Toto, we're definitely not in Florida anymore. I left shorts and t-shirt temps at home to spend the holiday with Mom, Dad, my brother Mathew and his best friend Jonathan in the southwest. We spent Thanksgiving day driving from southern California through Vegas to Hanksville, Utah. The plan was to hike into Horseshoe Canyon on Friday. We just forgot to put in for a decent forecast. We woke up to find a few inches of snow on the ground. No worries - the forecast wasn't for snow - surely it would stop soon. So, we left the hotel at 5:30am to drive out a 20+ mile dirt road to the trailhead. I carefully wrapped my running shoes in plastic bags - this equivalated (that's for you Jonny ;-) to strapping little, highly unstable sleds on my feet. If it wasn't steep and slippery enought, this would ensure that I ended up on my ass at some point. I don't think we went more than 500 meters in very poor visibility before we all thought better of the whole plan. Dad and Mathew are both photographers, so the point was to get some good shots of the petroglyphs on the walls of the canyon. With so much snow falling, we couldn't even take the cameras out of our packs. Well, it was a fun idea anyway - maybe next year.
Instead, we toured the Canyonlands from the warmth of our gigantic $3.50/gallon gas guzzling SUV, only getting out long enough to take a few shots until our fingers froze and we could hop back in the cozy car.
Friday night we headed toward the Grand Canyon thinking we might find a bit less snow there. There was less snow, but that didn't mean warmer temperatures. The wind was howling on the rim and even down the Kaibab trail. With the wind chill factor, I don't think we even made it into the double digits - they called for about 8 degreed Farenheit. But at least the sun was shining and they guys could get some good shots.
My loving family couldn't resist giving me a hard time about bringing my phone into the canyon. Of course, all but Mom had theirs too.
2 comments:
Hanksville! Did you eat at Stan's?
Don't know...we had Thanksgiving dinner delivered to our motel room. I didn't even see a restaurant - thought the whole town consisted of our motel ;-)
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