Petroglyphs and Panoramas

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I am in awe.

Flabbergasted, amazed, astounded . . .

You supply the description.

Everything about this place is immense. Gigantic, huge, unexplainable and very difficult to photograph. The reason is that everything here is on such a grand scale, I find it almost impossible to shoot.

I've taken some wide shots, and while they may be appealing, they can barely begin to do this place justice.

With that in mind, I've taken to shooting details.

And there are details here in the thousands.

And petroglyphs.

They are everywhere,
quite beautiful
and magical at the same time.
I started shooting them
for the petroglyphs themselves,
but when I looked at the pictures,
they almost appear to be modern art.

The rocks here
have such a variety of color,
it's unlike anything I've ever seen.
It makes for such beautiful variations.

Then there was this guy.
Talk about alien life forms!

After a while,
I realized that,
while the petroglyphs are beautiful,
the rock presents as an art form
all it's own.

I played around
with the color for this shot.

While the rocks were mesmerizing.
This particular set of petroglyphs
was really impressive.

A wider shot
so you can see more
of the surrounding rock.

More rock art.

Better in black and white?
Maybe not better,
but different.

Next we headed
to Panorama Point.

We don't know the name
of these rock formations,
but we call them puddle rocks.

We see them all over this area.

The walk led us to this view.

And this one.

It seems everywhere you look
trees are growing out of solid rock.

They grow up, down and sideways,

maintaining a firm hold
on the least amount of soil.

All this rock is surrounded
by the finest sand.
Nature takes a firm hold
in that as well.

These tiny white flowers
were some of my favorites.

Capitol Reef
boasts a huge geologic formation
called the Waterpocket Fold.
It's so named because
the unique structure of the rocks
allows liquid to be collected.

Here's a tiny fold,
holding water from the recent rains.

We saw this all over Capitol Reef
after the storms.

Here's Terry
at the top of the cliffs
at Panorama Point.

Here's the first of many pictures
of holes in the rocks.
Doesn't sound so great
but believe me,
they make the most amazing patterns.

This particular day,
we had beautiful skies,
almost as nice as New Mexico . . .

And then we headed
back across the valley
to come home.

A wonderful day
in an amazing place.

the Campground at Capitol Reef

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Once again, I'm behind in posting.

We got here two and a half weeks ago, spending our time at an RV park in Torrey, a small town about ten miles from Capitol Reef proper. We originally stayed there so we could meet some fellow bloggers (Laurie and Odel) and we had a lovely time with them, but one week in the RV park was enough for us.

On a day trip, once again, serendipity intervened. Trying to escape a tailgater on a twisted mountain road, we ducked into a National Forest campground to look around. And what should we find, tucked back in the woods, but another Lazy Daze! It turned out to be someone we've communicated with for several years, and just like that, we made more new friends .

Steve and Nancy (the Lazy Daze folks) were staying at the campground at Capitol Reef, so we decided to move on over. It's drycamping under the trees, a beautiful spot, and it's only $5.00 a night with my brand new Golden Age Passport (now just called the Senior Pass, more prosaic, but I guess that's what it is . . .).

Terry has had his for some time, but I finally got mine here at Capitol Reef.

I'm officially a fogey!

Here at the campground, there's a nice level walking trail that meanders along the Fremont River. This tree, which I love, stands guard over the trail.

If you look closely, you can see the face.
I love it, but imagine
a Halloween nightmare
for the young ones.

Our first few days here
were rain soaked.

I tried to take advantage of the water
for photography.

Here's a shot of the trail.
Notice how the flowers
are all hanging down
drenched by the rain.

The rain, while inconvenient,
seems to have been appreciated
by the plants and trees.

These are called the mail trees.

Here in Fruita (originally a small but prosperous Mormon community in the late 1800s and now the center of Capitol Reef National Park), these trees marked the far end of where the mail could be delivered.

