lines of color

Color bursts from the ground at Valley of Fire State Park.

heading home

It was a short wandering day today because we needed to head to the airport for our flight home - short but good.

I wasn't sure what trail we would head to this morning. Denise clearly had an idea though... We parked at the Sandstone Quarry lot and headed out for a bit on the Grand Circle route. We walked one way, then turned around, passing the car and walking the other way for a bit. It's funny how the scenery was totally different depending on which side of Sandstone Quarry we were visiting. One side was that red sandstone, and the other was rolling terrain and more jagged mountains.

I'm so glad Denise let me borrow her phone to grab a photo before we headed to the airport. This is our last view of Red Rock Canyon (for this trip), taken from a highway overlook.

Oh! It's getting close to airplane boarding, time to go...

--- Rover

red rocks, blue sky

Today was a day for wandering Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, switching for the last hour of the afternoon to Spring Mountain Ranch State Park. It was a day of wandering among red rocks under a clear blue sky.

I walked two actual trails, spending a good chunk of time following faint paths on the ground instead of sticking to the named trails. My morning started by moving close to the rocks in the Calico Hills, watching the small (far away) people climbing up the rocks. Did you know that Red Rock has more than 2000 climbing routes and that it is one of the top five climbing destinations in the United States? There were other folks like me walking on the flat and tilted ground, and then there were the climbers. Fascinating...

The rocks in the Calico Hills section wear the most pronounced red color, although I'd say the red was closer to a deep rust color. There are some rocks that are deep rust, some showing more of a yellow to white color, and some where the red and the lighter colors are layered together. Across the wide open space in the center of the loop road stand more jagged mountains, an interesting contrast.

I considered driving the one-way loop road in Red Rock Canyon a second time (to stop at different spots) but that will wait for tomorrow morning. Instead I headed to Spring Mountain Ranch to check the colors there. The water in the small pond was wearing an interesting shade of blue-green, a nice contrast to the blue sky. I walked around a couple of times, needing to wait a bit to cover one section since there was a (small) wedding happening at the time I arrived there. Now that's a nice spot for a wedding!

A view of the Calico Hills, courtesy of my phone

Tomorrow will start with outside play {at Red Rock Canyon} and end with waiting (at the airport) and flying (home).

two parks, three states

I think Denise is tired; she said that I should write again today because words aren't jumping out for her. We didn't overdo it today but we did have that 3-hour drive to get close to our wandering spot for tomorrow.

Let's see, today we started walking and looking in Utah, we stopped in Arizona to explore a new-to-us spot, and we ended the day in Nevada. Hmm... three states! Oh, and we switched time zones again.

We started our day in Zion by walking the Pa'rus Trail. It's a flat (and paved!) trail that winds from the visitor center, following the river to Canyon Junction. It was really cold this morning and Denise wanted a fast walk to start out. Flat means it's easier to go fast! That trail is really pretty too, with red-rocked mountains on two sides. I told Denise she was wearing too many layers to start with (again). She said she needed them to start out; luckily she had room in her camera bag to stash the layers because she didn't need them for very long!

Next we headed up the snaking, switch-backed road leading to the Zion-Mount Carmel tunnel. And yes, we did drive through the tunnel (twice, since we came back the same way). What an amazing structure! The tunnel is a very narrow two-lanes wide. There's only room for two cars side-by-side, no room for walking... It's 1.1 miles long and very dark except for the spots where there is a window to look down into the valley. It's really too bad that stopping in the tunnel is not allowed. I could have stood in those windows soaking in the view for a long time, and Denise told me she would have happily joined me there.

I used Denise's phone to grab this photo. We stopped to soak in the view after coming through the Zion-Mount Carmel tunnel the second time (as we were heading downhill). The phone is much more my size than Denise's big camera!

We left Zion at about 2 in the afternoon, heading west. I convinced Denise to make a stop in Arizona on the way back to Las Vegas. On one of our previous visits to Zion Denise noticed a sign for the Virgin River Canyon Recreation Area, and I was curious. I wanted to see what was there. It's really funny - there is an exit on I-15, and the only thing that is there is one road marked private and the recreation area. It's in the section of I-15 where Denise always wants to stop even though she knows it's not OK to stop on an interstate highway. I didn't have to convince her to pull off of the road, I just mentioned that I wanted to stop and we were on our way! We found a path down to the river and did a little bit of walking down there. I'm so glad we stopped!

Back in the car, it was time to head for our home (away from home) for the next two nights. It was another good day!

--- Rover

windy Zion

Oh! The wind never stopped blowing today, and it was pretty chilly with temperatures in the high 30s to low 40s. Denise started out with lots of light layers then shed most of them. She said that walking (uphill!) warmed her up pretty quickly. I was warm enough too - I rode in the camera bag, popping out when there was something interesting to see.

First we started with a good breakfast at the Zion Canyon B&B. It started with granola and fruit over yogurt. Next, tasty waffles and some eggs for extra protein. Denise sat and chatted for a bit, and then we headed into the park.

