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.)