I got up early this morning to do some solo hiking. By 5:10am I was out of the RV. It was still dark but not cold. The wind though was quite strong. I started marching into
Luckily, after about 2 miles of walking in the park, a jeep with 2 rock climbers stopped and let me in. They had a special permit to bring their car into the restricted part of the park. They planned to do a 1000 foot ascent on a sheer vertical face of one of the canyon walls.
When they dropped me off the road was full of wild turkeys that inhabit the park. The males are substantially larger than the females and fan their rear feathers like peacocks. My hike for today is called “Observation Pointâ€. It is 4 miles in and 4 miles out, climbing from the canyon floor 2,150 feet. I started climbing at 6:30am and passed through some great scenery on the way, including slot canyons, sheer cliff walls, moonrise over the treetops on top of the canyon, and a colorful sandstone mosaic wherever you look. By the way, the red that everyone sees in the pictures of the rocks is simply metal oxide in the white sandstone. Metal oxide is more commonly known as rust.
When I reached the end point at 8:15 the views were gorgeous. Half the canyon was still in the shade. As I was walking around a chipmunk wanted to steal the food from my backpack that I left on the ground fro a bit.
On my descent I took several side trips to see some of the canyon formations from close up. It reminded me of
I got back “home†to the RV around noon and we all had lunch together, just after the kids got up from their naps. Shir did not sleep enough though, and she would be cranky till the end of the day.
We then drove into town to replenish the propane gas and the RV fuel. The propane is used for the cooking range, heating the water, and also for the refrigerator. Once a week or two you need to refill. The regular fuel is also something that the RV eats up. 400 miles per full tank of about 40 Gallons (~160 Liter) . Filling up 40 gallons takes a good 10-15 minutes at the gas station.
After taking care of this, we drove into the park and headed to the blissfully air conditioned museum. The children ran around and in between the exhibits, playing some sort of peekaboo, catch and hide and seek. We also caught a 20 minute movie about the park, which was very informative. Shir and Orr even sat quietly for the first 15 minutes.
After that we took the shuttle to the same station I visited in the morning – Weeping Rock. There is a short but steep path to a part of the canyon wall that is dripping and as a result there is a lot of vegetation – a hanging garden – in that area. Shir cried the whole way up until she fell asleep for a few minutes. Hence the name weeping rock for our books.
When we got back down we ate some fruits and ran around and that helped the kids’ mood.
Back at the campground we had barbequed hamburgers but Orr was getting really tired so we had to do everything quickly and get her to bed. All three kids fell asleep relatively fast and easy today, as if my early wake up was theirs.
This is our last night here in
Good Night
Hemi