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Our second day in Utah, we took a day hike into Horseshoe Canyon (aka Barrier Canyon) in Canyonlands National Park. Kurt has been there before and has been talking about it ever since, so it was a must-see.
Kit and Kelleen in Horseshoe Canyon
While the canyon itself is spectacular – deep and wide with steep rock walls and lots of trees along the mostly dry stream bed – an added attraction is several panels of ancient pictograms. As we took the trail down into the canyon, we were met by this sign:
As you can see from the graffiti on the left side of this panel, not everyone follows the rules. Of course, at least some of these markings were made long before the area became part of the National Park in 1971. Look closely and you can see two dates – 1920 and 1904.
Here is one of the panels we saw on the way into the canyon. I’m not sure which of the panels this is… they are named, but there weren’t any signs at the panels themselves. There was no need for fences here; the images are high up on the rock wall.
This picture of the Great Gallery (the largest of the panels with the largest images) gives a good indication of the size of the figures.
This panel also had some intriguing images. The skull on the largest figure here reminds me of Day of Dead decorations.
The most intricate figure has lots of detail drawn in side the body outline. Two tiny figures stand on its shoulders, one black, and one white. It reminds me of cartoons where Daffy Duck has a little angel and a little devil on his shoulders, his conscience personified. I was amused and amazed to see something so similar in an image that is 3000 years old and I can’t help but wonder about its meaning.
One more close-up from the Great Gallery panel.
The road to this isolated piece of Canyonlands is a dirt track about 30 miles long. While the road itself provided plenty of excitement, we were also able to see a lot of wildlife along the way: bats, mice, pronghorn antelope, vultures, and jack rabbits. Unfortunately, we never got any of them on film. (Can you say “on film” if you use a digital camera?) I made do with photogs of the traces they left behind.
And here’s a footprint of a creature we never saw, and were happy to have missed.
And now for one of the colorful events that made our trip memorable.
We were fortunate enough to get to camp in Goblin Valley State Park. The campground runs next to amazing rock formations and our spot was tucked away a bit, fairly close to a rock wall.
Rock outcropping behind Goblin Valley State Park Campground
Kurt brought our brand-new car camping tent. It’s huge. It can sleep 8 adults and Kurt, who is 6′4”, can stand up in it. I think it may have been an omen that the only picture we have of the tent standing is blurry.
In case you missed it, that was foreshadowing. Three days later, we were down in Goblin Valley proper when the wind began. As it got faster and harder, we began to wonder how our campsite was doing. Once we were out of the valley, we drove back to the campground (which was nearby). This is what we found:
The tent is the gray and black blob in the back
A group of campers who were eating lunch saw our tent blow into their van. They saved our tent, and a lot of our camping gear, by putting things where they wouldn’t blow away. We were still surprised that the wind had been hard enough to move the tent, because we had several suitcases worth of stuff weighing it down. I think the tent stakes tell the whole story.
The rain fly was shredded and the tent was ripped. Digging everything out of the tent took some time.
Rescuing our belongings
We agonized about pitching other tents we had with us, but I think we were all too tired to face putting up a camp we would just have to take down again in the morning. We decided instead to give up our last night at the campground and stay at a hotel.
This apparent disaster paled in light of later events. More about that later.
Our week-long trip to Utah was eventful and fun-filled. I should say awe-filled; we saw so many wonderful and beautiful things. I feel like there aren’t any adjectives that can adequately describe it, so I’ll let some pictures do the work.
Kit in Bell Canyon
Our first full day in Utah, we took a day hike through Little Wild Horse and Bell Canyons. This was my first time hiking in slot canyons. We made a point of being there when there was no threat of rain; the canyons are so narrow and so steep that there’s no hope of getting out of the way of a flash flood.
Kit and Kelleen in Little Wild Horse Canyon
Kurt in Little Wild Horse Canyon - the drift wood over his head shows just how high the water can get
We did have to deal with a little water, however. You can see how deep the water was from our wet pants. As Kelleen pointed out, the water was cold enough to numb your feet. We all wished later in the afternoon that we had another water hazard to cross. We needed to cool off!
Kit and Kelleen in Little Wild Horse Canyon
Both canyons had some interesting rock formations. I think my favorite were the “fairy caves”. These recesses are only inches across and seemed the perfect place for an adaptable fairy to live. Of course, it would also have to be a resourceful fairy, or it would get washed away by the next rain storm.
A pueblo for fairies?
While we did a little scrambling in Little Wild Horse Canyon, Bell Canyon turned out to have plenty of “pour offs” – places were the ground dropped suddenly. I’m sure they make pretty little waterfalls when the water is running, but they aren’t all that fun to climb down. We were all glad we hadn’t gone up Bell instead of down – all that climbing would have worn us out.
Kelleen and Kit coming down an easy pour off in Bell Canyon
This has nothing to do with anything, except that is a wonderful story about true love. And octopi.
As a writer, I’m a notebook junkie, and this week’s Inspire Me Thursday topic happens to be notebooks. The timing is great. I just finished re-arranging my home office and part of the process was collecting up all the notebooks I’ve written in over the years. The stack turned out to be a healthy size – 24, not counting new notebooks waiting for my pen and notebooks I haven’t finished yet. One of them is 20 years old… Can you say “pack rat”?
So, here’s my shelf of sorted and labeled notebooks, all ready for viewing, like I planned it or something:
