Hiking in Snow Canyon State Park, Utah

 After our Padre Canyon hike, we spent the night in Snow Canyon State Park in late October during our fall break. The campground is small and often fills quickly, but we were able to get one of the last spots. The state park doesn't allow climbing on the nearby rocks (Valley of Fire State Park near Las Vegas does allow scrambling on the rocks at the campground, if this is important to you). So we decided on a hike the next day that would allow us to do lots of scrambling. Since we had brought our bikes, we thought it would be fun to make a combo hike-bike trip. I drove the truck with everyone's bikes uphill to where we wanted to end our hike, then biked down to the parking lot where we would start the hike, which was near the campground.

We started on the Hidden Pinyons trail, which has great parts like walking between these rock features.

There was even an optional jump. The kids realized that this wasn't going to be a normal hike. They were happy.

We soon were on the sandstone. Our basic plan was to take the trails north.

Soon we didn't even see the trail markers. But the park isn't big and we figured we couldn't get lost, so we just scrambled where ever we wanted to.

For the kids, that meant vertical trails!

My brother was a good sport. The clouds made hiking really comfortable.

We saw a few other people wandering around, but we had plenty of space to ourselves.

The cross bedding was amazing.

At this point, the kids didn't look that thrilled with the route I chose.

But we got to see some cool Hemiptera (true bugs) mating or something.

We kept going up...

...the views were stupendous, with contrasting red sandstone, white limestone, and black lava.

And finally we reached the top of a sandstone knoll. The kids thought they should celebrate by sticking out their tongues.

Next we descended and tarted the lava tube part of our adventure.

This is what we had the helmets--and lights--for. We met one family with no helmets and just one phone light for all seven of them. There were flip flops in the group. Hopefully they made it out. Unfortunately there's a lot of trash in the lava tubes and more glow sticks than you can imagine. It was sad. The kids really seemed upset about it. Hopefully some scout troops will go help clean up the lava tubes.

When we finished the hike, it was the biking part. It was all downhill, so super fun. I drove down to pick them up and get my bike.

I highly recommend hiking in Snow Canyon State Park, especially during the fall, winter, and spring. In the summer it can get so hot you have to take some special precautions. Here's their website to learn more.

New Road Art

Note: I've been working on this post for about a week (yes, sometimes it takes me a while!). Today I got a phone call that NDOT had taken a loader and dump truck and removed the road art from along the road. An email thread on our local listserve indicated that according to Randy Hesterlee, Assistant District Engineer for NDOT, someone had called the NDOT office complaining about the road art being a safety issue. NDOT stated they have a right-of-way 100 feet from the center line in each direction and removed road art within that distance, except for things hanging on the fence, which they didn't think caused any danger. If any one wants to claim the road art as theirs, they can call John Ogden at 775-289-1700 to arrange a pickup.

Some new road art has been appearing on the road to Great Basin National Park. I was talking with another local about it, and he said he stopped when he saw one of these new pieces being installed. A sixth grader, who's being homeschooled in North Snake Valley, made these creations. They represent images in our dark night skies. The one above is the Dolphin, leaping from the waves.

She did a great job welding lots of details onto the dolphin. The wind blew it over, so we tried to stick it back upright so more people can enjoy it.

This one was put up earlier in the summer and is the winged pegasus. I heard that it was put up in celebration of the Dark Sky Certification of Great Basin National Park.

Again, the details are marvelous. Here are the feet.

And a close up of the head.

Desert Girl really wanted to go for a ride!

The Big Dipper (I think--could also be the Little Dipper) is new near the Baker Ranching Exhibit (which has some marvelous metalwork done by Bill and Kathy Rountree).

Each of the stars has a spigot.


Nearby is this constellation. Do you know it?

If you need a clue, the name is written on it.

The queen not only has her crown, but also her "W" shape. And the mirror lets anyone who wishes to be queen see herself. It's a great design!

We stopped and took a closer look at "Hang Out," which has been up for awhile, but we hadn't made the time to really look at it.

Again, the detail was fabulous. So much thought went into each part!

There are decorations hanging out too.

