Then, the desert goes from flat to canyons, with all sorts of cliffs, weird rock formations, caves, etc. Something like this.
That rectangular dark patch, just down and to the left of the balanced rock, is a cave somebody dug into the cliff. It's not very big -- maybe five feet wide, six feet high, and twenty feet deep. I have no idea why somebody went to the trouble of digging it.
Anyway, after driving through some really cool narrow canyons with vertical and even overhanging rock walls right over the road, we came to the campground and set up camp.
The campground is right on the creek, so there is a bit more vegetation. We had fun skipping rocks, eating some yummy tinfoil dinners, and exploring the area.
As mentioned, there were a lot of caves. Here is one that we climbed up to and explored a little.
One of the coolest parts of exploring the cave was this agile little Spiderman rat (Spiderrat?) that was running up the walls and across the ceiling upside down. He had amazing grip on the rock!
The next morning we had breakfast and did some more exploring. Here's another friendly rattler that Daniel found. I'd never seen a rattlesnake in the wild before -- their rattles are kind of cool. Daniel said they sound like sprinklers. They're kind of hard to see in the brush -- at least when they're not rattling. Their natural camouflage works really well. This guy looks a bit annoyed. I don't think he liked having his picture taken. Yes, I stayed several snake-lengths away. I would have liked a closer-up photo, but I'm not quite that dumb.
Then Jeff and Matt and I tried climbing to the top of the canyon walls. Here are some photos of the climb.
Looking back down on our campsite, with Dad taking our photo.
Jeff taking a breather about halfway up.
Me surveying the valley floor.
Matt climbing.
Us at the top. Just as Matt stepped out onto this outcropping, his hat blew off. It was pretty funny. Fortunately, it just landed on a small ledge about three feet down from the top, so it was easy to retrieve.
Here's a picture Dad took of us at the top.
A view from the bottom of where we were standing in the last photos. It looks scarier from the bottom than it did from the top.
Matt trying to look all cool and outdoorsy. :)And we close with a couple more random shots of the cool rock formations. It was a neat place.
