Neon Canyon

 On our Escalante canyoneering trip, we originally were going to do Neon Canyon as part of a backpacking trip, but due to the bad roads we had to switch our plans and do Neon Canyon as a day trip (Excursions of Escalante offers this as a four-day trip and Zion Adventure Company offers a three-day trip).

We had to hike three miles cross-country to the Escalante River, cross the river, then hike up above the canyon, drop into the canyon and navigate it, then hike the three miles back to the trailhead. The hike looked daunting as we saw our landmark butte out in the distance.

Far distance.

It looked really far away.

Yikes, it was far!

Normally three miles doesn't sound far, but when you can see the whole three miles laid out right in front of you, it looks far. (Can you spot the person in the bottom third of the photo? He's already tiny and not so far away.)

Nevertheless, we started hiking. Hiking on the rock wasn't so tough, but there were a lot of sandy sections. We tried to stay off the cryptobiotic soil, the soil that is held together by lichens (which themselves are a combination of fungi and algae). The cryptobiotic soil keeps the soil in place and can be hundreds or even thousands of years old.

We started hiking in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and crossed an unmarked boundary into Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. Eventually we got to where we could see the green swath of the Escalante River. What a welcoming sight! As we got close to our butte, we could see the canyon below it, meeting up with the Escalante.

The Escalante River wasn't quite what I expected. The entire streambed is really wide, and we first crossed a dry section of it. We could hear water, so we knew the stream was close, and after bushwhacking through willows reached it. The water was running fast and brown from the recent rains, and was over knee high crossing it. Small branches floated down, and I felt the river trying to push me over as I crossed. But that wasn't enough to prevent a few of us taking a small trail upstream and jumping in and floating to the canyon entrance. It felt great to cool off!

We ate an early lunch and then started up the canyon, quickly hiking out of the canyon bottom. The view up canyon was spectacular. We followed a well-marked trail past the first possible drop-in place. At the second (the "more fun entrance"), we decided it was time to go into the canyon. It's possible to go much farther up canyon before dropping in, but the most spectacular part is the bottom part and we were doing a daytrip, so we decided this was a good place for us. Plus it was hot, and we were eager to get into the shade of the canyon.

After a quick rappel into a side canyon we entered the main canyon, which was only a few feet wide. A swimmer hole soon followed, and about half the group put on wetsuits. The rest of us were so hot from hiking we decided to give the pools a try in just our shorts and t-shirts.

We had a lot of swimming to do! Or at least backfloating--a backpack with drybags inside makes a nice buoyant container for keeping one high in the water.

After many twists and turns we came out to a section with trees and took a snack break. This is where "the normal" entrance comes in. There are supposed to be moqui steps (steps made by Native Americans in the rock), but I missed them.

We weren't thrilled to see the big, puffy dark clouds overhead, but fortunately we didn't hear any thunder. Nevertheless, we were all aware that the canyon could flash at any time. A storm in the upper reaches, miles from us, could send water swooshing down the narrow canyons. We frequently saw flood debris over our heads.

The next section we would enter was renowned for a couple keeper potholes. These are potholes that have the downstream side higher than you can usually reach, so you have to do shoulder stands or pack tosses or even use a grappling hook to get out. We all put on wetsuits now, anticipating we might be in the water awhile as we did some problem solving.

But the water was so high, that we swam right over the potholes. Our exits were generally easy, like stepping onto a sandy beach.

We went right over what is usually another keeper pothole and then got ready for the final rappel--into the magical Golden Cathedral. Thanks to Bryan for catching this photo of me.

The light was gorgeous, and we felt very lucky to be there. We were fortunate that the weather cooperated. Here's a video of a flash flood in the Golden Cathedral.

Wet and happy!

Many thanks to Bryan for organizing this trip.

I really didn't want to get out of the water, so I floated back over and took a photo of the drop looking up. It looked a little like a face. 

And here's a photo of Pauli coming down.

Once we had stripped off our wetsuits and had another snack, it was time to start the long hike back. It went smoothly, though, and we were back at the vehicle faster than we expected. All in all, a fantastic day! I could understand why Neon and the Golden Cathedral get a lot of hype, they are definitely gorgeous.

Escalante Country

I was invited recently to go on a canyoneering trip. I jumped at the chance, as I'm trying to improve my canyoneering skills, plus it's just a lot of fun. We had originally planned to go to California, but due to the wildfires switched our plans to canyons near Escalante. I had really enjoyed the area in May (despite the rain), so was looking forward to heading back. But as I approached, I saw lots of storm clouds, an ominous sign when you want to spend time in the area's drainages.

I guess one bright side of rain clouds are rainbows.

I arrived outside Escalante at sunset, which was spectacular.

I met up with some of the others in our group and we learned that the road we wanted to go on was likely in bad shape. We decided to take a look and found out it was washed out, and a sheriff's deputy said it was even worse further on. So we parked on the side of the road, made camp, and said hi to the rest of the group when they arrived.

The morning looked good, especially with warm hashbrowns for breakfast. But the road was still washed out.

So we headed into town to Excursions of the Escalante. One of our group members had taken a canyoneering class from the owner, Rick, and was friends with him. Rick graciously pointed out another option for the day that didn't involve waiting for the road crew to fix the road. He asked that we not blog about the name or location of the canyon he sent us to, so I'll respect that. Suffice it to say, there are lots of canyons out there!

And this one involved some tight passageways, tall walls, and beautiful rock.

I only knew one other person on the trip, and it was fun meeting new folks.

We had lots of laughs as we did the canyon--like how many canyoneers does it take to pull a rope?

