Venetian for a respite, and later walked the hotel areas including checking out the 7 pools, Restaurant Row with its restaurants by Mario Batali and Emeril LaGasse, walked the canal area for a better look--which surprisingly is a nicely constructed replica of Venice--sans garbage and pigeons! We looked at the restaurants on St. Mark's Square and decided we would return later to Wolfgang Puck's Postrio for dinner. At 7:00 pm we had front-row tickets for the Cirque de Soleil Mystiere show at Treasure Island in the evening which was fantastic! We returned to the Canal area to Postrio for a dinner of corn chowder and Puck pizza. Because of the small faux paux with the rental car, we caught a taxi for the airport to pick up the rental car at 10:00 p.m. Here is another tip we found—surprisingly, the Venetian (and we want to assume Bellagio and other hotels) do not charge a dime for self-parking and you don’t even need a hotel key or anything to get in. You can park yourself, it’s free, and enter the casino and canal areas no questions asked. Valet parking out front is also an option. On Wednesday morning, we decided to try the Wolfgang Puck poolside restaurant Riva for breakfast. Smaller menu, we both had lemon blueberry pancakes and the check for this breakfast was at least $10 more than the buffet at the Bellagio on Tuesday. Now with car in possession, we departed Wednesday morning en route to Zion National Park. Stay tuned for Part 2 with pictures……………..

Oh, and one second afterthought...I see the question posted here occasionally about dressing up in Vegas, esp. for shows. Approximately 99% of the people do not dress up or even wear nicer clothes to the show...we saw folks with shorts and very, very casual attire...so wear what makes you comfortable!

Part 2……The drive to Zion from LV is very scenic, particularly the portion in Arizona. As we neared Springdale, we noticed smoke in the air from several apparent fires. Our trip led us to the Desert Pearl. Highly recommend this modern, clean and spacious accommodation equipped with micro, fridge, dishwasher, sink, wood floors and large bath. We found out at check-in that the fires we spotted were in Zion, but the air was clear so we didn’t worry. That evening, we ate the Pioneer Lodge, nice people, ok food. On Thursday morning, we awoke to the smell of smoke and there was a hazy sky. Nevertheless, we caught the shuttle to Zion Park at 9:30 a.m. The park and Springdale shuttle is fabulous and more parks should use this method!! We were told by the park rangers that the smoke settles in the canyon at night and the heat of the sun pushes the smoke out by mid-day. The entire back country was closed. But, into the park we went to begin hiking. We rode the shuttle to the end of the lower Canyon drive to the Riverside trail where we hiked the easy 2 mile roundtrip trail. We exited the trail, and rode the shuttle to the stop for the Weeping Rock hike, a .5 mile roundtrip trail. After hiking Weeping Rock, we noticed a sign for Hidden Canyon and the description was that it was strenuous with sheer drop offs. We decided to go for it and figured if it was too bad we would descend back down. What an exhilirating hike, even for me, as I am fearful of heights. We ran into a park ranger part-way up who joined us for a while. He was heading to Observation Point to close off part of the trail due to the fires. He pointed out a buck stuck on a cliff wall, but the buck wouldn't come down. We continued onward and upward and upward and onward. Part of the trail required using the chains installed in the rock formations to pull yourself up around the trail…whew, I had a few expletives with my height fear starting to haunt me. This was a fantastic 2 mile hike—which seemed a little longer than 2 miles, IMO. By the time we reached the top, the sky cleared as the rangers predicted. On the way back down, we were reunited with the buck, which was in velvet, and he walked down ahead of us on the trail—got some good snapshots of him. After hiking Hidden Canyon, we rode the shuttle to the Grotto by mistake (thinking this was where Emerald Pools was). So we hiked another half mile over to the Lodge. While there, we had a small snack, which by the way I found the amount and type of offerings at the snack shop there very acceptable and suitable for a wide range of tastes. DH had blueberry frozen yogurt, I bought a fruit cup and munched on some snack mix. We then ventured out to hike the Emerald Pools. We saw all three pools and this was a moderately strenuous hike of about 3 miles+. By this time, we decided to head back to Springdale. We ate this evening at the Switchback, which had a great menu and good food and if you get a front table the view is stunning. The next morning, we were wakened by a smoky smell in the room at 5:00 a.m. We slept a little longer now knowing that the smoke would linger for a while, we didn't venture over to the park until 11:30 a.m. By this time, the smoke was lifting. We headed out from the Grotto on the famed Angel's Landing hike. This is a 5 mile winding, strenuous but really scenic hike. It was very warm when we went up, probably in the mid 90's. At the 2 mile mark, we came to Scout Lookout where a large portion of the canyon was visible.
To reach Angel's Landing, you had to hike another half mile on a significantly dangerous portion of rocky cliff. DH went up a small ways and turned back while I chickened out and waited at Scout Lookout. It was decided reaching the end wasn't worth ruining the vacation or lifetime for, it looked awfully scary to me. We caught the shuttle to the lodge where we had a snack, then caught the shuttle again for Canyon Junction where we picked up the scenic but paved and flat 1.7 mile Pa'Rus trail which followed the Virgin River to the Visitor's Center. This is a very easy, scenic, serene and beautiful trail that follows the Virgin River. Once we reached the Visitor's Center, we decided to continue on walking back to the Desert Pearl. After returning to the room and cleaning up, we went to dinner at the Bit 'n Spur. We had a fabulous Tex-Mex style dinner. The portions were huge and tasty. We enjoyed chips with pico de gallo, guacamole, chicken burritos with pinto beans, and I sipped on a house-made Sangria. Of course, later that evening, we took another one to two mile walk through town to find some ice cream to cool things off for DH. We decided since we had hiked a large portion of Zion and the fires were getting worse, we would checkout one day early on Saturday and head to Bryce. The tip I can impart from Zion is that you hear a lot of recommendations about carrying water, etc., which is true, but a note, if you are only hiking the shorter hikes, just about every trailhead has a restroom and water fountain(s). The best water fountains we found were inside the lodge where the restrooms are located in the great room….really cold water great for refilling your bottles. Part 3 to be continued…..

