We have arrived in Escalante, Utah!

So, we arrived in Escalante late Friday night and were welcomed by about 8 inches of snow. We also received another 6 inches on Sunday morning. If you know anything about the Grand Staircase-Escalante, it gets about 16 inches of snow all year on average.

Hopefully the sun will come out and melt it all so we can get to hiking and write revisions for a couple of Falcon Guide books!


The car after a morning snow.


Our little cabin for the next month.

The End and the Beginning

Capitol Reef National Park

We have officially wrapped up our careers as Traveling Trainers for Leave No Trace. We spent three years on the road and didn't spend any time in southern Utah until the last two weeks of our final year. Two weeks is not a lot of time when you consider how much there is to do in southern Utah. Lucky for us, we have been hired to spend six more weeks in Grand Staircase-Escalante and Glen Canyon revising two hiking guide books for Falcon Guides.

We'll have more on those adventures soon as we begin hiking in four days.

Highlights!

Here are some highlights from a three year road trip we are about to wrap up...

Bryce Canyon!

Getting close to wrapping up our traveling trainer careers. What a better way to end three years on the road than with a trip through southern Utah. Zion was mentioned earlier, here are some pics from Bryce Canyon. Capitol Reef is still to come.

Rocky Road

We facilitated a Leave No Trace Trainer Course in Acadia National Park earlier this year. It was a great course with lots of discussions about outdoor ethics! One conversation that came up during the principle of "Leave What You Find" was the practice of rock stacking. It was the first time that this issue had ever been brought up during one of our courses and opinions ranged from finding rock stacks beautiful to offensive. At the time, we had not given much thought to the carefully balanced rocks we had occasionally seen along trails.

So, why months later are we still contemplating the question of rock stacking? Well, we recently had the opportunity to hike in Bryce Canyon National Park and came across a portion of trail that was covered with thousands of rocks balancing upon each other. The sight immediately brought to mind the "Leave What You Find" conversation we had back in Acadia National Park and we could see why there had been such varied feelings towards the activity. While one artfully balanced rock stack can be quite beautiful, the impact of seeing these stacks in such a large quantity was somewhat disconcerting.

Have you seen rock stacks on your local trails? If so, what are your feelings about the practice of rock stacking?

Zion National Park

The drop off is the same on the other side.

A stroll through southern Utah means National Parks. Our first stop was in Zion National Park. We arrived the day after they stopped running shuttles through the park so we were able to drive ourselves into the canyon. We headed for the Angels Landing hike.

The Angels Landing Trail is one of the most famous hikes in the national park system. The trail runs along a narrow rock fin with dizzying drop-offs on both sides. The trail culminates at a lofty perch, boasting magnificent views in every direction. One would think that this narrow ridge with deep chasms on each of its flanks would allure only the most intrepid of hikers. Climbers scale its big wall; hikers pull themselves up by chains and sightseers stand in awe at its stunning nobility.

The towering monolith is one of the most recognizable landmarks in the Southwest.

Half Dome

Coming down the "Cable Route".

A view from the top. Emily is so brave.

The backside of Half Dome.

Earlier this fall we hiked Half Dome in Yosemite National Park, National Geographic Adventure's #20 Best American Adventure (we have also completed #2, #25, and #38). We hiked it in early October. What a great time of the year to visit! Smaller crowds, cooler weather, and fall foliage made for a great hike. It took us about 9 hours for the round trip hike, which included a lot of picture breaks. Above are a couple.