The residents would leave outgoing mail hung in bags and the mailman would leave the incoming mail in the same manner.

These are ancient cottonwoods, very unlike the cottonwoods we're used to in New Mexico. These are huge, as is most everything here in Capitol Reef.

Here's one final shot
from the campground.

Lots of pictures to post,
this is just an introduction.

We've now been here ten days (plus the one week in Torrey) and still have barely scratched the surface of this place. They say Capitol Reef is one of the lesser know National Parks, but I can't figure out why.

Back Online!

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We're still here at Capitol Reef, so much to see, so many things to do.

We've been visiting, making new friends, hiking (WOW us hiking??), picking apples, exploring, marveling at the beauty of this place, taking tons of pictures , and generally having a great time.

So once again, I am very behind in my posting.

But just this morning, Terry went outside and found a small hole in the trees and tried to set up the dish, and VOILA! I have internet. No power (we are drycamping under the trees, not much solar) but at $5.00 a day with gorgeous scenery, it's well worth it.

We were going to leave here today when we discovered that the whole of the Utah school system is closed down from October 14 through the 17th. With this information in hand, we decided to stay over the weekend.

So this is just a quick catch up, more to come with lots of pictures.

Offline

We'll be offline for a few days, drycamping in Capitol Reef . . .

Ramblings . . .

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Once again, I'm behind in posting.

There's just too much to see and do here to take the time to process all the photos and get the blog up to date.

I guess I must accept that I'll be behind in blogging for a while.

We've been busy exploring Capitol Reef, what a place! We've been driving, hiking (a bit), meeting new friends, VERY busy, especially for us.

So instead of going into a lot of detail, I'll just post a few pictures and tell you one story at the very end.

If you look really closely
in the lower center of this shot
you'll see Terry
(I stole this picture idea from
Laurie and Odel).

The day ended
with another rainbow.

And now for the story . . .
This morning,
we heard a huge thump,
usually an indication
of a bird flying into the rig.
We looked out
and saw a large bird in the yard.
I grabbed the camera
and got this shot.

Only after looking at the photo
did we realize that this bird
hadn't flown into the rig,
but most likely
had snatched his prey
from off the rig itself.

It's a cold cruel world out there.

Glad we're safe and sound
in Cholula Red.

Capitol Reef and the Pando

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Now that I've finally posted all my Monument Valley pictures, I can hopefully get a little more caught up.

As I've said before,
we're currently camped
right outside of
Capitol Reef National Park.

I really hadn't heard
all that much about this park,
but I must say,
it's most impressive.

We’re in the small town of Torrey,
just a few miles from the park,
camped in a lovely site
(Wonderland RV Park).

We haven't yet really
explored the park
because the nice lady
in the Visitors Center
told us we should first go
to a place called Fish Lake.

She recommended we go
as soon as possible,
because the aspen were in color.
As soon as a good rain or wind
comes along,
the leaves will all be gone.

What great advice!

One note,
there is a large fire
in central Utah,
lots of smoke in the area,
so some of these photos
are kind of blown out.

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We have always talked
about going east for the Fall colors,
but I believe this was as impressive

After a bit of research,
we learned that this grove
is know as the Pando

These trees
are all genetically identical,

making this grove
one giant organism.

It cover 107 acres,
all joined underground

by a common root system.

The Pando contains
some 47,000 stems.

It's said to weigh
more than
six million kilos.

The age of this organism
(which is believed to be
the largest in the world)

is somewhere between
80,000 and 800,00
years old.

It was truly breathtaking.

I'm so glad we went yesterday,
since the wind came up today
and all the leaves may be gone.

The colors of the aspen
were jaw dropping.

It really didn't look real.

Terry says that in forty years,
he's never heard me say WOW!
so many times.

Quaking aspen are
my new favorite trees.

You might also want to look at
Laurie and Odel's blog
for more pictures of the Pando.

I'll finish
with this one shot of the sun
streaming through
the smoky skies.