Pics of the trip:
http://hugglynn.shutterfly.com/action/?a=0EcOWrJuxbsXFQ

thanks for passing on your tips and report.
Hilary

Look forward to your report on Boulder. We'll be going there in early October.

Looking forward to hearing about the rest of your trip. Thanks for great info. Heading back out there in a few weeks and I can't wait!

Great report so far! I really enjoyed the pictures. My husband and I hope to get there some time soon...

Hi Huggylynn,

Glad you had a good time. I'd love to read your trip report, but help please! Need some paragraphs! Grazie!

Dayle, Thanks for the suggestion. This is my first trip report, so appreciate the input!! I know the writing was long--I am a little too detail oriented. Ok, here is Part 3 with paragraphs:

It was a beautiful drive on the scenic Upper Canyon Road to leave Zion. There is also a very nice, clean rest stop just outside of the park boundary at to top…can’t remember the exact name though, but a great place to get coffee/tea for the upcoming drive. We reached Bryce in what seemed like a short time. We started seeing versions of hoodoos soon after turning towards Bryce on Route 12. Just a note: For those of you taking bicycles, once you enter the Bryce park outskirts, there is a newly paved bicycle path that goes 5 or 6 miles towards Bryce. My mouth was salivating! I was also a little surprised to see all the ATV trails near the edge of the road.

We stopped in Ruby's Inn for a brief visit and decided we would drive the park instead of using the shuttle. I didn’t find Ruby’s near as reprehensible as I had thought based on posts here. Of course, we didn’t ‘stay’ there, but the lodge part seemed quite acceptable.

We drove the Bryce park road to the end of the viewpoints and stopped at Bryce Point. WOW! Bryce was even more beautiful to us than Zion, it must be because it is that “in your face” type of scenery. We walked around Bryce Point for photos and began hiking the Peek-A-Boo trail. The trail was incredible--both in scenery, elevation changes and terrain. It was 1.1 miles down from Bryce Point to catch the trail in the ampitheatre. The trail itself was another 3 mile loop and another 1.1 mile back up the ampitheatre, so at least 5.2 miles. I figured this out once we were down at the bottom entering the loop. Whew, what a workout, esp. on the way back out! We also planned to do Navajo & Queens hike, but this one made us a little tired, so instead of doing any other hikes, we just drove the car to see the other view points, including Inspiration, Sunrise and Sunset.

After checking out the views, we stopped in the park lodge, which was disappointing and typical of Yellowstone and not near as nice as the lodge at Zion. After a short stop and a souvenir purchase, we started the drive onward to Boulder, Utah on the famed highway 12. Part 4 coming soon………….

Great report and photos! We are going next week, and this report is a great appetizer. Thanks also for the paragraphs.

Is there a particular reason you didn't hike the Narrows at Zion?

Hi lvk
Yes, a couple of reasons we didn't hike the narrows. We only had about 8 days on the whole trip, so originally didn't plan to hike the Narrows because of the length and so many other hikes to take. DH also has had recent OA flare-up of the knee, so the unsured footing wouldn't have been a good option for potentially ruining the rest of the trip, and neither one of us were keen about hiking (swimming) through the water. The other issue, even if we had planned it, is the Narrows were closed about 2 miles back from the River Trail due to wildfires.
Hopefully the weather will be cooler for you and the wildfires abated! I haven't checked the park website to see what the status is. Are you hiking the Narrows, or planning to?

I just checked the nps.gov website and from what I can tell, it still seems as though the Narrows are off limits. It's real hard trying to ascertain exactly which trails are closed, but here is a link to a report on the site:

http://www.nps.gov/zion/parknews/upl...26-07_edit.DOC

Ok, I found the exact info on the Narrows and other trails closed in Zion. The Narrows are still closed at Orderville

From the website:
Trails and canyons currently closed in Zion

West Rim Trail – from Lava Point Trailhead to the junction at Scout Lookout

Orderville Canyon – and associated canyons

Behunin, Imlay, and Englestead Canyons

The Narrows – closed above Orderville Canyon. The Narrows remain open from Riverside Walk to Orderville Canyon

Thanks for the reports, any advice on Boulder and what to see would be appreciated. We'll be going there in October.

jayzee

Thanks for the info, huggylynn. We were not planning to do the Narrows through-hike, just a few miles from the end of Riverside walk. This trip will be just a little "taste" of Zion & Bryce on our way to our Lake Powell houseboating trip.

I keep checking the news, but there haven't been many updates since 7/26.