Nature Hiking

We enjoy guided hikes with the Park Rangers.  This morning the topic was “nature” which provided plenty of opportunity to discuss just about anything.  A good chunk of the discussion centered around the California Condor.  Many of the small population (they are endangered) summer at Bryce Canyon.  Perhaps we will see one there because we haven’t seen one here.

This variety of pine tree produces pine nuts.  If your Thanksgiving stuffing recipe calls for some of those (and ours does) then these types of trees will do the trick.

At 8,000 feet above sea level vegetation adapts.  These alpine like flowers are fairly common along the North Rim.

This rather unusual looking plant is an not a cactus.  It’s in the Yucca family.  It blooms once in its life (which can be 100 years) and then dies.  

I don’t know if the gray clouds plan on staying elsewhere, but there are blue skies right now.  We took advantage of the weather by hiking the Transcept trail which runs along the ridge of the Transcept canyon.  I loops out from the North Rim Lodge to the campgrounds about 1 ½ miles away.  Then we took another trail back to the lodge.  We put about 4 miles on our feet.  Then we parked ourselves in the rocking chairs on our porch and ate lunch.  VACATION!