vacation pictures #8: trail's end

From Escalante we drove back toward Colorado on the Burr Trail, which is the more scenic and slower route. It passes through the dramatic redrock of Long Canyon, where we explored a little side canyon and I photographed some really cool stripey rock; then it descends across the Waterpocket Fold (the south end of Capitol Reef National Park) and joins the north-south Notom-Bullfrog road. We'd taken this road twice before; once we'd gone north to Hanksville and once we'd gone south to the Bullfrog ferry across Lake Powell. This time, armed with a guide to the backways of Utah, we went east, across the Henry Mountains. These granite peaks are weirdly out of place in the sandstone country; volcanic forces uplifted them, and then the sandstone eroded around them. Unfortunately, in 2003 there was a huge fire which absolutely toasted the forests in the Henrys, because otherwise it would have been a lovely and cool oasis in the desert. After routefinding our way across the pass and through the mountains, we headed Coloradoward, stopping at the overlook where Lake Powell backs up into the Colorado River. There were a bazillion places we would have loved to explore, but it was time to go home.

( Four final pictures )

All 111 pictures from the trip (and let me tell you, that's only a fraction of the photos on the hard drive!) are in my Utah/Arizona 2008 set on Flickr.