We Explore Bryce Canyon, One of the USA’s Best National Parks – Moto Travel Diaries [S1 Ep30]

Hey everyone! Welcome back to Notiers Frontiers  Diaries. In this episode, we go to an incredible   place. One of my favorite National Parks. Me too,  for sure. There's just something really unique   about it. And we're talking about Bryce Canyon in  Utah. It is not really a canyon, it's more like   geologically there's this giant cliff, and then  everything just steps down from there. And so   it's this overlook, but what's really unique  about it is there's these pinnacles of red and   yellow and orange and white rocks sticking up  everywhere. It's just evolution, not evolution,  

erosion at its finest. Different sedimental  layers eroding at different times.   And it's really really beautiful, really out of this  world, Martian landscape. It looks   very bizarre. So we started off  that morning in the little town of  

Escalante, which is within a beautiful drive of  Escalante. It's Route 12 of UT Route 12, Utah,   and we had a beautiful drive the day before.  Escalante is kind of in the middle of that,   and then we had the whole of Dixie Forest  to ride through on our way to Bryce Canyon. I'm gonna put it there, is that  all right? Yeah, it's perfect.

It's actually pretty cool. If you stood here over 150 million  years ago during the late Jurassic,   you would see a lush forest in front of you.  Imagine trees towering over 65 feet high,   and a forest understory of younger  trees, ferns, and Cycad-like plants.   Rivers meandered lazily over the floodplains, and  colonies of slender horsetails grew streamside. We were riding down memory lane, if you will, and  I was really excited because seven years ago,   we were at the same place, and flashbacks were  just going through my head. And seven years ago,  

I had surprised Marisa when we pulled into Ruby's  Inn in Bryce Canyon, and there was a little teepee   there with a chicken on it, or a turkey. I  love teepees. I'd stayed in teepees before,   and so this was a really nice surprise of yours.  Well seven years ago, I surprised her in the   teepee. And this time we just went to reminisce,  and we pulled over at the same teepee, and the   colors were a little bit more faded. But it was  the same one. It was like nothing had changed. It was really cool, and the road down Bryce Canyon  National Park, it's just a one-way ticket to the   end of this plateau, with the erosions  and all the cool structures to the left.

But it dead ends, and then you turn  around and come back the same way.   I think it's called Rainbow Point, at the very  end. You're just going up and up and up along   the cliff edge basically, until the very edge  of that plateau. And I just really wanted to  

take that ride again. We had an amazing hike,  again, we're flashing back to seven years ago,   but we went down one way and came up  through Wall Street from Queen's Garden   to Wall Street. So the original thing that we had done seven years  ago was just that. We went down through Queen's  

Garden, and then up through Wall Street. But that  was really strenuous. It was a beautiful hike   regardless, but we knew that if we ever did it  again, we'd do it in reverse. And so now we knew   that we wanted to do it in reverse, and the  truth of the matter is, you have to hike down   the same elevation as you're climbing back up to.  But just Wall Street is a zigzag of just insanity.

No matter what, it's difficult when you're hiking  out there, because you go into the canyon and   you're going to have to come back up at some  point in time. But just coming up, you're at   high altitude, it's usually quite hot, and sunny  out there. You feel like you're roasting, you're   probably quite thirsty at that point. Bring plenty of  water. Yes. Trail snacks. And trail snacks!   So it can be strenuous coming back up, but Wall  Street is just zigzags, it's switchbacks, back and   forth. It's like straight up. A 45 degree  angle. It was pretty miserable the first time   we did it, so we decided to do the more gradual  Queen's Garden on the way back up. And that was   a really good call. And again, I wrote about it  in detail in "Maiden Voyage," my first book. So  

I've written about it, and so I have some of these  memories that are stuck in my head. And then my   writing, and then just pure bliss, this floating  cloud of thoughts and pictures in my mind. But it was almost scene for scene how I remembered  it. It was just awesome. There was a tree that  

grows up in between two cliff faces, and again, I  don't know how as a seedling, it sprouted. Because   the sun can only shine light on that thing for a  couple hours a day. But somehow nature thrives.   Right. It must get some decent water in that slot  canyon there. But yeah, the sunlight, it's just  

so shadowed. But it just grew straight up between  those cliffs. And that tree is still, I mean, it's   like the trail was exactly how we remembered it.  It's hilarious, so there's a little picnic spot, a   little log that's in an enclave. And that's where  we sat and had snacks years and years ago. And   there's this little chipmunk that did little cute  tricks. And we didn't feed it, but it definitely   had been fed before. It had. It knew how to  please. But I was joking with Marisa, I said, "Oh,  

there's that bench where that little chipmunk used  to be." And this is now probably a trait that has   been passed on from generations in the chipmunk  village, because it could not have been the same   chipmunk. But there was a gentleman sitting there,  and a little chipmunk doing cute little things,   and getting up next to a foot to him. He was like the  Instagram chipmunk. Yeah. It was like déjà vu.   This is just everything we did. It was so weird,  because seven years is a pretty long time to feel   like nothing had changed. Even the chipmunk is  the same! Like everything was exactly the same. It  

was such a cool experience to go through  time like that. Just a beautiful landscape,   and I took pictures of some of the same trees  that had fallen at an angle, and I remembered   it from seven years ago. I haven't looked at that  picture since the time I looked in my viewfinder. It looks like Oz, right? Like  this whole place is like Oz. It's just such a crazy landscape, like  in episodes of Star Trek where they land   on an alien planet and search around.  We were searching for aliens. It's such   weird formations of the rocks. So they're  called hoodoos, these pinnacles of rocks.  

