Day 218: GSENM, PSNM, and GCPNM

Posted on March 13, 2014 by Ben

This morning we packed up and said goodbye to Lake Powell and Lone Rock:

We stopped in at one of the visitor centers in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and the kids received their Junior Ranger badges:

We continued West to Pipe Spring National Monument, which preserves the Native American and Mormon histories of North-Central Arizona:

The kids received their Junior Ranger badges here as well. They also worked through the workbooks for

Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument here, since there is no separate visitor center for GCPNM, and received their badges for that as well.

We arrived in Las Vegas towards evening and will be here for Purim. See the trip map for details.

Day 217: Kayaking Lake Powell

Posted on March 12, 2014 by Ben

This morning we walked our kayaks down to the shore of Lake Powell and paddled out towards Lone Rock:

We had found a lost decoy duck when we went kayaking on the Salt River. B named the duck and tethered it to her kayak. The natives came over to meet their synthetic friend:

We rounded Lone Rock:

In the distance, we spotted a slot canyon:

We pulled our kayaks up on shore and hiked up the canyon:

The last 20 feet of the canyon was very narrow. Here’s the view straight up:

We hiked back to the kayaks and continued our trip:

The herons were out:

Some channels among the rocks were narrow:

In the afternoon, we played on the beach:

…And had a campfire dinner at towards sunset:

Tomorrow we will head back to Las Vegas. We’ve enjoyed our stay here, I’m sure we will be back soon!

Day 216: Horseshoe Bend and Glen Canyon NRA

Posted on March 11, 2014 by Ben

This morning we left Page and drove a couple miles South to the overlook for Horseshoe Bend. I walked out a far as I dared, which was about 10 inches from an 1100 foot drop. I wish I had brought a monopod to get the camera completely beyond the ledge, but you get the idea:

Next we visited the Glen Canyon Dam visitor center:

The kids earned their Glen Canyon NRA Junior Ranger badges, as well as the badges for Rainbow Bridge National Monument. Rainbow Bridge is only reachable by boat, so the visitor center for the monument is here as well:

More views of the dam:

We drove West from Page and set up for dispersed camping in the Lone Rock area.

We walked down to the beach to fly the kite:

We had a campfire at sunset:

Another amazing day on the road! Visit the trip map for details.

Day 215: The Toadstools and The Nautilus

Posted on March 10, 2014 by Ben

Homeschool continues, as do experiments in wheat-free cooking. See Tricia’s Blog for details:

We drove out from the Coyote Buttes area and headed East towards Page, Arizona. On the way, we pulled off to hike to The Toadstools:

Hiking up a wash, we had to climb up a dry waterfall:

At last we reached The Toadstools:

The kids captured some photographs as well:

Farther along we reached the white toadstools:

Great views abound here:

South of The Toadstools is a formation called The Nautilus. BLM actively suppresses directions to The Nautilus online, so it took a bit of work to figure out where to start looking. We hiked up a wash for about half a mile:

B enters The Nautilus:

The Nautilus is a corkscrew-shaped slot canyon. B hikes around and up The Nautilus:

Looking down from the top:

After finishing up here, we continued East to Page, Arizona to overnight at the Walmart there. See the trip map for details.

Day 214: Coyote Buttes Slot Canyons

Posted on March 9, 2014 by Ben

Today after homeschooling we hiked down Coyote Wash towards Buckskin Gulch:

Coyote Wash soon becomes a slot canyon:

We had to walk down this log to get down from a dry waterfall:

The canyon opened up into a wide space with amazingly high walls where Coyote Wash dumps into Buckskin Gulch:

Looking back up Coyote Wash:

I get the impression someone has been here before:

We headed upstream into Buckskin Gulch. Even though it hasn’t rained in over a week, there’s mud and even standing water in the canyon:

After walking up the upstream side of the Gulch, we headed into the downstream section:

High adventure!

We finally reached a wall-to-wall pool that was too deep to cross:

The kids tried to build a rock path through the pool, but it must be pretty deep because large boulders were disappearing beneath the surface:

The stump lodged in the canyon above gives some idea of the water height during a flash flood:

We returned to the junction with Coyote Wash, then headed back up Coyote Wash and climbed out onto the rim. From that vantage, we could see down into the slot: