Things that grow out of the soil...: Down at the San Rafael Swell

On Saturday we woke up and drove down to the San Rafael Swell. We stopped about 20 minutes before Goblin Valley, at a turn-off toward the Swell. We drove along the dirt road for two and a half miles and then hiked a mile and a half across the cold desert to a canyon we could see from a distance. We were expecting more snow, since last year at this time when we visited, we walked through plenty.

Beginning the trek across the desert

Yucca casting a surprisingly long shadow for 1:00 PM.

Walking past some stray goblins

S feeling all warm and toasty

We saw some jackrabbits run by. First, one darted, brushing up against some bristly plants and leaving chunks of fur along the way. Then when we got to the bristly plants to look at the fur, the other darted away, surprising us, since we didn't know it was hiding among the plants.

We walked slowly as we went, keeping our eyes out for good rocks. W and N found a lot of petrified wood. And S found a very very fine piece of it, with such nice wood grain.

See there in the distance! That's the mouth of the canyon we set our sights on.

We were getting closer.

Good yucca

At the mouth, I wanted to catch the shadows and sun on the canyon walls.

Snow collecting in the ridges left by the water that's flowed through the gully.

It's not easy to see, but this is a pic of a little pool of water, frozen, among the rocks on the canyon floor. W's keen eyes noticed that, beneath maybe three inches of ice, there were a handful of water boatmen swimming around.

W looking for rocks

The sun catching and lighting up some wispy dried out stalks and their seeds.

S finding ice in the canyon

Gotta find those rocks!

Honeycomb rock faces

Graffiti chipped into the desert varnish

The canyon walls had a lot of honeycombs

S, still feeling warm

We came to an iced-over waterfall, dropping from a few terraces. Is that rock in the pool an island? How big does a rock need to be before it becomes an island? I thought about the white lines in the lower right-hand side of the photo, intrusions in the sandstone, crystallized when water seeped in after the sandstone had cracked.

W on the highest terrace of the waterfall

N and W on the stream above the waterfall

Past the waterfall, there was a fork, and we chose the right fork.

We saw some desert varnish up on the side of the canyon and decided to look for petroglyphs, climbing up.

W admired this tree, up on the canyon wall among the rubble

Another view from high up on the canyon wall

Some good rock texture

No petroglyphs found, heading toward the left fork

After walking up the left fork for a few minutes, we decided to head back before it got dark.

On the way back out of the canyon, S had a photo shoot in a hole in the wall studio we found.

Here, the photographer told her he would make it look like she was on a very high cliff, in a hole. W was feeling left out, so he put his hands in the picture

Then, W himself got to pose as if he were in a high hole in a cliff side

Then W took a picture

Once we got out of the canyon, N saw a dried out plant and requested I take a picture.

I took two

Leaving the swell, walking back across the desert

When W saw the moon, he sang, "The sun has gone down and the moon has come up, and long ago somebody left with the cup...But he's going the distance, he's going for speed..."

N liked these rocks' fearful symmetry

S didn't see why N should be so interested in the symmetrical rocks, unless S's own fearful symmetry were added to the tableau.

Just a mile back to the Xterra. We were nearing the car just in time. The temperature was dropping as the sun had gone down and the moon had come up.

The GPS had switched to night mode, but we could still see parts of Utah that were bathed in the light of day.

This was a steep hill for S, but she made it down fine. She did a good job hiking a round trip of about five miles.

Looking back at the back-lit Swell.

Hoodoos

Hoodoos, goblins!

The GPS said there was a spring just a short detour on our walk back to the car, so we made the detour. The moon reflected in the ice, and someone left two tires on the shoreline.