Day 44 - Goblin Valley

Goblin Valley has a cool name.

My choice this morning, was 1-drive forty miles on a dirt road to hike the Upper Muley Twist Canyon at Capitol Reef or 2-drive north to Goblin Valley State Park, a maybe list site. My guidebook said Upper Muley Twist was forgettable but did mention another great hike to a double arch and narrows-- but they were too far south-- so Goblin Valley it is! Who can resist a place with that name.

The drive was lovely through this butte and canyon desert. I seemed to pass only RVs-- testament to the middle of nowhere nature of southeast Utah.

I immediately went to the valley of Goblins and was a bit underwhelmed at first. Originally called Mushroom Valley, this tidal basin of old has thousands of spires with head-like shaped. I walked down to the small valley and climbed up to alcove to write some blog posts in the shade of the morning. The view looking back across the park was sensational.

After an hour, the valley filled with people, mostly families, so I hiked to another more remote section and started climbing up and over the Goblins. Now that was fun. Using the ten second timer on my camera, I arrainged and captured my favorite selfie of the trip-- me in motion as I ran toward the camera center after climbing quickly up the rock face in the bottom of the photo.

After an hour more of climbing, I decided to push on. A brochure in the ranger station mentioned a famous slot canyon called Little White Horse close-by but with a very threatening sky above-- I thought it foolish to head to a slot canyon. So I drove on to Arches. Sky darkening-- bad for narrow slot hiking.

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Day 82 - Yellowstone to Montana

My alarm sounded at 5:30am, a time early enough for me to arise before someone found me secretly camping. The geyser prediction said Grand at 6:15am so I set out toward it. I ran into geyser gazer Jim there and he said it likely erupted at 4:30-- missed it. Early morning eruptions are hard to predict as someone needed to have seen the previous overnight eruption in order to make a prediction. I walked on toward Artemesia, an unpredictable geyser at the far corner of the basin. I had seen her erupt from a mile away and wanted a closer inspection. The early morning setting was momentous, yet I didn't see a geyser erupt up close until Grand at 10:30. Then Sawmill erupted with its twirling thirty foot action (pic). The only remaining geyser left to experience on my mental list was Beehive up close. With a predicted window of 810 to 1210, I arrived at 1030 and waited until 1pm, before giving up. The sun was hot, I had read the geyser book cover to cover, and while seeing e...

Day 78 - Yellowstone Old Faithul Geysers

See Old Faithful, Grand, Lion and Beehive geysers erupt in 60 seconds: http://youtu.be/tv7BPXW4x5g This morning was one of the most exciting mornings of my trip. It started off when I decided to take a long solo hike through the geyser field, leaving at 630am. Mist was still covering this dense geyser field as I walked from geyser to hot spring (20% of the world's active geysers reside here in this one square mile area). Following a boardwalk, so not to get burned, I saw a man sitting on the boardwalk staring at an empty geyser hole. I asked him if he worked for the park service and he responded no-- he was an amateur geyser gazer-- he watched the geysers and recorded eruption times. He mentioned that we were quote "entering the window for Grand" -- geyser gazer speak for Grand geyser is about to go off. I walked a short ways to Grand and waited, one of a few at first and then one of a few dozen as a quick hour passed. The Geizer Gazer, Jim, instructed me on how to wa...

Day 104 - Glacier to Vancouver

The hike up Balu Pass was supposed to be fairly easy, beautiful and dotted with waterfalls, but when I talked to the park ranger and learned that Vancouver was an eight hour drive away, I decided to skip Balu and drive west. I left behind this pretty view. And drove many hours through pristine mountains, fewer and fewer snow-capped ones the further west I drove. Some of the valleys were flooded to make reservoirs, leaving scenic sights. I eventually made it to Vancouver and drove right on through to Point Roberts USA, a five mile by five mile coastal land just below the 49th parallel and thus in the USA. The park ranger had suggested this as a good place to camp but being late of the Thursday night before the Fourth of July there were no spots available. I drove around instead and stopped at a forested coastal park. After ten minutes of walking I came to my first grand Pacific view with Mount Baker 60 miles east. The San Juan Islands and Orca Islands could also b...

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