Daily photo - Sandstone

Souvenir from Utah. I dug through tons of these slabs to find one I really liked.

No Post TOO HOT...

It's hovering around 100 F here, and I'm hiding in the library living off their air conditioning until they close. This is the first time in 2 years I kind of miss my crappy air-conditioner. I've been having to drench the garden at least twice a day, and I think we still might lose some plants. It's just too hot. Here's a random pic of some Petroglyphs from Capitol Reef.

Daily Photo - Green River

This is my favorite view from Canyonlands. The Green River is still digging out canyons.

Arches National Park

We were in Arches from the 22nd to the 25th. due to the tiny biting gnats. We only went on the Devil's garden hike and avoided the campsite most of the time by hanging out in Moab. I did take a side trip to Canyonlands on the 24th while my cousin rented a bike. At Arches most of the rock tended towards reddish, but time of day altered it dramatically. Since it was so much warmer than Bryce I was up around dawn each morning.

Devil's Garden Trail. Landscape Arch Start of the non-primitive trail. Partition Arch. Water Holes. Navajo Arch. Raven. Sleepy lizard.

One part of the trail is across one of the fins. It's fairly wide, but I still got ridiculously nervous on the way back. There is a stiff wind from the right, enough to knock you over if you aren't paying attention.

Views from the road and Park Ave Trail.

Balanced Rock

Little gray praying mantis I spotted. Cracks. Ripples.

Capitol Reef Side Trip

On the 21st we took a day trip to Capitol Reef along rt 12 a Scenic Byway of Utah. Much of it winds through Grand-Staircase Escalante National Monument along with some National Forests. Quite pretty territory all around. Panorama from viewpoint on Rt 12 overlooking Escalante. Capitol Reef was mostly a scenic drive, including two dirt road / washes you could drive all the way down. The farther one Capitol Gorge was quite interesting, especially in a Ford Focus. The petroglyphs were also interesting. I didn't hike at all in Capitol Reef due to tiny little flies (and a newly scratched up shin from a slide at an overlook, the back of me knee hurt, so I decided to leave it alone.) This was only our first encounter with these little beasts. The next day we discovered them infesting all the campsites at Arches too. And the little buggers bite hard. We consequently spent a lot of time in Moab during the day. I have a few hundred more images to work through.

Last of Bryce

We got up at dawn the last day.

Two Posts in One Day

Bryce Canyon's Visitor Center has free Wi-fi. These are all from today's hike, the queens garden trail combined with the Navajo Loop, the other end of which with Wall Street is closed.

Zion Wednesday

The climb that finally stopped me in Hidden Canyon.

My cousin^ who keeps talking me into these scary hikes.

We got lazy yesterday so just hung around the campsite. Wednesday we hiked to hidden canyon, which was very nice. That's where most of the above pics came from.

Zion to yesterday

A basic Zion view. On day one we hiked to all the Emerald Pools, which are totally worth the hike. Little lizards and damselflies abound. The pools are full of tadpoles and water striders. Personable lizard from Emerald Pools Trail. We also walked up to the Weeping Rock but it wasn't very impressive right now. Early in the morning the next day we scaled Angel's Landing. Actually i wimped out at Scout's Lookout and waited for my cousin to climb and come back from the Landing. Scout's Lookout has magnificent enough views for me. But watch out for the pushy chipmunks. The starter climb for Angel's Landing. I found Walters Wiggle to be easy compared to those first switchbacks. Pasted Panorama view from Scout's Lookout. Chipmunk looking for handout. Rattlesnake we saw on the way down from Angel's Landing. Checkerboard Mesa. Ripples. Utah Sandstone. One of my big goals was to find canyon treefrogs. On the overly long jaunt to the showers (I totally recommend the Zion Ponderosa Ranch showers, even if it is a solid 2 hours there and back from the campground) we stopped at all the lookouts on the Mount-Carmel highway. At one we could hear the sheep noise the frogs make when they call. After a slight scramble we found a pool with 5 frogs in it. Four were calling and one was just trying to stay away from the other 4. Some of the scramble. Calling male. Possible Female. This one kept trying to escape the others. Weird little (maybe 1/4 inch long) beetles from the campsites. Today we went to Hidden canyon and did the Riverside Walk. The narrows are currently closed, so we probably won't get to hike in there at all before we have to leave. Tomorrow morning we're going to try for Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park.