Thursday, July 21, 2022

This is what a good chipmunk eats for breakfast

Morning on the Fairyland loop

susnrise

It really should say "mass wasting"

Peek a boo trail

No, the trees do not twist because of the Vortex

So we have completed our annual escape from the heat to the North Rim and Bryce.  We did a hike in Red Canyon during the hottest part of the day, because apparently some of us never learn.  It was 6 miles with 700 foot elevation change, except we had to climb the same 700 feet three times.

In Bryce we got up before dawn to hike Fairyland and Peek a Boo.  By noon it was in the 90's, even at 8000 feet.

I love the twisty trees, but I do not appreciate when people do the "vortex" tour of Sedona, and then ask me if the trees at the Canyon also twist because of vortexes.  Vorti?  Yeah, because every tree everywhere in the world is affected by the Sedona vortex.   

 

Friday, June 17, 2022

We got a special ticket to visit Square Tower House at Mesa Verde.  Only 10 people per tour and one tour a day for a month or so.  We drove to the lookout to meet the Ranger and looked at two ladders and a set of Moqui Steps and said, Oh, that is the old climb down.  Nope.  We had to do the Moqui steps all right.  Ranger Bonnie had a native flute and played for us.

We visited the Ute Mountain Tribal Park whilst there.  The half day tour apparently goes to two collapsed kivas with a pile of pottery shards where we stood for an hour in full sun while the guide explained that water is important for our children and our grandchildren, and we have to save the water for the children, and do you know we have to save the water for our children and our grandchildren?  I barely escaped passing out from heat exhaustion, and I am not kidding.  Then a couple of rock art sites.  The full day tour, which we did, includes a long drive to three cliff dwellings, including the Eagle's Nest.  Scary ladders.  They seem to be made for people taller than I.  Anyway, I would not recommend the half day tour.  

Visited Amala at Canyons of the Ancients and hiked to the Sand Canyon Pueblo, which was apparently about the size of Pueblo Grande at Chaco, but it has been excavated and then re-filled so a lot of rock walls and collapsed kivas.  
 
The eagles nest.  A long scary ladder led here.

Square tower house.

Yep, those are Moqui steps all right. 

The crow's nest.  This is where I would have wanted to live.