We woke up to a beautiful morning. The sun was peeking over the high canyon walls while we made Dutch Apple Pancake breakfast for the group. For meals this trip, we’ve all picked our time to cook and clean and Tim and I chose two of our favorites breakfasts. Tomorrow of course will be the all time favorite, Cowboy Omelet, the perfect start to a 40 mile day on the bikes.
Today, on the other hand, was a short day, only 10 miles to our next spot at the base of Hard Scrabble Hill. Tim and I are trading off driving and today was my turn. While the road wasn’t too technical, it was fun to get my 4 wheeling feet wet. Tim will still handle the really hairy, high exposure driving on the trip, but I am enjoying my turns too.
This stretch only took about an hour and by 1 pm, we were at camp. Keri and I both were eager for some more exercise and decided to ride our bikes up Hard Scrabble Hill and hike out to Fort Bottom Ruin. This 1270 A.D. building is an amazingly well preserved circular structure thought to be built by the Anasazi as a signal tower. It is high on a far butte right on the Green River. To reach the ruin, the path traverses over a narrow rock bridge about 1 meter wide with steep dropoffs on each side of about 500 feet. The wind was gusting up to 65 mph and made the walk a bit treacherous. We timed our walk in between gusts to make it across. I don’t think that we’d actually have been knocked off our feet but the possibility made the hike pretty exciting!
We rode back down the hill for another great night around the “camp fire”. There are no fires in Canyonlands so we all seem to arrange our chairs into a circle around a stand-in. Tonight it was a cooler with a bowl of salsa. But fire or no, get 10 fun people in a circle and the laughs begin. It was another beautiful night in the Canyon.
What Say You?