Panoramas and videos...

This panorama is one I've been looking forward to assembling. It is made up of 27 shots in 8 HDRs. The first time I tried to assemble it, my big computer complained that it didn't have enough RAM. (It has 4 Gigabytes of Ram).

The open space of Upper Cathedral Valley is immense, and I hope this gives some idea of what it is like to stand there and look around. Remember to click on the image to see the larger version.

Below is a quick video of driving along the Hogback Road, which runs between Escalante and Boulder in Utah. This road passes Calf Creek (site of the famous waterfall) and then runs for thirty miles before reaching Boulder.

There is a 1,000-foot dropoff on either side of this road, so it is great fun to drive it with a video camera out the window.

There are two posts today...

There were so many attractions today that I had to break the blog into two posts. these early pictures are from the punishing but beautiful drive from Escalante to the famed Hole in the Rock--which I'll show in the second post below this one. The road gets worse the closer we get to the Hole in the wall. And worse.And, as we get within a few miles of the Hole in the Rock, beyond worse. All along the road, we have to the West a massive escarpment, which obviously guided the trail the Mormon wagon train followed.

Along the way, we stopped at the Devil's Garden, a huge collection of strangely-shaped sandstone monoliths, arranged as a giant child would play with blocks. Nature shows a weird sense of humor here!

Then we arrived at Dance Hall Rock--this place is huge, a monster amphitheater in which the wagon train Mormons had their Saturday night festivities. Mormons had a lot of children. I'll move on.
Throughout the punishing drive even for his 4-wheel drive,, my guide Sean showed me places where the wheels of the 1879 wagon train to the Hole in the Rock left their marks. He was also expert at finding Indian arrowheads and other small traces of Indian habitation. The picture below is of 130-year-old wagon ruts!



It was a punishing but fabulous day. Please scroll down to the next post to see the Hole in the rock itself--an astonishing story of human spirit that would not be beaten.

Escalante is everything it claims to be...

It is an amazing place, and I have only started. this morning I took a 25-mile drive on a washboard road through the Dixie National forest. Anybody tells you America doesn't have a lot of trees, they're lying. My car is now 20 years old and hates washboard roads,

The target was Hell's backbone, site of this bridge and some colossal views. Worth every rattle and dislodged filling it took to reach it.

Came back down the nost Beautiful Road, which has countless overlooks like this one which is the site of the Escalante river trailhead. No, I'm not going to hike it, I still can't feel my legs from yesterday.

Speaking of yesterday's unspeakable hike, this picture is too small, but the trail runs along the bottom of that red wall across the way. I don't see any bodies on the trail. It creates them.

But, as always. the target is worth it. This is a shot of the falls from the left, and before all the families who were there jumped in. they told me it was icy cold. Everybody knows I don't dive in cold water.

Tomorrow is a big one, a 4-wheel drive to the famed Hole in the Rock Trail, where in 1879 Mormon settlers took 80 wagons down a 1200-foot sheer precipice to get down to Lake Mead. I've read what they did, but still can hardly believe it.

May be a late day. If so, I may not get a blog out for a day or two. I'm off to Capitol Reef National Park Thursday, by way of driving the Burr Trail, which plows about 30 miles of passable road South out of Boulder.

And, of course, on the way to Boulder I drive Hogback, the little road with the thousand-foot dropoffs on both sides.

No rest for those who always want to do too much!...

Nothing could be as dramatic as yesterday. Oh, wait...

Yesterday my Kodachrome Basin adventure ended with a climb up to Angel's Palace overlook, which as you see is crisscrossed with trails--I, of course, had to go to the highest. No remarks.

Then, this morning I stopped at Tropic Ditch, outside of Bryce Canyon, for a spot of morning hoodoos in the early sunlight.

This is along what they call here the Most Beautiful Drive in America. I'm down by the highway looking up toward High Point, the Red formation top left.

This is the view from up on High Point. I drove to my left from here. came into the picture in that row of trees on the right, and drove on down toward Escalante. I'm in a motel there for three nights.

And why come to Escalante? Among other attractions, this is the Lower Calf Creek Falls. It is a five mile killer hike, but the falls are beautiful when you get there!