After setting up camp on Friday we decided to hike to Fern Cave, I noticed the map had a little note that said extremely steep and rough but downplayed this to Michele, as the photo show it was extremely rough and steep. We made it to a point on the trail that required inching along a ledge with nothing to hold on to and a huge drop if you fell. With the ledge being buffeted by gusty winds we decide to retreat and just make a really nice hike.
Saturday morning we woke to wind gusts of 55 mph trying to rip our pop up apart, we took it down and decide to do the lower canyon loop. The lower loop is fairly well protected in the bottom of the canyon, as we parked another couple pulled up with the same game plan. Doug and his wife are from Canada and are two months into their RV trip, they had a dog named Miles that was about the same size as our dog Sprocket. We all hiked together for the 7 miles and since it was obvious no one else was around the dogs got to hike the entire trail off the leash. We are very careful to keep our dog on the leash even though he is a friendly 20 pounds but in this case they had a blast. This canyon is full of incredible geology and Doug was a very knowledgeable man making for a really special hike.
The wind had most of the wildlife hidden in the box canyons out of the wind but I did spot these mule deer and got a picture before they ran off.
We kept waiting for the wind to die enough for us to set up the trailer but it was not to be so we decided to head home Saturday evening instead of Sunday. For the first time ever i drove through a dust storm in which I could not see and had to slow to 20mph.
Even though our trip was cut short and we did not get to ride the rails to trails on our bicycles and go through the 750 ft. bat tunnel we had a great time and will return to ride the trail and visit Fern Cave.
While we really like our pop up and it tows very easy with good gas mileage we may look at a 20 something foot hard sided travel trailer.
Well that's it for now since I need to recover from my 60 mile bike ride this morning with a group of hammerheads.
Some of the pictures are clickable, some are not, I don't know why.
Dennis
