April 18, 2014 Escalante, Utah

It was supposed to rain today. It was cloudy, in the 70’s, but no rain yet. The clouds washed the color out of the rocks. Boo.  We hiked in the Escalante River Canyon. The sign at the trail head says: ‘From the high mountains  of the Aquarius plateau, tiny springs and creeks gather to create the Escalante River, winding its way 90 miles to Lake Powell.  Draining a vast watershed, a maze of hundreds of miles  of deep, stunning canyons  formed as the Escalante carved through slickrock and sandstone  over eons of time. There are no designated or marked trails. You will be following the river and it’s tributaries  as you explore this wild and remote  area.’

As we start the trail there is this sign. Beautiful red rock canyon with spring green leaves just starting to come out on the Cottonwoods. We are at a higher altitude than Zion, so the trees are behind. We ford the river many times up the canyon.

Sage brush flats, lines on the rock walls.

We hiked to Escalante Natural Bridge. It is only 4 miles round trip. John has boated this whole canyon, but there has not been enough water the times we have been through to boat it again.

Behind the bridge is a lush alcove.

Lines and an alcove on the way back. John up by the canyon walls. I wanted to explore.

On some of the river flats the sage brush are taller than we are.

This is a view of part of the canyon from a viewpoint on the road above the canyon . This second shot is from an even higher view point. Miles and miles of sandstone. The highway in the photo was built by the CCC. It took them three years of blasting and digging to finish it.

Lots of flowers blooming. Milk vetch, big evening primrose, tiny pea flowers, sand verbena, crypanthia, a velvet ant, desert start, and a claret cup cactus bloom.

We followed trails made by these bird- huge 3 inch tracks. We decided it was wild turkeys. Lines in the sand under waves in the river, lines in the red rock, wild lines, like an eye on a rock face, round lines in another rock, a split in another rock.