Yesterday we hiked in The Needles, the loop with the Joint trail and Chesler Park. It was a wonderful day, the sun popping in and out, dramatic skies, nobody around (saw only 2 girls). One girl had been working as a ranger in Capitol reef for 6 months. Her favorite trail: Upper Muley Twist..... Hm, that reminds me, that I'm about 10 TRs behind, and I definitely need to finish the Upper Muley TR!
There is "milage" and then there is "Needles Milage"..... We never hike many miles per hour in The Needles, lots of up and down and it's so beautiful, stunning. And I know there are many pictographs in there.... one day! Rick is out running now (because there is also "running milage" to be completed, seriously.....!), so for now here are just some of my iPhone pictures:
It started out like this.... Look at the clouds!
Not sure if it's just me.... But I was thinking that looks like the legs of an Elephant- in Elephant Canyon.
A little further on the trail, cairns to the bottom right. Beautiful.
Almost at the jeep road
Then it got all cloudy.... Here is the split off point to Beef Basin
And then the chamber....
More Joint Trail stuff....Always impressive.
We came out of the Joint trail and headed towards Chesler Park. It was all cloudy, but after several times in The Needles, I knew what might happen with the sharp line between all the clouds and the sunshine. The line with blue sky was just 15-30 mins away, so I said let's wait it out and enjoy Chesler Park all lit up on the way back. And sure enough....
We rarely spend much time at the viewpoint, but there was nobody there. So we sat down and enjoyed it. I was snoozy and thought about taking a
@Ugly nap..... But it was already late...
Just below the viewpoint our phones went bling, bling, bling.... Full signal. My neighbor texted a picture of our driveway back east and asked if I wanted it plowed...... Ouch, every picture from back East looks hm.... Grey, icy, dark..... Then my phone went dead. So more time went by with finding the cable (that I forgot to pack) for the charger (that I did pack).
Then it got even nicer where we were. This is looking back up at the viewpoint.
There was a pinkish tone in the clouds on the left side.
More cloud distractions on the way back
Then it got really nice..... I'm guessing Rick's pictures will be awesome from this spot. He is standing to the right.
Tiny Jeep waiting, we left the parking at 5 pm. Nobody else there. Only 1 car when we arrived.
We keep cutting it closer and closer to the dark. We have headlights, but that's a difficult trail in the dark.
Such a beautiful place....!
