Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. It was 26 degrees when I got up this morning. It seemed a lot colder. The "storm" had blown through as predicted, and the sky was a deep blue. With nothing to hold the warmth in, all the heat escaped and was replaced by cold, cold air. The moist air in the canyon made it feel even colder.
With a clear sky, I passed on shooting sunrise but got up to shoot the early morning light
on the Three Patriarchs
and to drive up the main canyon. I saw several mule deer bucks and a herd of turkeys,
but nothing really jumped
out as a great shot. The effects of the 2010 flood seemed to be everywhere. The Virgin River used to be a relatively
narrow channel flowing down the canyon, but the flood created a wide flood plain and eroded much of the smaller
vegetation away. The canyon floor seems much more barren with huge areas of sand stretching across the canyon floor.
Even after 3 years, there doesn't seem to be much new growth. When I walked down to the bridge just below the 3 Patriarchs,
I found a log jam where the canyon narrowed and the huge trees couldn't float any farther downstream.
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| Court of the Patriarchs | The Pulpit |
I drove back to camp to eat breakfast and pick up Carol. We drove back up the canyon and checked out some of our favorite shots from previous trips. Without fall color and with the changes in the canyon floor, they just didn't work. I marked several locations on the GPS for future trips, but otherwise it was little more than a nice drive.
We decided to make one final drive to look for bighorn sheep to see if we could keep our perfect record of seeing bighorn on every drive up into the slickrock. We had only driven about 2 miles above the tunnel before we saw our first bighorn sheep high up on a ridge just beyond the main tunnel. There must have been a search and rescue going on because we saw 3 for 4 park service vehicles and a search and rescue ambulance parked along the road. When we drove back down the road later in the afternoon, we could see two rangers high on a ridge above a minor slot canyon. I hope it wasn't anything serious.
We stopped for our picnic lunch in the Pothole Canyon parking turnout. It had warmed up and was a very pleasant afternoon. We continued up the road and turned around at Checkerboard Mesa without seeing any more bighorn. We returned back down the road and were nearly back down to the tunnel when we saw a ewe posing almost right next to the road. There wasn't any place to park, so we continued down the road, found a place to turn around and returned to the spot where the bighorn was. Just as we were ready to pull in to the turnout, a car from the other direction got the only remaining parking spot. Back up the road, we drove to find another turn around spot so we could try to park for a third time. This time everyone else had gone, and we discovered 4 bighorn sheep feeding just off the road.
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We photographed and enjoyed the bighorn for nearly 2 hours. We had the sun behind us, the bighorn were very intent on feeding, and we didn't have anyone spooking them this time. At first, we had the area pretty much to ourselves, but as sunset approached more people stopped and quickly filled the parking turnout. Then, the entertainment was more about the people than the bighorn. One woman in a bright yellow jacket, walked up into the clearing and just sat down in the grass. The bighorn seemed very curious and walked right up to her and continued to feed on the bushes within about 2 feet of her. And then the "crazies" arrived. With the parking lot full, one car coming up-canyon, simply parked in the down-canyon lane, got out of her car, and walked down to the bighorn to photograph them. Keep in mind, the road coming down-canyon has a blind curve just before where we're photographing, and she was parking in the wrong lane. Not to be outdone by this idiot woman, a guy in a new Range Rover parked across BOTH lanes of traffic, got out of his SUV, and walked over to shoot the bighorn. I've heard stories from rangers through the years, but these two have to be about as dumb as they come. Any car coming down-canyon would have suddenly seen these cars in their lane and would probably automatically steer to miss them. That would send them off the cliff on the opposite side of the road and would almost certainly kill them. The stupid drivers would go unhurt, but they would kill someone else.
One of the interesting things we learned from the bighorn was their source of salt in the area. The sandstone blocks that created a culvert under the highway had a salt precipitate coating them. The four bighorn sheep spent about 15 minutes licking the salts off the sandstone. People were walking within 2 - 3 feet of them, but they were so intent on getting their salts that they didn't even flinch.
After the sun dropped behind the ridge and the light faded, we decided we had enough bighorn images and drove back down to the canyon floor. We made a couple stops to photograph The Watchman in the warm light and returned to camp.
Tonight, we had dinner, watched our favorite TV shows, and started packing to leave tomorrow morning. It looks like a very chilly evening, so we'll probably have to turn the water on in the sink so it will drip all night and keep our pipes from freezing. We'll be ready for a little more warmth at Valley of Fire.
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