Strangers are friends you haven't met

This is the beginning of the hike of the day, except today I will bear to the left to Emeral Pools.  Angels' Landing is the upper part of the hike that is my goal:  Walter's Wiggles; but after today's hike, I may not make it.

across the Virgin River.  You remember the Virgin River Canyon, that awesome 23 mile drive through the very north west corner of Arizona?

The uphill side of the trail

That little ribbon is the river, and this is looking south down Zion Canyon, after gaining some altitude.

I'm climbing as the trail goes higher, and the river looks smaller.

That's my destination...where the left cliff and the right cliff come together.

many steps to go before we arrive

That's the river down below.

The target is a the base of that wall of rock, and the challenge lies ahead.

This, my friends, is the trail.

That's it, but many steps yet to go

The pools normally are emerald green with algae, hence the name; but the week of rain prior to my trek turned them muddy.  This is a little pool below the main pool.  The challenge lies ahead.

What goes up must come down...eventually.

This wasn't a hike; it was a climb.

Warren, you've been saying, "When pigs can fly" for a long time.

Well, this is where they landed, piggy back!

That's a mighty sheer cliff!

Wow, that's straight up!

There's the muddy Upper Emeral Pool under those sheer cliffs.  The lady on the right was included to give some perspective of the immenseness of the cliffs.

No mountain too high; no rock too big.

Queen on the mountain!

Whew!  Survived that challenge!

Strangers are just friends you have yet to meet.  These ladies, one from California and one from Arizona, were already friends and adopted me along the way.  They were great hiking companions and looked out for me.  We waited on one another at the next challenge or around the next bend in the trail.

I missed the boat at this crossroads.  They went to the Middle Pools, and I headed for the Lower Pools, thinking I was too tired to make that extra 0.1 mile.  It turned out to be only a few hundred feet!  Opportunities missed.

They soon caught up with me.

This was one-way traffic.

Under the waterfall that feeds the Lower Emerald Pool.

My gigabytes were all used up, and I was soon to begin feeling that I also was all used up.  I had slipped climbing  up a very large step ( a very large step for my long legs is A VERY LARGE STEP!) coming down from the Upper Pool to the crossroads of the trails.  My right knee has swollen and refused to go down, even with ice on it every night.  Standing for 8 hours in the Gift Shop hasn't helped.  I finally gave up and went to the medical clinic in Springdale where the P.A. diagnosed probably torn meniscus.  They lent me an ice/compression unit, which has helped, along with being off for my 2 day week-end and not standing for 8 hours.  Doesn't look like I'll make it up Walter's Wiggles!

Day trip to Lake Powell and Page, AZ

The colors in the rocks and in the sky here are simply amazing.

The light on the rocks changes with the hour, while the clouds provide a backdrop for it all.

The folds in the sandstone amaze me...remind me of folded dough or filo.

How do these trees get even this large?  There are few nutrients in the sand and even less moisture.

Now that's a rather sizeable tree, considering its foundation!

A home in the rocks...not a cave.

These holes probably could be considered caves.  They are natural openings, probably formed by water eroding the holes.  They connect behind the outward face.

57 miles of southern Utah "nothingness", but the sky was that wonderful shade of blue, and the clouds danced across the sky.

The rock formations are changing back to the familiar sandstone, but with a different look.

Yes, the landscape is beginning to look different after all that flatness and sagebrush.

Is that the sentry on the bluff?

It's a crazy mix in this part of Utah.

Is that water or a mirage in the distance?

Water!  By George, it's Lake Powell, or what's left of Lake Powell.  Actually, Lake Powell has made somewhat of a comeback after succombing to years of drought..

Lake Powell is formed by Glen Canyon Dam.  The Escalante River and the San Juan River join the Colorado in the upper reaches of Lake Powell, giving it more of the necessary water and power to furnish much of the Southwest.

 It is a MIGHTY dam.

Back on the road again in sandstone territory.

This is not exactly what I expected the mighty Colorado River to look like!

This shot was from the pedestrian walkway over the river at the Navajo Bridge Interpretive Center near Lees Ferry in north central Arizona, below Lake Powell.

The pedestrian walkway over the Colorado, the muddy Colorado.

The pedestrian bridge from another perspective.

The afternoon sun shining through a canyon in Vermillion Cliffs National Monument, AZ.

...and yet another perspective.  These are the Vermillion Cliffs also.

This bolder broke off and tumbled from...

...this cliff!  That's the same bolder front and off center.

The clouds out here are so different from back home.  Maybe it's because the sky is bigger here!!!!

Yes, the sky definitely IS bigger here!!!

And the rocks change overy mile.

Just look at all the colors here in the desert.

...and then climb up onto a ridge in Kaibab National Forest with all its aspen, cottonwoods, spruce, and cedar.  I drove along the top of this ridge for probably 30 miles or more.  The state highway that connects to the North Rim of Grand Canyon drops down south from this ridge.

Looking down from the top of the ridge just before dropping down to the floor of the Arizona - Utah border.

A little hazy, but after a 300 mile day trip and multiple photo ops, I'm hazy too.

"Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home", my Western home.

This is the sun setting over Zion as I dropped down from the East entrance to Canyon Junction and the 3 mile drive up the canyon.

St. George, UT and the Virgin River Canyon, AZ

After a week of rain, rain, and more rain and then a week of work, I was ready to "get the heck out of Dodge" !!  I took off to St. George, UT, an historic Mormon town with an Eddie Bauer outlet and a recommendation of a fun little restaurant.  You know how I like good food.

I also was in quest of a bottle of wine or some such libation to celebrate the arrival of my friends from Knoxville the following week.  Utah, being a mostly Mormon state, has very strick liquor laws and few outlets.  I was not prepared for what was to follow.

This house, on the National Historic Register, was the summer home of one of the early Mormon leaders, Brigham Young, in St. George.

Side view of Brigham Young's house

Beautifully presented crab cakes in a lovely, chic restaurant in St. George.  The food was excellent; wish I could say the same for the service.  For $30, including wine and tip, I expected more attention.!

The Arizona state line 8 miles south of St. George,, headed toward Las Vegas on I-15, through a 23 mile stretch of Arizona for which I was totally unprepared.

Typical of most of Utah, irrigated fields are backed by majestic mountains.

This is the start through the Virgin River Canyon.  Just imagine, a river carved this canyon over eons.  We will change elevations, I'm imagining, between 3,000 ft. and 5,000 ft., first down and then up. and then down again.

There are no words to describe how insignificant I felt here.

Trailers were in low gear with tail lights flashing.

There were occasional patches of green, but they were sparse and scarce.

Ditto

Mission accomplished: if you want a decent selection and reasonable prices on wine, etc., Nevada is the place to go.  These are the mountains we came south through.  Now we're headed north through them again.  What a trip inspired by the search for a bottle of wine.

Back in Utah and headed home to Zion Canyon, which is very different from today's canyon experience.

clouds for Carol

The river valley south of the town of Springdale and Zion Canyon and National Park.

Late afternoon, looking east.

The photo doesn't do the clouds justice, just as most photos don't do justice to the scenery.

An improvement

I never tire of the scenery and the sky in the West....

                                                                  Or even a gathering storm.

Here's The Watchman, overlooking my driveway up the canyon.

Home again.