Day 167, Friday, November 18, 2005

After my shower this morning, I came back to my tent and hung my washcloth out to dry per my standard procedure. When, about 15 minutes later, during the course of making a breakfast of French Toast, I tried to wipe my fingers off on it, I found that it’d completely frozen solid rather than drying. How funny! It was damn cold. While eating, a guy, Bob Shea, stopped over to talk and suggested we hike together. Bob suggested we should do an off trail, route finding hike up a peak near Clear Creek and then drop down into the creek which we’d follow until it dropped over a ledge. It’s a hike he’s done before and which he said I’d definitely enjoy. We hiked from 10am till 4pm. Cool slot canyons and exposed rock faces. Zion certainly lives up to its reputation!
After the hike I spent time with Bob re-routing my trip further. Turns out that Bryce isn’t going to be feasible due to extremely low temps and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon has been closed off due to inclement weather. Bob and Peggy have traveled extensively in this section of the country and he helped me lay out a new route to catch the Southern rim of the Grand Canyon. From there I’ll head through a bit of a loop through AZ before heading back to join the Chungs for Thanksgiving