Justin and I used the long Fourth of July weekend to head back down to the Escalante National Monument to hike a couple of slot canyons. Peek-A-Boo and Spooky Gulches (aka Speek-a-boo and Pooky thanks to Justin) are in the same area as Coyote Gulch and are some of the longest traversable slot canyons in the world (meaning you don't need ropes to get through them). We got in a little late and ended up staying in a campground a little out of the way of well, everything but it was totally worth it. Most of the camping in that area is at lower elevations and H-O-T hot. The one we found was up in the foothills and right by a reservoir. So nice.
We woke up Saturday morning and drove over to the canyons. The signs said to plan 2-6 hours depending on if you wanted to do one or both canyons. We did both and stopped to eat lunch in just about 3. Guess we're speedy walkers. The canyons were gorgeous and tons of fun to hike. I highly recommend them :) There were even some younger kids (~5 or 6) climbing through with their parents.
Peek-A-Boo
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| Peek-a-boo!! |
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| At the bottom of the tunnel... |
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| Through the tunnel! |
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| Climbing out of the top of the gulch. |
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| Awesome views! |
Spooky
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| Justin in our lunch break hidey-hole. |
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| Mmmm, sausage and cheese. |
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| Justin didn't like that you can see his missing finger... |
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| so we tried using my hand. Maybe it's not that convincing... |
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| One part was blocked by huge boulders that we had to climb down and around. Super fun!! |
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| If Justin can barely fit, you know it's narrow :) |
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| Looking up from the canyon floor. Very cool! |
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| This picture shows why they call this canyon Spooky. It was darker and cooler and... spookier :) |
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| Not sure where these bumps on the wall come from. Guano? |
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| Justin liked this little ray of sunshine. And the Pirates quote on the wall. |
On our way back to camp we stopped at the reservoir to cool off. I was sooo glad we'd been forced to that campground! After dinner we drove ~15 minutes over to the Bryce Canyon visitor center where the Utah amateur astronomers had set up multiple telescopes. Southern Utah is one of the darkest place left on earth so there were some amazing stars out. We saw Saturn, the Dippers, globular clusters, nebulae, Scorpius, the Summer Triangle... Justin was probably most excited just to see the Milky Way. Apparently you can't see it very well in large urban areas like Orlando.
