Friday, September 30, 2005

Grand Staircase-Escalante

Well, this trip was supposed to be a 2-day-100-plus-mile bike tour of the Cottonwood Wash area within the Grand Staircase-Escalante Monuments with some slot canyon hikes along the way. Plans quickly changed, however, when my rear hub stopped engaging within the first few 100 yards. This of course could have been a bad situation if my bike had broke down a good 75 miles into the ride, so I'm glad it failed when it did.

So plan B was to do as many hikes in the area as I could in one day. First up was "Yellow Rock". The swirling white, reds, and yellows at "Yellow Rock" are due to varying concentrations of iron oxides (mostly limonite and goethite) staining the sand grains of the Jurassic-aged Navajo Sandstone.

After a quick hike through the Cottonwood Narrows, I hit Round Valley Draw. You have to chimney yourself down about 15 feet to get into the slot.




Fall starts early in the high deserts of the Grand Staircase.


1 comment:

  1. this is a sweet-a blog.

    but, the blog your wife made for me has some gay pictures. that was YOUR native american "alter"

    ReplyDelete