Due to some family issues my trip home has been delayed for a few weeks. I'm now intending to leave around February 17th and return to Crimea at the end of April. That's a few weeks shorter than I'd planned but sometimes that happens. I'm in the process of developing my itinerary and will post it to this blog and my trip map when it's finished. I won't be rushing all over the west like last cycle but will concentrate on Southern California, Arizona and some spots in New Mexico. Still a very aggressive schedule but not nearly as much driving. I blew through 10K miles last time and that was far more than I'd expected. All those side trips to find a McD for internet access and getting out of town to find a place to sleep really piled up the miles. I'm hoping I won't have to do that as much this time as my schedule has me working at night and sleeping during the day. I would expect I can find many places to sleep when the sun is shining and won't be hassled by the cops as much. We'll see.
Vermilion Cliffs Excitement
I applied for a permit to get into the 'Wave' at Vermilion Cliffs but was unsuccessful ... over 650 applications representing almost a 1000 people fighting for 10 slots. The odds were just too against me. I may, if I'm in the area, swing by the BLM office there and see if I can get in during the daily lottery. They have 10 spots open for that and I'll probably have better luck as you have to be physically present for the drawing ... and the office is really out of the way. We'll see.
Anyway, I really like this area even without the Wave as it's truly spectacular. I spent a day last cycle wandering the slot canyon network (over 10 miles of canyons ... dwarfs Antelope Canyon big time) and took a huge number of pictures. I've only posted one so far and that's a shame as there are so many beautiful formations to record. I may go back even if I don't win the lottery just to wander the right branch of the canyon heading south ... I didn't even touch that one during my last trip. Hopefully it won't rain again and I won't get stuck in the mug like I did last trip. You really need a big tire off-road vehicle to make sure you can get in and out on the crappy dirt road they have there. Sometimes the BLM takes the 'wilderness' designation a bit too seriously and that causes big troubles. Every year some people die in the 'wilderness' because they can't find their way back out due to a lack of trail markers. If you don't have a GPS tracker it's really easy to get lost up there. And some people shouldn't even go there as their health isn't good enough to endure the strains of hiking the steep terrain.
I took this image on the dirt road south of the parking lot for the Wave. I really love the colors in this part of the Great Basin. You can see a large pallet of minerals in the many colors (and layers) in the lower half of the image. It was late in the afternoon and the sun was low in the west (over my shoulder) so the colors really pop. And it's like this the entire 30 mile drive! You want to stop every 100 feet and take pictures. I only saw one car in the entire time I was making the drive. If you are in the area I highly recommend you take the time to see this. You can park in any of the trail heads and walk in as far as you want. Just be aware of the heat (especially in summer) and the potential for rain as some of the canyons can fill up with runoff very quickly. You won't be disappointed I promise.
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| Vermilion Cliffs Excitement - 93mm(1.6 crop),f/22,1/13 sec,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0 |
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