Last year this concrete buck appeared under the juniper tree. It looked really cool, and I wondered how long it would take some idiot to think it really was a deer and shoot it. Well, it took a few months, but eventually someone did blast it. (Doesn't give you much hope if someone can't tell a concrete buck from a real one; plus shooting from the road is illegal.)

We found the face on the ground, and Desert Girl held it up for a photo.

This is another constellation, but you might have to go by the British name to identify it. They call the Big Dipper the Plow.

Here's the Flower Bed. Or maybe the Bed of Roses? Part of the fun of Road Art is trying to figure out what they are. Most have puns as part of their art.

This is a true masterpiece: "Wheeler Peak." The "peak" is make of bicycle wheels. But there's more.

The faces that adorn the sides are made from old bike seats with interesting adornments. They kind of look like aliens. Which is fitting, since the Internet says that a UFO crashed on a nearby dry lakebed, and that the ETs took refuge in the area. (Seriously, this does exist on the Internet. See more here.)

Then check out this huge dreamcatcher, called "Baker Mix." it is made with all sorts of baking utensils, like whisks and slatted spoons and measuring cups and cookie cutters. It is amazing.

A few paintings also dot the fenceline, some calling attention to the beautiful night skies over Snake Valley.

I would usually say go take a look at this marvelous art, but most of it is now gone. You can see some more road art in these posts: 2015, Our Little Solar System, Solar System Restored, 2012, Rollin Springs, 2009, Introduction to Road Art.

Calaveras Big Trees State Park and Highway 4

After a day of seeing beautiful sites in eastern California and the Sierra, and two days caving, we woke up bright and early and were on the road by 7 am from Murphy, California, with our first stop not far away: Calaveras Big Trees State Park. We went for a hike through the North Grove and had it all to ourselves due to the early hour. This is the place that the giant sequoias were discovered in California, the largest trees in the world.

We were immediately impressed. Desert Girl tried to hug a tree and couldn't get very far around it.

We enjoyed the interpretive booklet pointing out sights along the trail.

And we kept craning our necks to take in the very tall trees overhead. Coastal redwoods are the tallest trees in the world, but their cousins, the sequoias (sometimes called Sierra redwoods), get pretty tall too.

Some of the branches so high up are bigger than most tree trunks. This wouldn't be a good place to go in an extreme wind storm.

Most of the trees grow with a spiral. This one was especially obvious.

The trees were often spaced out, so we could see way up high. I was glad I had my wide-angle lens!

The kids had so much fun walking through this old tree.

And they were happy to check out the inclined bench, made to make tree viewing easier.

This fallen sequoia gives some good scale of how big the trunks are.

We managed a photo of the three of us.

This part with the meandering boardwalk was magical!

So what do the leaves on a sequoia look like? We found some younger trees where we could actually see the needles. They are kind of feathery and reminiscent of some junipers.

Desert Girl could actually hug a young sequoia and get her arms all the way around!

It would be fun to return in 100 or 200 years to see what these young trees look like.

Several plants were in the understory, including dogwood.

What does a sequoia cone look like? It's not super photogenic or impressive. The tiny seeds sure can produce big trees, though!

Some trees (not just sequoias) also had amazing lichens on them.

The kids were eager to spend their money, but the visitor center was closed. So we had to make do with a photo next to this neat sign. There are two campgrounds in the park, and maybe one day we'll get to hang out more with these amazing trees.

On this day, though, we needed to get home, so we continued on Highway 4 over the Sierra Nevada. I was quite surprised when the middle line disappeared and a one-and-a-half lane road appeared, weaving around hairpin turns, with steep dropoffs and no guardrails, next to scenic lakes studded with granite boulders. And there was more traffic than I thought there should be for this type of road on a Monday morning!

We made a quick stop at Ebbetts Pass, elevation 8,730 ft.

Although some thought this pass would become a major one, in reality it's a minor one, closed in the winter.

Nearby is the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT). We hiked on it for about a minute. Some day I'd like to come back and spend lots more time on it.

The kids were great travelers and we made it home by dinner time, with a couple stops in Carson City and a stop at the amazing park in Austin (check out the obstacle course on the far side of the softball field!). It was a terrific trip and so nice to connect with friends and see some beautiful sights. I love traveling and learning about new places, it feeds my soul.