The morning started with a hike up Rattlesnake Canyon to do some recon for tomorrow's all day field trip with local 6th graders.  I was joined by two rangers: Alison and Kristi, who hikes up here frequently and showed us the path up to the dry falls area.  It's very scrambly and it was super fun to squeeze through small cracks, shimmy up slots, climb boulders, etc.  It was a very good workout, all around.  If I had access to this kind of hiking regularly, I'd have some very strong arms.  As we got to the highest area of the dry falls we ran into some other people who happened to be park staff performing a necropsy on a bighorn carcass.  The Desert Bighorn Sheep here frequently fall to respiratory illnesses and it's important for park staff to have an idea of how widespread the effects are as they try to support a healthy population.  Read more: https://www.nps.gov/articles/bighornrespiratorydisease.htm.  It's my understanding that the park still wants to hear visitor reports of encounters with bighorn that exhibit signs of illness, such as coughing, as well as the location of deceased animals.  Continuing our hike, we enjoyed a variety of eroded rock formations and came up with a plan for tomorrow.  I had lunch in town and then headed home to start preparing for tomorrow.  As Alison and I were driving through town today, we watched a coyote trotting along the shoulder of the road, and into someone's fenced yard.  The coyotes are so prevalent here, it's incredible.  

Apparently I didn't get any establishing shots of the canyon.  I'll do that tomorrow.  This is looking up into the rocks we climbed.

Heading up the wash.

The first cool find, a pool of standing water at the base of this.

Alison, demonstrating the angle of the rocks.

Looking to the side as we climbed higher.

Had to squat and scoot our way through this.

Towards the top of the dry falls area.

Fantastic erosion formations.

Looking back own the canyon, or what little of it you can see

Tadpoles and some species of hymenoptera (bee, hornet, wasp) utilizing a small pool of water.  We heard a frog as well, though couldn't see him in the deep shadows.

Looking back up as we made our way down.

Alison shows the scale of this area.

Alison shows the scale.

Squeeeeze!

  

Panorama view looking down the canyon towards town.

Rock worn smooth by the force of the water.

So many interesting erosion forms.

At least four different lichen on this rock.

And back down to the wash at the base of the canyon.

  

Driving back to Black Rock we spotted this great example of a lenticular cloud.