Day 20 The World's Greatest Three Mile Hike!

Look at the title of this journal entry. We took the plunge, but that's not where today's story begins.

For the second time on this trip, the alarm clock failed to go off. Still, we were up at 0700 and shortly thereafter Anna Marie and I were on the Rim Trail headed toward Inspiration Point. We achieved our destination.

I got some nice shots as the sun rose to shine it's warming light on the Hoodoos. Following this photographic event, we hoofed back to the campground where we feasted on Eddie's culinary speciality, pancakes. By the time we were finished, it was time to go hiking.

We chose to do the Queen's Garden/Navajo Loop. A three mile combination trail with steep gradients. The walk down was easy but not without its trials. The loose rocks made for difficult footing. In fact, one of our party took a tumble. No harm was done and after getting vertical and brushing off some trail dust, we continued our hike.

Walking among the Hoodoos is a totally different experience then viewing from the rim. We were amazed to see chipmunks, birds and event ants. It was warmer at the bottom of the trail. That felt good for a short while before we shed some clothing before the hike back up to the rim.

The trip back to the top was very steep for the final 0.6 mile. There were so many switchbacks that I didn't count them all. Each seemed steeper than the previous. In just about two hours and ten minutes, we were back on the rim. We toasted our success with bottles of spring water.

Ed met us on the rim at Sunset Point and we proceeded to the lodge for a well deserved lunch.

Following lunch, Anna Marie and I walked back to the campground while Marje and Ed stayed at the Lodge to avail themselves of free Internet access.

After a short rest, we walked all three loops of the Sunset Campground, before meeting up with Marje and Ed. We off to a ranger talk on Astronomy. Lead by Ranger Don and held in the Lodge Auditorium, the talk led us through the Milky Way and the rest of our local group to the Virgo.

Following the presentation, we went outside to where there were three really nice scopes set up. We were able to see a double star, M11, the Flying Duck constellation and M13. That was great fun.

Back at the campsite, we had our evening meeting, agreeing to head for Zion NP at 0730 hours.

That's the story for today.

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