Have not been keeping this up.  Since the last post, I have spent three days with Melissa assisting on the Geology on the Edge class.  I learned some more about rocks and was able to spread Mary Colter joy at the Watchtower.

I have been taking a lot of tours down the Hermit, if the people look halfway up for it, because the corridor is ridiculous what with Easter week and all, so I havent' been on the Kaibab.  My spies informed me that it was getting grafittied, so I spend two hours and three liters of water one day erasing most of it.  Even on the fossil footprints. Really?  

Then another geology class with Scottsdale Community College.  I was invited along as guest speaker to talk about history of trails.  I thought that would be lame, but the kids seemed to enjoy it.  Or maybe they were just being polite to the old broad.

Synapsid on the Hermit Trail

 This year's redbuds were not as good.  Also rather late.  We hiked down on April 1 to find about half of them out, then then next weekend and another half were out, while the rest had started to leaf already.  I have pictures from years past with the entire lower part of Indian Gardens glowing magenta. It cannot be the water: they grow by a spring. 

This year's redbuds

 We took off for Petrified Forest this weekend for a change of pace.  Hike to Onyx Bridge.  Last summer we flubbed around for hours looking for it.  No GPS, you understand. Well, a 30-year old GPS with batteries that kept bugging out on us.  We would get a reading, say, "Ok, we are still too far west" and lose the signal.  This year we walked right to it. I suppose that is the advantage of finding things the hard way: you REMEMBER where they are. 

Less scary part of the Blue Mesa trail

 We signed up for an Off The Beaten Path hike with the volunteers, Gary and Connie Grube.  It would have been a lot harder to find this "trail" without them.  Coming down off the ridge was scary with a lot of loose Shimarump pebbles.  Then we looped around to find some dino bones and teeth, which I cannot talk about the location of.  Of course, my old camera doesn't have GPS. 

rock art

 The volunteers told us how to find Pictograph Canyon, by following an old CC road and trail. We asked for further clarification from a volunteer at the VC, and he steered us spot on.  Several nice lion carvings.  Unfortunately, a few modern additions as well.  AJ: stay home.  The CCC "trail" was about half there. 

Keystone arch

We returned to thank the volunteer and he asked if we had been to Martha'a Butte.  Yep.  Blue Mesa,  Yeah.  Onyx.  Uh huh. Keystone Arch? No!  So he gave us sketchy directions to that.  Sketchy is good, because some of these things are best not advertised to the hoi paloi.  Especially that AJ.