I'm outa here...for a bit

Looking the other way from the big Ponderosa Pine, a view of the Transept, which runs perpendicular to the main canyon (just in case you forgot the meaning of transept). No river runs through the Transept, but it is an abyssal drain, where rain water runs down to meet the Colorado river.

 

"Honey, is this point undercut?"

"No dear, it's fine. I can't see you in the viewfinder. Step back a bit. A little more. Just a bit more..."

 

Here is a quick note about viewing photos in PriusChat: The PriusChat software scales photos for display, even when they are hosted on another server. The scaling is not always proportional, which is why my portrait photos are being squished in some cases.

If you want to see photos in their original form, click on the photo. This will bring up a black frame containing a properly proportioned photo. In the upper right corner there is a small "+"; click on this to show the photo full size. Click on the "Close" at the bottom right to go back to the normal forum view.

Tom

 

We were mostly between 7,000 and 9,000 feet, although we went as high as the low fourteens.

The washed out color was a subtle thing - less evident than the "golden hour" after sunrise and before sunset. It's more of a starkness than anything else.

Tom

 

We were on I-80 at that point, but we did a lot of driving on smaller roads. You get a better look at the little towns and scenery when you stay off the Interstate Highways, but sometimes you just need to make time. We did it both ways.

Speaking of highways, that's a difference I noticed. Out where you live, the Interstate Highways tend to actually be "high"ways. They are almost always built up above grade level. Merging involves running up a ramp, accelerating while going uphill, all done at altitude.

In Michigan, the Interstate Highways are often at grade level or a little lower. I suspect the difference comes from the type of soil. We have mostly glacial till, which is composed of loose sand and gravel, where you have a lot of rock. Ours drains well, but isn't self-supporting. Yours works the other way around.

Canyoneering looks like fun, as long as you don't drown in a rain storm.

I have a LOT of photos from Zion. Every view was another photo op. I only posted a few in a lame effort to avoid being permanently banned from PriusChat.

Abseiling, or rappelling as we call it, is one of my favorite things. It's the pay-off for going up: you get to go down for free. There are risks, such as rapping off the end of the rope. Always tie a stopper knot.

Yes mom. Seriously, you are correct. I slipped at the top of a route on this trip and put my head into the rock, and my helmet took the blow. It wouldn't have killed me without a helmet, but it wouldn't have been pretty either.

As you and Daniel have pointed out, it's probably equally important for the belayer or second climber to wear a helmet. It doesn't take much of a stone to do a lot of damage when it drops a hundred feet. The dreaded call from the lead climber: "Rock!" We use the "rock" call for anything falling. It's easier and safer to just yell rock than to get into details: "Ice!", "Gear!", "Shoe!". All of those are subject to too much interpretation.

Yes, it's much different. I made that exact comment to my wife on the return trip. We had been back driving in Michigan for an hour when I said: "I've seen more trees since we got back than the entire rest of the trip." In Michigan you literally can't see the forest for the trees. The view from the highway is closed in by massive amounts of green vegetation. Coming back, the contrast was starling: green trees, green fields, green weeds on the side of the road, green divider strips down the center of the highway. We have a lot of chlorophyll.

That's a funny comment about NE and IA. We did notice everything getting dryer and more stark as we went west. The high plains of Wyoming are pretty bleak.

Ha! That's funny, but I suppose it's true. I have talked to people who don't like Michigan because they feel hemmed in by the trees.

Tom

 

What size are you using? I scaled these down to 1024x768, or 768x1024 for the portrait ones.

PriusChat scales my landscape photos proportionally, but not the portrait photos. I suspect that is because of height restrictions in the code.

All of my photos in this thread are sitting on a web server someplace outside of PC. I used the "Insert Image" button to paste them into the message by reference.

Tom

 

Still on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. This point looked solid from the other side, but not so good from over here. I was going to go out on it, but decided to make sure first. We won't even mention the lip that I was hanging off of to get this photo (my hands get too sweaty to type if I do).

 

On the North Rim the biggest trees are the Ponderosa Pines. The North Rim is much higher than the South Rim, and these big pines are the tallest thing around. One in ten show lightning damage. On this one it is easy to see where the lightning peeled the bark.

 

Meanwhile, back at the Lodge...

This was getting to be a habit. A cold beer tasted really good after a day of hiking. The lodge at the North Rim is a classic National Park Lodge. I expected to find Teddy Roosevelt around every corner. He would have fit there perfectly. Bully!

 

Outside view of the North Rim Lodge, taken from a lookout point over the canyon.

 

Heading out of the Grand Canyon park for the last time, we decided to have a go at this tower. I suppose it was some sort of height withdrawal.

 

Much to our surprise, the Forrest Service actually allows people to climb this tower. We thought we might have to do it on the sly.

 

Looking down inside the tower. A funny story about the young lady sitting on the steps: When we drove up to the tower, there was another car parked at the bottom, but I didn't see anyone else. The car belonged to the young lady. She works at the North Rim, and drives down to the tower and climbs two-thirds they way up to get a cell phone signal so that she can talk to her boyfriend. Now that's true love.

 

Even on vacation, you have to do the dishes.

 

From the North Rim, it was only a short trip up to Bryce Canyon.