a multimedia Dark Canyon extravaganza!

[ilanarama]

I've uploaded a selection of photos from last weekend's backpack in Dark Canyon, Utah, with captions, to my flickr account. This canyon feeds into the Colorado River (actually Lake Powell at that point, although in the past 5 drought years the lake is actually no longer up to that level). Britt and I did this with our hiking partners from the previous hike, Bruce and Laura.

We hiked in on the Sundance trail, which is 2 miles of up-and-down slickrock followed by 1.5 miserable miles straight down a talus slope, and set up a base camp approximately 3 miles upstream of the Colorado confluence. The next day, Britt and I explored upstream, to where a layer of limestone was exposed on the canyon bottom, making a series of beautiful pools in which to frolic. The following day we went on a surprisingly strenuous hike downstream, not quite to the Colorado as the last 1/2 mile was an ugly and unpleasant mess of silt and tumbleweeds. There were some lovely pools here as well, and we had a great swim. On the last morning we woke early so we could hike up the talus slope before it became too hot.

Every evening at our camp, as soon as the sun dipped behind the canyon walls, an incredible chorus of frogs began and didn't stop until moonset. (This link goes to an .mp3 file, about 426K and 26 seconds long, please right-click and save.) We saw many frogs - they are much tinier than their loud mouths would suggest!

(The links here go to a few selected photos from this set. See all 18 here on my flickr page.)

Comments

[aubrem.livejournal.com]

wow, absolutely gorgeous photos - and the pools! ::envies but couldn't handle the dangerous heights::

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

I admit that there were a few places on the downstream trail that made my heart beat a little faster. I mean, narrow trail crumbling off into space several hundred feet above the canyon floor, yikes.

[wildcelticrose.livejournal.com]

Pool drool !!!

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Aren't they wonderful? We really had the perfect weather for this - hot enough that we really wanted to jump into that cool water and hang out, but the gnats weren't out yet, and it wasn't so blazing as to make hiking unpleasant.

We also had a little pool near our campsite - not as gorgeous as these, but certainly good enough for a bathtub - and it was really a treat to rinse off the sweat and sunscreen at the end of each day.

[zoerayne]

I'm almost afraid to check out the other pics, as the one in the entry itself gives me vertigo just to look at. (Um, yeah. Not going hiking with you ever. *g*)

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Hee. Don't look at the 'strenuous hike' link, is all I can say. :-)

But the pools and the close-ups of fossils are not scary!

[zadcat.livejournal.com]

Nice to see you with long hair again!

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Heh - is yours as long as your icon's is, now?

[zadcat.livejournal.com]

Longer! I've been putting it up.

I don't want to have it so short that I look butch, and mid-length with little short bits is frustrating because it can't be tied back or put up effectively, and it grows out all the time anyway and has to be trimmed back. So I let it grow.

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

Wow, now that's some gorgeous scenery!

I know nothing about cool backpacking gear, so I'm wondering if you can tell me what those black puffy things are below your socks but above your boots. (Unless they are your boots and the resolution on my monitor is such that they just look like something else!)

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Aha! Those, my friend, are a marvel of modern technology - okay, not so modern - known as mini-gaiters or low gaiters. They are held on by a hook that grabs onto the far front bit of the shoelace (where it crosses between left and right sets of eyelets) and a cord that runs under the foot just in front of the heel. Other than that, they are a tube of heavy nylon cloth, fastened by velcro and snaps. They keep sand and pebbles from getting into your hiking boots, which has the side effect of keeping your socks cleaner as well. Very useful for desert hiking, where there are lots of little pebbles that want to fall down into your boots and be painful and annoying.

[meri-oddities.livejournal.com]

Wow. That is amazingly beautiful!

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Thanks! This is probably the last desert hike of the season, though - although we might do one in the fall. Soon it will be too hot to venture there.

[meri-oddities.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I'm not looking forward to the heat of summer. Are you going to run this summer? I'm pretty sure I'm going to do a fall marathon this year.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Oh, it will not be too hot here, as long as I run early a.m. I am planning to do the 10-mile race that's associated with the Iron Horse bike race from Durango to Silverton which is in 2 weeks, and I'm planning to either do the marathon or the 'half double' of 25k trail run Sat/half marathon Sun at the Durango Double (http://www.durangomarathon.com/) on Columbus Day weekend. If you want to come do it, I have a spare room!

[meri-oddities.livejournal.com]

If you want to come do it, I have a spare room!

Let's see if I get into New York. If I make the lottery, I'm going to do that. I'm going to sign up for the MCM again, but I could be talked into doing something else. *g*

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

It's a really excellent course. Very scenic, and it starts with a long and not steep downhill (with no corresponding uphill). Also, it starts a 15-minute walk from my house, and ends about 4 blocks from here.

[meri-oddities.livejournal.com]

June 1 I'm supposed to find out about NY. We'll talk about it at the con. I have to wonder what the altitude would do to me.

[saramwrap.livejournal.com]

Wow, I am so jealous!

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

That's what you get for living in flatland!

[alembicresearch.livejournal.com]

Excellent!
Wish I could go backpacking and see
so much beautiful scenary every couple of weeks.
Especally such fabulously beautiful buck naked women! :-)

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Hee, I always have to include the obligatory naked picture!

[arwencordelia.livejournal.com]

Wow... now I feel kinda silly for complaining about the uphill parts in decidedly not-very-mountainous West Virginia :-)

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

It's all relative! I have to say that going down into the canyon was far worse than coming up it, surprisingly enough.

[(Anonymous)]

Based on the voices, it sounds like the canyon treefrog (Hyla arenicolor). Beautiful gold throats, and when a couple of the little males occupy a single pothole, the vibrations from their throats emboss the surface with an interference pattern.

In the inclined rock plane where all the pools are you can make butt dams, and as each one sequentially lifts her butt out of the water as the surge from the one upstream reaches 'her' pool, send a tiny flood down to spill over the falls onto the lowest.

The silt was 125 feet deep over Dark Canyon Rapid when the drought of 98 started; it has been reamed out a little. The silt is so erodible, and the slope so uniform down past Hite, that the river runs a solid 8 knots and in places is fretted with heavy sandwaves.

[jeddy83.livejournal.com]

Wow, thank you. It looks like a fabulous trip. I confess I wasn't expecting to see desert, but it's the right time of year to go.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

We live right on the edge between the mountains and the desert, so we can choose where to go for our recreation based on the season. Right now it's still too early for the high mountains here (although we had a meager snow season, so I suspect that the mountain season will come early) and the desert season has just ended.