The Trip: 1999

Kathleen left for Utah and Capital Reef National Park for two months of work as a Volunteer Park Ranger about two hours after getting off from her last day of school back at the end of May. I can't blame her for being eager, it is very beautiful up there. She worked... actually 'worked' might be a slight exageration. She worked four days per week. Generally she was either hiking trails, giving the Park Service a 'presence', or answering questions in the park headquarters; ocasionally she would also host the evening campfire talks... Does this count as 'working' ???? Anyway, she was scheduled to work until July 30.

I will be including a complete write up soon, but for now, please enjoy our photos !

1999	Utah and Points West
	Our good friend, Steve Brooks, hiking near Buckskin Canyon in south-central Utah.
	Kathleen posing at the entrance sign to Capital Reef National Park. This was her second year to work in the park as a volunteer ranger.
	On our way out, Steve & I stopped by the upper reaches of Lake Powell. It seems ironic that the lake that flooded portions of the Grand Canyon is named after the man who first explored those canyons and who so adamantly proposed their preservation.
	Hiking through these canyon lands you often can see hundreds of thousands of years of the Earth's history exposed.
	The tiny trickle of water in Sulfer Creek is enough, over the ages, to erode through hundreds of feet of solid rock.
	Many of the slot canyons we explored, like this short side trip off Cohab Canyon, gave us a chance to try out our climbing skills.
	Steve, who recently turned 40, posing with a tree older than he feels !
	The wind and water has created many arches in this area, but few as spectacular as Cassidy Arch.
	The shear walls which often surrounded us were touched by every color of the rainbow.
	The canyon walls were often painted with 'desert varnish' caused by microorganisms which extract manganese and iron from the rains.
	The layering in sandstone told a story of ancient sea beds and drifting sand dunes.http://ops.tamu.edu/x075bb
	It seems amazing to me that the early settlers, particularly the first Mormons in the area, actually took covered wagons across this canyon studded landscape.
	Water is life in the desert. Wherever there was water, there was a coridor of viverant life.
	Grosvenor's Arch is one of the few triple arches in Utah.
	Steve posing kneee deep in frigid water in Buckskin Canyon; not the place to be during a thunderstorm. We saw several logs jammed 80 feet up between the narrow walls of the canyon.
	Buckskin was often no more than 4 feet wide, but several hundred feet deep.http://ops.tamu.edu/x075bb
	We took a new approach to Buckskin, entering through the side canyon, Wire.
	The sculpted sandstone walls were soft and quite beautiful in the indirect lighting reaching the canyon bottom.
	We often came across formations that, given time, might one day become arches.
	The winding pathways within Wire and Buckskin Canyons were an irresistable temptation.... untill we began hearing thunder in the distance.
	Steve was most impressed by these tiny slot canyons, but, even though Kathleen and I had been through them before, they even took our breath away.
	I think we would have explored further, but the icy pools in our path were a constant reminder that these canyons were created by the power of flash floods.
	Returning home we took a slight detour through the Arizona-Sonora desert around Tucson. One of the most beautiful and unique desert landscapes in the world.