Today's wanders were a mix of just wandering along the Virgin River and of hiking parts of two trails. The Sand Bench Loop was new for us. I understand it is mainly a horse trail in the summer. Luckily it isn't summer to it was quite walkable. There were good views of the Court of the Patriarchs. That was a good starting point since it was a relatively flat trail other than a small amount of up at the beginning.

Denise wanted to hike the Angel's Landing trail as far as Scout's Lookout. I could probably go the end to Angel's Landing but Denise doesn't like exposure so we always head out on the West Rim Trail when we get to Scout's Lookout. Not today though... A ranger in the visitor center told us that the top three pieces of Walter's Wiggles are icy, so it sounded like we would need to stop before the top. You've never heard of Walter's Wiggles? They are a series of 21 short switchbacks on the trail just before reaching Scout's Lookout. That's a very cool name, isn't it? When I heard there was ice up there I knew that's where we would turn and head back down. The first part of the trail was in the sun on the way up. It felt warm then, probably because we were gaining elevation pretty fast. Then we turned into Refrigerator Canyon, brrr! Denise grabbed her windbreaker and her hat and mittens, and I jumped back into the camera bag for that part of the hike. Even though we turned back at Walter's Wiggles it was a really good hike. I'm glad we hiked that trail today - it's really beautiful.

The air was pretty nippy today. Blue sky and red rocks kept us focused on wandering, and walking kept us warm. It was a good day at Zion.

--- Rover

magic... Valley of Fire

Today was a day of wandering after a night that was too short. A couple of hours of sleep on the plane supplemented my fewer than normal hours of sleep last night. I managed an early start this morning, important since I was going to lose an hour again today, moving from Pacific time back to Mountain time.

I headed to Valley of Fire State Park to soak in the beauty. The terrain from I-15 to the park entrance is rolling, desert covered in low scrub, rising to low mountains. The road twists and turns, climbing high before dropping down to the park entrance. Red rocks rise suddenly out of the browns and greens, spectacular!

My first hike was to the fire wave. The trail is well marked until it delivers you to the swirling colors of the fire wave. At that point it's a good idea to have an idea of where the trail lives (behind you) as you move on the colored rock. The fire wave shows reds (or oranges) interspersed with white. It almost seems as if someone painted the rock. The color would have been stronger if I'd managed to be there earlier or later in the day, but the colors at high noon were pretty amazing today.

The White Domes trail called to me next. The trail starts as relatively level sand before it heads downward, turning to a mixture of rocks and sand. It then goes through a slot canyon, emerging to showcase rock formations in many colors.

There are so many colors in the rocks here. They range from rust red and orange to yellow, white, pink, and green.

Have you visited Valley of Fire State Park? If you haven't, add it to your list of must see parks. I don't think you'll regret a visit.

a photographer's curse

I think I should start keeping track of the times I see something that I want to capture with my camera when I'm not able to stop. This morning metal sculptures of wild horses and big horn sheep standing along the side of I-15 in Las Vegas caught my eye.

No, I didn't stop - stopping on a limited access high speed highway just didn't feel like the right thing to do. But oh, the desire to stop and pull out my camera was very strong.

fractured

I was fascinated by a wall of small mirrors in Logan Airport's Terminal C when I was heading out yesterday. I couldn't resist grabbing a photo of myself with my phone.

There really is only one Denise!

waiting

It's time to wait. We're sitting at the gate at Logan Airport waiting for our plane to board. The plane is here, and the sign says we will be boarding in half an hour. Oh! It also says the flight is 5 hours and 58 minutes long. I hope I can convince Denise to grab a little bit of sleep during the flight. She says she is wide awake right now but without a nap she's going to be short on sleep tonight. A nap sounds good to me.

We just had our first taste of pinkberry frozen yogurt. Denise tried a taste of the grapefruit frozen yogurt first. Her nose wrinkled when she tasted it and that's really not a good sign. I decided not to taste that one. The second flavor was really good - chocolate hazelnut. Yum! I liked that one too so we shared a dish. That was a nice treat.

Just a little longer, it's almost time to fly.

--- Rover

counting the days

I'm counting the days until we leave (only two more!) and keeping an eye on the weather. It looks like it might snow here over the weekend, probably starting sometime on Saturday. If the forecast is right we should be away before the snow flies. Oh! I hope I didn't jinx our travel plans by saying that.

The last time we were in Zion I met this little snow person. She was standing high on a wall at the end of the Riverside Walk (right before the trail jumped into the river). I don't know if we'll see snow in Zion this time. It's beautiful in the snow but cold too. Hmm... I know we'll have fun even if the weather is somewhat misbehaving.

I'm looking forward to seeing red rocks - red is so different from the colors we see near home (except when the leaves turn colors in the fall). Maybe the red will be decorated in white, maybe not.

I just pulled out maps for Zion and Red Rock Canyon, and I found the trail guide for Valley of Fire State Park too. I think I'll stash them in the bag with Denise's camera; that way they will be easily accessible when we need them. Did you know that Denise really likes maps?

--- Rover