April 4, 2012

Hard to believe I've been here for two weeks already. Had another great day. Steven and I took off at 10am for the Big Foot Pass area. Parked there, then walked down the road a ways, over the edge of the shoulder, and down into the canyons (we took a reasonably sloped route, nothing too crazy). Spent until 5:30 or later out there, exploring all the canyons and dry stream beds. A lot of climbing, some pretty steep. My definition of “steep” has distinctly changed in the last two weeks. I'm now happily attacking climbs that would have intimidated me when I first got here. The soil is very unstable and crumbly, but I now have the hang of how to approach climbing on the different surfaces here. I can even sort of ski down some slopes that are too steep to walk down, and just a few days ago I would have been crab walking them using my hands and bottom to control the decent. After lots of photographs, climbing, fossil looking, etc. we hiked back to the car. It is wednesday, which is the day that the NPS folks head down to the wagon wheel, so we did that for a while. Then Ed and Steven came over for english muffin pizzas. The moon is so bright here now, being almost full, that there is no need for a flashlight outside and there are deep and distinct shadows on the rock formations. Ed drove me out to the door/window area for a night hike, and wow is that area cool by moonlight. The buttes, canyons, and rock nodules looked amazing. We could hear coyotes in the distance, too. If the clouds hold off tomorrow evening, we'll get more people together for another night hike while the moon is bright.

It's late and I'm wiped out, so I'll go through today's photographs and post some tomorrow morning.