And they're formed kind of like the Goblin Valley  that we went and saw. First you have these   differences in temperatures, and the ice  and the snow and the water and the wind.   It wedges holes, and sometimes windows between the  rocks. Well, the water gets in between the rocks,  

and then when it freezes at night, it expands. And  that's what "frost wedging" is. I read the plaque.   That's not something I just knew from childhood. That  was pretty good. I didn't know. And so   that's how the erosion process is expedited  there. And I don't know who named them hoodoos,   but that's a great name. Gotta keep it.  It's just fantastic, hoodoos everywhere.

Oh yeah. That's cool. Cityscape. Hoodoos! And some of them have names. Thor's Hammer is  this big one with a large rock on it. I think   there's like Three Sisters. And sometimes they  look like people. I'm sure when it's dusk there,   and the skies start to get dark, and you get  these hoodoo silhouettes against the sky,   I'm sure you could imagine them as being  some weird priests from another time.   And we're motorcyclists, so we'd rarely... I  mean, in Peru and such we found snow. But we  

would never hunt down Bryce Canyon in winter.  But I've seen winter landscape pictures,   and it's just fantastic. I mean, I  don't think there's a bad season to   hike around Bryce. That's right. Now,  it was very crowded when we were there.   There's free beer at the bottom. Very popular destination. It was the summer,  or into the fall, people were having the time  

of their life. But we were lucky that we were  able to park. We were really lucky to be on   the motorcycle, because they let us park by a  dumpster. Because... They closed the parking lots.   They'll be like full. You just ride up to  the little parking lot attendant. I was like,   "I'm on a bike. I can sneak in anywhere." Two  people on a bike, come on. Yeah. So they were  

very generous about that, and we were able  to go to the places that we wanted to go to. Did you take a video of the raven? Oh no, I didn't. I should. It's the friendliest raven in the world. This is the one that talked to Edgar Allen Poe. Right?

Nevermore. Nevermore. And after hiking around, it  was already such a fantastic day. I didn't think   anything could get better. But we were going to from  there go to our dear friends Dana and Bill's house   in southern Utah. So we were really excited about  that, and the last time we'd gone between Bryce  

Canyon and their place, we just took a normal  road. And we thought we'd do the same this time,   and someone on our way out said, "Oh, you  got to go through this Duck Creek Canyon   area. It's really pretty, you might as well." And  we thought okay, we'll just take this other road.   It doesn't really add any time. And it was great!  The sun was setting, and there is this canyon with   white mountains and cliffs, and you're going  along the river. And it was a beautiful drive. Dana! Hello beautiful! I'm so happy to be here! And Dana... I mean, there's a lot  of people who have helped us out on the road and   invited us in. The first time Dana  called us, we were caught camping at  

Kolob Reservoir in Utah. And it just rained on us  for days and days and days. And she had invited us   to stay at her house when we met her in a parking  lot. And we thought we were self-sufficient, but...   And we really hadn't relied on others up until  that point. But after just three days of   getting stormed on, we called her up, and  our lives are now intertwined. She is   awesome. She came to our wedding! So just goes  to show the people that we've met on the road,  

they're near and dear to us in our hearts. They're  fantastic. They make the journey. Definitely,   and we thank each and every one of you for  riding along with us. So we got back to Dana's,   and it's our home away from home. They're like  an aunt and uncle I didn't realize I had. But   our personalities are just as quirky and weird.  Just great, great people. On our way over there,  

you were remembering things from our last  time being there. And you said to me, "I think   there's a big statue of a buffalo coming up." A  buffalo silhouette, one of those big ones you see on the   highway or something. And I had no recollection  of this whatsoever. I'm like, no, he doesn't know   what he's talking about. There's no way. I said I betcha,  you just hold on buddy. There's a lot of horses   out there, and cows. But a big silhouette  of a buffalo just randomly? And sure enough!  Seven year old memory here. Bam! There's that silhouette  of a buffalo. I couldn't believe it!

How did you remember that? You remembered  what side of the road it was going to be on.   And just to be clear, Marisa's memory is not  very good. I remember some things, but I did not   remember that. But she's always quite impressed  when I remember stupid details from our past. But   to be also fair again, I'm in the back. And so I  have this big helmet right in front of my view. So   things pass me very quickly from the side, like he  had a lot more time to see this buffalo silhouette   coming. This is true. It was just a good time  hanging out with old friends and reminiscing.   We got some work done, and it was good to take  a break after being on the road. That's right.  

Because we had our next Expo coming right up. So  thank you so much for watching this video. I hope   you liked it. If you did, please give us a big  thumbs up, and hit the subscribe button below.   And we will be seeing you next time, where  we go to that Expo - the biggest of all of   the Overland Expos. And we check out an ancient  dinosaur forest. Thanks everybody. Bye! Peace!

2022-01-10 17:55

Other news