How many times have we hiked the Dripping Springs Trail?  Must be over a hundred.  And how many times have we walked past these cool footprints?  Oh, about a hundred.

One of the teachers at school said she saw "hand prints" on the trail.  We scoffed.  Must have been some sponge fossils.  But nothing loath, we headed out for Columbus Point today, and by gosh, there are huge prints, and they do look like hands.

Up the rock he goes.

They are, of course, a mammal-like reptile that was crawling across the sand dunes which would later make up the Coconino Sandstone, but they do look like as though someone walked up the rock on his/her hands.  There were, in fact, three pairs of tracks heading up this rock.  None coming back.  Maybe they got et.

Decided we needed a long hike today, so we did thirteen and a half miles to Columbus Point and back.  Not as much elevation change as our normal long hike to Panorama Point, but rougher.  The Boucher, in fact, is extremely rough.  At one point, Brad told me to wait up, and I was in a most precarious position, and my thought was, "got to be kidding".

Saw two backpackers coming in with no permits.  Then two ladies coming down asked us where Dripping Springs was.  Brad pointed and they disagreed,  "No, it is only two and a half miles to Dripping Springs".

"It is three miles."

"I'm not talking about Santa Maria."

"Neither am I, and we just came from Dripping Springs."

"Well, why aren't we there yet?"

"Probably because you have only walked about one mile."

Why do people ask if they are going to say, "No, that's not right".  If they know that, why do they ask?