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.
