The sun was shining when we awoke and according to the accuweather app, it was going to be a hot day. Now there isn't one of us, that is going to be complaining about that!! We got breakfast out of the way, made a snack for the trail and headed out.
We remembered to leave the two doors open for the cats to come and go. Bookos was riding shotgun again with John.
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| More sand and more junipers |
The trails today seemed more friendly. The sand was not as deep and the trails were wider. We actually had a good variety of trail today with slickrock peppering the trail at intervals.
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| Booko keeping busy chasing lizards .... He was VERY busy!! |
Booko was out of the quad at every stop today chasing lizards. He actually got pretty close to a capture at one point but I am not sure what he would ever do with it if he did catch it. He is a real coward when it comes to other creatures. He is more apt to stomp the poor thing with his big feet than he is to actually put it in his mouth. He was busy all day and I am sure he is going to sleep well tonight as he has made a few miles just checking stuff out!!
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| flags on the quads |
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| Beverage stop |
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| One never knows what you will find in the forest!! |
At one point along the trail, Kay noticed that someone had left a rather rickety stationary bike along side the trail so of course we had to stop and try it out!! John had missed it completely but we managed to stop, get a few laughs and take a picture!! Gosh, who has more fun that us!!
Our travels today took us into the higher elevations and along the rim of the Parunuweap Canyon Wilderness Study Area. The views over the edge were really quite incredible but unless you have a really good quality camera, I am afraid that the splendor of the area is not captured in the pictures. The iphone people are really going to have to work on that!!
The Parunuweap Canyon is cut from mostly Navajo Sandstone and contains rocks from the Jurassic age. Now this is why much of the state of Utah looks like it belongs on another planet. There is simply millions of years of evolution here and it is staring you in the face. The study itself involved minerals and apparently there are about 6 million tons of gypsum in the canyon with even larger deposits outside the canyon. There were a few other minerals found but gypsum seems to be most abundant.
The flora consists of mostly pinion pine, oak trees, sage brush and manzanita. Oh, and lets not forget the juniper that pepper the landscape in the lower elevations. It truly is an incredible ecosystem.
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| Incredible views |
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| John and Booko |
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| Henrietta at the Canyon rim |
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| Wide sandy trails and Sage brush |
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| Coral Pink sand dunes |
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| Back down in the lower elevations |
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| The Red Knoll |
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| The Red Knoll |
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| Kay and Booko attempting to climb The Red Knoll |
Now The Red Knoll is some sort of pink rock formation standing solely on its own in the middle of the trail system. It is something to see and I imagine it too is of sandstone composition as it has that same feel about it. We did manage to find the trail that took us right up to the base of it and Booko and Kay both tried to climb it although neither one of them made it too far!!
It was a "short" day today with us only staying out on the trails for about 5 hours. It is steak night tonight so we had to be making tracks home so that John could cook us supper.
The cats were busy when we arrived back at camp and they too seemed to have a good day. Man, I am sure glad we thought about leaving that door open so that they had access in and out of the camper. It is a great idea and we really do not have to worry about them when we are gone.
Supper was great and Booko was snoozing in his chair before we actually called it a day. We have one more day of trails here then will pack up and continue our journey home.
Life is Good!!
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