Between my travels to Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef National Parks, I got to spend time exploring the area with brother Gary and his wife Mary as they are camp hosts at Kodachrome Basin State Park. Kodachrome is surrounded by the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (GSENM) which is huge at 1.9 million acres.
As described in my last blog, GSENM is on the Colorado Plateau and gets its name from a staircase of rock cliffs of various colors. The oldest is chocolate, then vermilion, white, gray, and the youngest is pink. On one of Gary and Mary's days off we went exploring the pink cliffs out beyond the Tropic Reservoir. The views were spectacular (pic 1).
Gary walked out on the edge of a rock fin to take some video of the views (pic 2) ... I think he's crazy! I walked out just a little ways and had to turn around.
On another day we visited the Red Canyon in the Dixie National Forest (pic 3). The cliff walls were vermilion red and they boast to have one of the hideouts of Butch Cassidy. They have a great bike trail that Gary and Mary took into the canyon, all down hill, then I picked them up at the visitor's center.
We also visited Devils Garden off of Hole-In-The-Rock Rd (pic 4). It had all kinds of fantastic rock formations -- hoodoos, arches, small slot canyons -- a great climbing, hiding, looking, finding playground (pic 5).
Gary, of course, was trying to climb all of the coolest places (pics 6 and 7).
On the same day we visited Devils Garden, we did some 4-wheeling on Hells Backbone around Death Hallow ... what a devilish day that was!
All of these places were off of Utah's Scenic Highway 12 ... a destination of beautiful scenery and great views in and of itself.After visiting Capitol Reef, I spent another couple of days at Kodachrome Basin State Park with Gary and Mary. It's a great place with some cool rock formations (pics ). It was good to spend time with them, as usual.
Chimney Rock with some cattle at it's base. It's on Forest Service land, just outside of Kodachrome.
A cool rock formation in Kodachrome.
Grosvenor Arch in Kodachrome.
Moon rise over the cliffs as seen from Gary and Mary's campsite at Kodachrome.
And, as always, Gary maintained campfire bragging rights!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please make a comment. I'd love to hear from you ...