Horseshoe canyon is a moderately broad canyon with fairly regular water flow (as evidenced by the cottonwood trees). As we drove there, there was some snow on the road and it was cloudy, but the day warmed up quickly.
I thought the lighting on this photo was interesting. The shadowed side of the canyon had red light (reflected from the nearby lit red sand), while the lit side seemed bluish. Normally, shadows are lit by the sky and are thus blue, while sunlight is a little yellowish, but this is the exact opposite. Of course, I could very well be the only person who cares . . .
The pictographs are the reason we came to Horseshoe Canyon. It's eerie to see 2000 year old paintings made by people we know very little about.
More pictographs. I like the toes on the animal on the left.
They're rather ghostly, lacking arms and fading away at the bottoms.
Note the animals inside the one on the left (and his spooky eyes).
Down stream from the last pictographs, there's a trail that climbs out of the canyon, probably built by the CCC. We climbed it to see the view from the canyon rim.
Little Wild Horse Canyon and Goblin Valley
I thought these cross-hatched clouds were interesting.
Here we are as the slot section started.
The slot portion was very long and had a wide variety of textures. Here, the rocks have tilted so that the layers are almost vertical.
I liked this scalloping.
Nancy's actually walking down the canyon not far from me, but the undulations are significant enough that she's around a corner, just about to come back into view.
The slot section ends with this very deep and narrow bit. For scale, that's Nancy at the bottom.
After finishing our Little Wild Horse hike, we went to Goblin Valley, which you may recognize from Galaxy Quest. There are no trails, and you're allowed to wander anywhere among the hoodoos.
I knew I shoulda taken that left toin at Albukoikee!
The view towards the Henrys as we were driving away from Goblin Valley.
Lavendar Canyon
Lavendar Canyon has large masses of sandstone with tall vertical cliffs.
This is Catepilar Arch. You can't really see through it from this angle, but trust me, it's an arch.
Salt Creek
There was 5 inches of new snow overnight, but the day was still and sunny, so it never felt cold. This is Cathedral Butte as seen from the trailhead parking area. Some backpackers had started down the day before, and that's their van covered in snow.
The view from the trailhead down to the canyon.
A zoomed in view toward the canyon from the trailhead.
For the first 3/4 of a mile, the trail was hard to find among the junipers with all the snow.
Another canyon view as we descended.
Unfortunately, the bottom was rather marshy (a little unexpected in the desert!), and we didn't find the proper route through, so we spent an hour trying to escape the thick bushes.
Eventually, we just gave up on forward progress and climed out of the marsh to some nice, firm sandstone. This is the view back over the marsh.
The view back towards the La Sals as we were driving away from the trailhead was quite spectacular. I think this was my favorite picture from the trip.
Island in the Sky
This is the view from Murphey Point towards the Henrys.
This crow sat about 10 feet away from us as we ate lunch, totally unperturbed by our presence (and probably hoping we'd throw it some food!).
Another framing of the same view from Murphey Point.
The view south from the White Rim Overlook. The road in the lower right is the White Rim Trail, about 1400 feet below us -- it feels like being in an airplaine.
The view towards the La Sals from the White Rim Overlook.
Nancy and I at the White Rim Overlook with the La Sals in the background.