Mesa Verde and the 4 Corners

Mesa Verde and the 4 CORNERS

I’m writing this at a computer after a blur of hiking, driving, and good times.  My memory is failing, but I do know that Mesa Verde was a very cool place.   The Four Corners was also pretty sweet.

Pueblos are the dwellings that are all over this region.  They are carved into the sides of the sand stone cliffs with very elaborate buildings.   The people that inhabited the area were very peaceful.  And that’s about the extent of my memory…

Here’s a couple of pictures to prove we were here :)

 A drive through liquor store requires a photo :)

Where in the World?!

Driving SCENIC HWY 12

 

We headed east after impatiently waiting for a package from home.  Only to find out that it was delivered to the incorrect location. AGAIN…  No worries, we re-routed it from Escalante to Blanding, UT and hit the road! 

Hwy 12 is a spectacular drive through Utah continuously changing and surprising.  We hit several parks along the way. 

First up was Capitol Reef – a lightly visited park, that is a bit of a hidden gem.   Great colors and lots of petroglyphs made this a worthwhile drive through their park.

After another hour or so on the road we made out way into natural bridges Nat’l Park. So what is the difference between an arch and a natural bridge.... well... not really a whole lot from what I could tell.  The names are difference, but they both seem to be caused by water and look about the same :) 

Next stop, Goosenecks State Park – A superb example of what occurs when you let a river meander its way back and forth for millions of years.  With nothing to do for that much time I would get bored too and create a silly slithering pattern.

Because it was not quite yet sleepy time, we headed out to the Navojo nation and checked out monument valley. Although we did not end driving through the park as the sun was already setting we did get some excellent photos!

Where in the World?!

Escalante and Hole in the Rock Road June 22-26

Hole in the Rock road is 60 mile long dirt road from the town of Escalante down to Lake Powell.  It is a blast!  We stopped and checked out several sites along the way

-Devils Playground
-Dinosaur tracks : not convinced they were actual tracks...
-The end of Hole in the Rock road - a long hike/scramble down to Lake Powell
-Spooky and Peek a Boo Slot Canyons
-Neon Canyon - Golden Cathedral

My favorite part was blowing up the air mattress we had and hiking up to the large sandstone cliffs on the edge of Lake Powell to sleep for the night.  Being the first to feel the suns rays in the morning is great! Check out the pictures!

The slot canyons were VERY cool.  A short hike down and we were slithering our way through some tight quarters in the canyons.  Each canyon was unique.  Peekaboo was smooth and more open with lots of arches, and holes to climb through.  Very twisty turny.  Spooky was much deeper and more narrow.  Kate and I both had to travel sideways through this canyon.

Kate's Golden Cathedral Section:

Our hike up Neon Canyon in search of Golden Cathedral was like no other. We hiked down Fence Canyon across the Escalante River and then finally along the north rim of Neon Canyon until we had made it past Golden Cathedral: A pool of water in the canyon base that sits at the lower opening of the skinny, slot section of neon. Oh, and the pool sits about 80 feet below the opening to the slot. Of course this sounded like a perfect opportunity to rappel! What we didn’t expect (or at least what I didn’t expect) was how testing the section of that upper slot canyon we would travel through would be. Hiking along the top of the canyon we made certain to past Golden Cathedral before taking our first drop into Neon Canyon. We then hiked along the bottom until the canyon started getting slimmer, where we approached our second rappel- into the depths of the slot. We’ve been through a handful of slot canyons now and I think they are great. This one though.. not so great. It wasn’t so bad at first that the canyon was fairly dark, but it became a problem for me once we had to cross multiple stagnant, dead creature filled, buggy pools of water which were now stagnant, dead creature filled, buggy pools of DARK WATER. Unfortunately there was no other way out, we’d just dropped 30 feet or so down slick rock to get into here and the only way out was to hike to the end and rappel from the Cathedral into the more open area of canyon. After a few panic attacks and some extremely quick swims, we’d made it to our last (best) rappel. Finally what we came for! The top of the descend is through a thin, steep slot (dry, luckily) and then you drop through a hole and the canyon opens around you and you’re in the beautiful Golden Cathedral. The sun shines on the pool of water and reflects onto the roof creating an incredible scene. We dropped in one at a time, enjoyed the scenery for a while and hiked back toward the truck, completing our HOT ten mile trip. The beautifully awesome rappel made the day worth it and I know we both finished feeling accomplished but would I get back in that slot to do it again? Absolutely not.

The Wave! Part of the Nation’s newest National Monument: Post June 16 2014

The Wave!  Part of the Nation’s newest National Monument:  Post June 16 2014:

Waking up on the side of road isn’t the best place for making breakfast.  So we headed down into the town of Kanab which also welcomed cell phone service!

Hooray! We could once again connect with the outside world.  While downloading the current news via internet we learned that if we hurried to the visitors center we could enter into a daily lottery for a permit to visit the very exclusive “Wave” feature in the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument.  So exclusive in fact that only 20 permits are given per day.  10 via months in advance reservation and 10 via a lottery system the previous day.  Alright! 

Well, when we showed up the visitor’s center was completely full of half asleep and hopeful travellers not unlike ourselves.  Hmm… This is going to be harder than I though. 

Within in 2 minutes of us walking in the door we were all ushered into a large meeting room where there were about 40 chairs (all were filled) and a large bingo ball roller cage at the front of the room.  This was quite the event. 

We all filled out permit information and were assigned numbers corresponding to our group. Kate and I received the number 11. 

Things were looking good.

11 is my favorite number.

Dun dun duhhhhh….

And it did work out for us! We were the 3^rd group called and snagged a permit to the Wave!

Since we had to wait until the next day to use our permit, we explored around the area for the day and found a great campground to call our own.  Check out these pictures from buckskin gulch – The longest slot canyon in the world. 26 miles in all.

  
I’ll let the pictures describe the next day.  It was A-MAZING!

 Eggs anyone?