We also challenged ourselves to try and stay dry in places. The recent rains meant more water in the canyons. I didn't mind walking in some of it, it was a good way to cool off!

We reached a spot where everyone had to get wet.

And then we were back to another tight spot, where you could take the high route or the low route.

It turned out to be a good idea to learn how to take the high route, because in a little while we reached a spot where we could hear a little rattle. A rattlesnake blocked the way, upset at us intruding its home. Its home was the floor of a canyon about three feet wide. We clearly couldn't walk around it. There was no place to move the snake, as it was a slot canyon on either side. So we stemmed up and went over the snake. No one was injured, and we all went on our merry way.

Well, as merry as can be in super tight canyons. I sure wished I hadn't forgotten my knee and elbow pads!

We spent a great day out in canyon country, then went back into town for dinner. Afterwards we decided to drive to the trailhead for the next day's canyons. The road crew had fixed the road, but the side road we took got to a place where it was impassable for all but one of the vehicles, so we stopped there to camp. Sarah found a tarantula--nice find!

The next morning was gorgeous, and I wandered around taking some photos.

Can you see the little bit of a rainbow? Uh oh, we didn't really want moisture in the air!

A canyon I'll have to return to on another trip.

And then it was time to get ready for that day's adventures...to be continued...

Bike riding and hiking under the almost full moon

 Friday night was the night before the full moon, which means the moon rises before the sun sets. So I got the kids to go with me for a bike ride (while my husband attended a school event, bless him). The moon was already quite high as we started out.

It didn't take long for the mountain shadows to stretch out across the valley and tap the mountains on the other side.

Despite the pending darkness, Desert Girl asked if we could go on an adventure hike down a gully. I couldn't resist. So we took off, trying to wend our way through the brush.

I had Desert Boy pose to hold the moon.

Eventually the canyon got too brushy, so we climbed out and walked on the higher ground. Along the way we found a desiccated rabbit.

It was getting pretty dark as we biked back, and I was able to adjust my camera settings to get a pretty good closeup of the moon. It's so cool seeing the lava fields and craters that are so far away.

 The next few days the moon will be setting in the early morning, and that is always a pretty sight too.

Bat Banding

 Last night was the last night of the Nevada BatBlitz, a weeklong event held annually at different locations around the state. (I wrote about the 2014 one here.) This year it was held in and near Great Basin National Park, and I participated two nights. This night we headed to Rose Guano Cave in the beautiful evening sunlight, scrambling up the rock with a bunch of gear.

This old sign soon will be updated, as recent studies have found that millions of bats use this cave for a night or two as they fly south in late summer. Where do they spend the summer? Hmmm, well north of Rose Guano Cave probably, but only a few locations have been identified, and certainly not enough for millions of bats. Lots of other questions remain about their migration routes (they don't use Rose Guano Cave on their way north in the spring, so where do they go?) and wintering and summering grounds.

Nearby is a beautiful arch. Sometime I'll have to explore it more.

The views into Spring Valley are great. In the distance is a wind farm, Nevada's only wind farm. Wind farms cause a lot of bat mortalities due to the pressure difference as the blades go around. A bat doesn't have to be struck by a blade to die, but the barotrauma (pressure difference) can cause their lungs to burst. Fortunately, the wind farm has tried to reduce bat mortality by turning off the blades when large numbers of bats come out of the cave.

You can smell the cave before you get to it due to the massive amounts of guano in it. That guano attracted attention and a mining claim was filed on it. An adit was built into the guano chamber in 1926, and early miners sold the guano as fertilizer and possibly to make explosives. Guano is high in phosphates and nitrates. The note on the wall below says: Danger Positively No Trespassing Rose Guano Mining Claim.

Located near that wall is this pole with sensors on it. A pole on the other side of the cave entrance looks similar. These sensors send a beam across, and when it is broken, that beam break is counted. There are two arrays on one side so bat egress (exit) and ingress (entrance) can be counted. The data is transmitted real time to the wind farm, so they know when to turn the wind turbines off. These sensors have helped biologists understand a lot more about bat use of the cave.

As some folks were setting up the gear to trap the bats, I ventured into the cave entrance a bit, the first time I've ever done that. We could see a deep pit below us that went down into the dark. The bats go further back into the cave. The smell of the guano was so strong that after a few minutes I was feeling a little queasy, and we weren't even next to the guano! It's amazing that the bats can withstand such high levels of ammonia.

Because so many bats fly out of this cave, only a single trap is used, called a harp trap. Fishing line is strung vertically, and when the bats encounter it, they slide down into the canvas bag at the bottom.

Here's a view of the cave entrance from inside. Before long the bats would start flying and darkness would descend.

Putting some high-tech finishes on the harp trap--pool noodles, to help the bats from getting injured.

Once everything was set up, we just had to wait for the bats to start flying. Folks from Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW), BLM, Great Basin National Park, Nevada Natural Heritage Program, Death Valley National Park, and Lake Mead National Recreation Area were helping.

Before long the bats started exiting. One comes out first, circles around, and reports back to the others. Then just a few stream out at a time, and then it can be hundreds per minute. They generally head south, towards the agricultural fields, where they will eat their weight in insects every night. Some will return to the cave for another night, others continue their trip south.

As they fell in the harp trap, those with rabies shots picked them up and determined gender, age (adult/juvenile), tooth wear, and reproductive status. A small metal band was attached to the arm.

Here is one of the banding stations.

It took about a minute or two to process each bat, then it was released.

We banded about 250 bats in less than two hours. This brings the total that NDOW has banded this summer up to 5,000! Wow. Hopefully the bands will help researchers learn lots more about where these bats spend their lives.