Photo Friday: Playing the Slots... in Utah??

 What's that you say? You're pretty sure slots are illegal in Utah? Well, not the kind I like! In fact, they thrive there, and in September I had some fun playing them. Well, okay, playing *in* them. Here's a bit of a photo essay from the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, some of the most amazing landscape on earth (which, not to get too political, is under grave threat from the people currently in charge in DC).

The expansive Navajo Sandstone of the Calf Creek wilderness

Approach to Coyote Wash

Now for some fun with slots!

On the approach to Zebra Gulch

Th

The author in Zebra Gulch. Photo thanks to Zebra Guy, the nice hiker who coached me through and shared the photos!

Zebra Gulch turned very wet and challenging. This final photo is about the point where I turned around and stowed my camera on dry ground!

My hiking companion chest-deep. The water got more like neck-deep on us before we got through!

So there you have it--My idea of slots worth playing with--and protecting.

 Now, back to enjoying the wilds of Maine :)

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All images and text ©Rebecca M. Douglass, unless otherwise indicated.
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U is for Utah

Utah. . . home of (as the sign outside the town of Kanab has it), the Greatest Earth on Show.  The Colorado Plateau made for some amazing landscapes.  Below are just a few samples, from A to Z, of course!

Arches National Park:

Landscape Arch

Off trail up in the rocks

Double O Arch.  Look closely for the second O down near the bottom of the page!

Bryce Canyon National Park:

Capitol Reef National Park:

Hickman Bridge

Coyote Buttes (The Wave is here, but we visited the less-visited Paw Hole area.  Buckskin Gulch is here, too.):

Starting out in an April snowstorm (Paw Hole)

Layer-cake rocks (Paw Hole)

Buckskin Gulch slot canyon

Goblin Valley State Park.  These are some of the most family-friendly photos I had:

Hoodoos left by interesting erosion

The Henry Mountains

Pariah River.  The southernmost stretch is famous, and we hiked it in 1995(before digital),but upstream is pretty, too.  We went there in 2006:

"River" is often a courtesy term out west.  Though I think this was a side-stream.

Definitely a side-stream, with clear, cool water.

This area had a mix of petroglyphs and "cowboy glyphs"--historical, rather than prehistorical, rock art.

The Toadstools (a dinky spot near Kanab, just to show that you can't move in Utah without tripping over something cool):

Differential erosion again, due to different hardnesses of the rocks

Zion National Park:

Zion Canyon from up on the rim (nearly 10,000')

The Virgin River from Angel's Landing--a hike not for the acrophobic.

Hiking the Virgin River Narrows, a beautiful canyon to be avoided in rainy seasons.

Amazing how cold this was at 6:30 a.m., and how refreshing three hours later when we returned!

It's an unmercifully huge collection of photos, and even so I've left out Canyonlands National Park, the San Rafael reef (much of which is unprotected, though in any other state it would be a park for sure), the Great Salt Lake, Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area Lake Powell, Cedar Breaks National Monument, Escalante-Grand Staircase National Monument, Dinosaur National Monument, Kodachrome Basin, Coral Pink Sand Dunes, and the Uinta Mountains (ditto the La Sals, the Henry Mountains, and the Abajo Mountains, all sky islands--isolated mountain ranges that are ecological "islands"), etc., etc., etc.  "The Greatest Earth on Show," indeed.