OK, so it's another slot canyon. This one cuts through beautiful sandstone, and provides us with some of our most beautiful photos so far. Briefly, there's an area called Paria Canyon in southern Utah. It's not part of a national park, it's not even part of state park. But it is dead trendy at the moment, to the extent that the waiting list to look at parts of it goes out for a month and a half. Of course, matters are affected by the fact that they issue about three permits per day.
In any case, we went to somewhere called Wire Pass and didn't see a soul all day. This is a great one for pictures: don't miss the textures and the main view at right. The rock is all pinks and purples, and swirls around you in beautiful patterns.
We walked up Wire Pass, with the usual slot canyon adventures climbing over rocks, chockstones and drop-offs, eventually emerging into another slot canyon by the name of Buckskin Gulch. This one we also tramped along for a while, but it has had a lot of recent rain, plenty of stick mud and plenty of unavoidable puddles. One aspect of slot canyons that I'm not sure we've mentioned before is the thick gloopy mud. As it dries, it resembles pottery shards, but before that point, it resembles wet cement. Stroll through it for ten paces and your feet are suddenly five pounds heavier.
After getting our feet thoroughly sodden, we eventually turned back when David found himself up to his hips in opaque sandy water.
To round off a fine day's fun, we stopped off at a ghost town on the
way back. Well, not a real ghost town, but an abandoned movie set - almost
better than the real thing. Can anyone tell me what the film "Sergeants
three" was like? I always wanted to lounge against the hitching post outside
the saloon, all I lacked was a cheroot and even Clint Eastwood would have
blanched...
Wire pass: textures and view: both exceptional photos (honest!)
Climber in slot canyon
Buckskin Gulch
Ghost town!