Wednesday, April 19/2017

Headed up a shelf trail

Today was reserved the my favorite type of trail......the shelf trail!!   Perhaps I have never mention my great hate for these types of trails.  I have imagined myself tipping over the edge and falling a million feet to an ugly death!!  I hate shelf trails yet John keeps finding them and insisting we must go see what is at the end of them!!
This particular trail we have traveled before and although it is rough and rocky, it is fairly wide and easily traversed.
After doing the Hotel Rock trail yesterday, this trail today is a cake walk!!   Kay and I slowly bumped and jostled our way to the top of the mesa and followed John along a wide dirt road suitable for cars and trucks.  Obviously, there was a much easier way to access the top of the mesa!!  How boring!!
We traveled the "road" for several miles then turned around as it was taking us further away from the rim of the canyon.   We wanted to show Kay and incredible view from the top down into the canyon.

Even in this harsh environment, one can always
find a little beauty

Rocky and Rough

Monstrous Sandstone structures

This guy didn't make it.........back in the day (there is an
old car in the middle of this picture)

On top of the mesa - incredible scenery

The view from the top really is quite breathtaking.  With the surrounding mountains framing the view, and the canyon floor far below, one cannot help but feel blessed at being lucky enough to witness such beauty.  Kay was impressed by the sights from the top of the mesa.

Our camp site from the top

Hedgehog cactus

We managed to find a loop trail that took us along the rim of the mesa, cut through the middle of it and spit us back out onto the trail just a few feet from the junction where we had climbed off the shelf trail.  With other trails to checkout on the canyon floor, we made the descent back down the shelf trail and headed further into the canyon along the floor.   The trails on the floor are sand and that of course is "blow" sand which resembles icing sugar.  It is so very fine and gets everywhere......and I mean everywhere!!  If there is no wind, it hangs in the air until the tiny particles once again, settle back to the ground.  Of course with John and Booko in the lead, Kay and I had to keep some distance between us or the dust would have been ugly.  Today, there was a bit of a breeze so it was sweeping the dust away quite quickly and that was a good thing.

Headed back down - more canyon floor trails await

checking out some trails along the canyon floor 

The mountain to the left is the one with the shelf trail we had
just come down.  

We found some cute little campsites along the canyon floor quite suitable for tents.  There would be no way to get our trailer into these sites as the trail was prohibitive with all the tight twists and turns and gullies we crossed.  But, for tenters, it was awesome.

Booko getting some shade

Beverage

Finding some neat campsites on the canyon floor

sun behind the cottonwood trees

Selfie

Lots of skeletons

Add caption

It was soon time to start heading back to camp and calling our adventures here to an end.  It has been a great three days and the weather cooperated beautifully.   We got to show Kay some of our favorite spots in this neck of the woods and she is always appreciative of our efforts to get her out into the back country of Utah.   Even if some of the trails raise her blood pressure and her stress levels.  We now have John trained though in such that if the trail gets too "hairy" then he simply parks his side by side and walks back to Henrietta and rides her over what ever has caused us grief!  Life is good, even on the trails!!

Back at camp, Booko had a hard day

Back at camp, it was campfire and stories of today's adventures.  Booko was quite tired and didn't really have the energy to bother the cats!!  They are getting better at ignoring him and actually walked fairly close to him a few times.......almost daring him to react!!   Booko has decided that lying in the lawnchair beats lying on the ground where the thorns and the red ants are.  He is not loving either!!
Tomorrow is a travel day as we continue our journey northward.   Life is good!!