Crimson-Cascades - a photo on Flickriver

Crimson-Cascades

The road from Death Valley to Zion is a lot longer than I had planned for. Granted, it didn’t help stopped often for snacks, to use the restroom, check for wi-fi, or make the occasional sports bet (hey, I was in Nevada) During one casino run I ended up spending a good hour in some lowly establishment playing Pai-Gow with a bunch of vets….considering it WAS Veteran’s day….I figured it was only fitting. While these old guys may have won some wars…they were most definitely not on the winning end of their battle with the Pai-Gow dealer….who, ironically, was from Vietnam. It was all very surreal, and probably funny only to me. Actually…come to think of it, maybe it just seemed surreal because the old dudes were so heavily laden with Old Spice…it forced me to hallucinate. That’s a big issue with getting old…when you have to dose yourself in enough cologne so that YOU can smell it, and your smeller is only operating at about 20% of what it used to. These guys STUNK. Whatever, it killed an hour…and allowed me to shake off the cobwebs from the hours of driving I’d endured the past 24 hours.

The final plan for the day was to arrive in Zion. Rent my dry pants and canyoneering shoes, and then head to the visitor center to secure my permit to hike ‘The Subway.’ When that was finished I figured I would have enough time to grab a bite to eat…and maybe a power nap before photographing the sunset. Rob wasn’t arriving in St. George until midnight…I was going to have a considerable time left after sunset to kill before his shuttle showed up. There’d be plenty to do in St. George to kill time.

My plan didn’t quite work as planned. It never does. Ever. First off, the place I stopped to rent gear (even though in an email they told me I didn’t need to reserve the gear…they had plenty) had run OUT of dry pants. I was stuck renting only the shoes and neoprene socks…then proceeding down the road to Zion Outfitters to rent pants. For which they made me endure a video showing me how to behave in the canyons. It was very funny, in a totally unintentional way. The highlights had to be the respecting other hikers portion, where they show some guy splashing other hikers while in the narrows. Do other hikers actually DO that? Walk in the river then kick water on other hikers? According to this video, it must have been an issue. That’s why they rent you the staff right? To beat the hell out of any hiker who kicks water on you? My other favorite part was the poor guy who had to carry out his own doodie in a sack….his face, while totally fake, was priceless. I recommend renting gear there if for no other reason than to watch the mandatory video.

Now I have even more gear in my car.

I set out to get my permit for the wave. Time was ticking…and the sky, was looking favorable. I parked, and went in to the backcountry portion of the visitor center just in time to listen to the beginning of what would be a 15 minute story told by some climbers about something they had just done, and something that seemed very uninteresting to everyone BUT the climbers. The ranger tried to appear slightly interested and have them write their report down on a document she had handed them…She did not want it verbally spewed to her minutes before closing. I wanted to scream. Sunset was coming, and I had to listen to these knuckleheads talk about choke-stones and belaying.

FINALLY, The climbers ( I should clarify…it was only one of the climbers. The lady. The gentlemen looked like he was utterly wiped out, and wanted nothing more than to get somewhere he could have a cold beer, and relax. It was his female companion who felt she needed to bond with the ranger about the trials and tribulations of their climb, he rolled his eyes several times and wandered off to stare blankly at posters.) opted to write out their report as instructed rather than retelling it a 3rd or 4th time. I was allowed to get my permit and head out. It really wasn’t that simple. I had to run OUT to my car and get my license plate number before they would give me my permit…apparently, they are afraid of a pantload of white Prius’ overtaking their parking area…and wanted to be able to pick out mine specifically.

“Seriously? White Prius isn’t enough?”

“No sir, we need the license number before the permit can be issued.”

Permit in hand I set out to find a spot to shoot the sunset, which was only minutes away.

Within a five minute span I watch a potentially awesome sky vanquish into a miserable display of gray. Not even gray that would look nice with some black and white processing. Just awful. I just stood on the bridge watching the watchmen…who was watching who knows what. Maybe he was watching me, with my gear, alone, looking at a wasted night of photography. I tried to salvage something and hike up to the weeping rock…but it wasn’t flowing so nice…which made ME want to weep.

Stupid Zion.

With nothing to photograph, I opted to head into Springdale and get some dinner. I had seen this little Tex-Mex place, and from its outward appearance it looked festive, and quite possibly totally awesome. It’s the Southwest man, the Mexican food HAS to be good….right?!?

Nope.

This was easily the worst Mexican food I’ve had in a long time. I pointed out in a Facebook update, that it was the worst Fajitas I’d had since I was in Prague about 15 years ago. That food, while horrid, was slightly justified. To their credit, the Czechs were fairly recently a eastern block country, and not so familiar with their friends south of the American border. They just new they needed some faijitas and tried like hell to come up with something they thought fit, and failed miserably. This place had Hispanic peeps working there, and were IN the Southwest…home of Tex-Mex. They had no excuse.

“Hello police, I’d like to report a robbery….someone stole all the flavor out of my fajitas.”

I left full…but totally disappointed.

I decided to head into St. George and wait…it was a good sized city, there had to be something to do to pass time until Rob arrived. Right?

Nope.

St. George might be the most boring place on earth after the sun goes down. I drove ALL over that place. I even did google searches for ‘nightlife in St. George‘, and Google LAUGHED at me. The first thing that came up was something that said ‘ while St. George doesn’t have much of a nightclub scene, people in St George are fond of their ice cream...’

Ok. So they’re not big on nightlife…but they’re big on eating Ice Cream…hey, ME too….we can work with this. I looked for the directions to the ‘Blue Bunny’ Ice Cream place, and set off for some dessert. While my dinner was a disappointment, surely I could rebound and go big with dessert. Right?

Nope.

It wasn’t terrible..but for a community of people who supposedly LOVE their ice cream, they’ve been getting some pretty mediocre dairy treats and just living with it. It wasn’t great. It’s ice cream…so of course, I ate it all…but California has way better ice cream…maybe it’s the happy cows….who knows.

St. George, either get some nightlife, or taste some real ice cream…you’re MISSING OUT ON LIVING.

OK. Let’s recap.

Dinner- Check.
Dessert- Check.
Four hours to kill until Rob arrives- Check.

FOUR HOURS?!?!?

CRAP.

I made 3 or 4 laps around the St. George area….stopped at a grocery to buy some water and stuff for the hike the next day. Organized my camera bag, got everything else all situated.

Three and a half hours left.

Nothing to do.

I thought about seeing a movie…which was a bizarre thought to have while on a trip for photography and outdoors activities. St. George didn’t even have any movies I wanted to see! Everything was old. St. George is three weeks behind the rest of the world cinematically. This city, while full of extremely friendly people…is out of it. Maybe being friendly is a full time job for these people.

With nothing else to do, I went to the Howard Johnson Inn where Rob’s shuttle was going to drop him off, pulled in, laid my seat back, and slept.

I woke at 11:45pm just as Rob’s shuttle pulled in. He quickly loaded more gear, and after a brief stop at Wal-Mart to get some snacks for him we set off for Zion.

Rather than find a camping area, we just pulled into the trailhead parking area for ‘The Subway’ and set up the tent, right next to the no camping sign for style points. Rob gathered his massive amounts of gear, threw it in the tent, and set out to get a couple hours sleep before we would have to wake and set out. I crawled in the Prius’ set up my pad, and tried to get a few hours as well.

Here’s a shot from the hike into the Subway, The bottom up route is boring, and not very interesting until the last ¾ a mile…then it’s just amazing. This shot is pretty typical of what folks come away with…but it doesn’t make it any less enjoyable.

The Death Valley workshop...home of the original crockpot story is coming up fast. Come spend two full days of photography with Stephen Oachs and Me (and the crockpot) Only 3 spaces left!!!
www.apertureacademy.com/photography-workshops.php#DV

Taken on: November 23, 2009

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Brian RUeb Photography

Aperture Academy

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Zion

nature

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Sets appears in: • Zion National Park.

Groups appears in: • Desert • FlickrCentral more » • Beautiful Scenery & Landscapes • Nature & Landscapes • Natural Landscapes « less

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