Moominmama's Adventures

Wherein Moominmama arrives in western Colorado and nurses a bad cold... Over the past few weeks in Utah, Moominmama inhaled quite a bit of red dust. Spring is particularly windy in the desert, but in addition to the dust, Moominmama apparently inhaled a virus which promptly took up residence in my irritated sinuses. That makes the transition to Colorado a welcome one. There's more greenery; I'm back among spring wildflowers. I'm also taking time to recover. It's rare for me to get sick on the road, but this is an exception.  After a day of misery, I've started feeling better, and since I am near the Colorado National Monument, I ventured out. The hike took me to what's called Independence Monument, apparently a major landmark for westward travelers on the wagon train, as it marks roughly the halfway point between the Missouri River and the Pacific Coast. Given the angle I approached it, the monument looked more to me like a work by Picasso, with misaligned eyes,...

In which Moominmama steps onto the Grand Staircase and goes in search of dinosaur tracks... The Grand Staircase descends from the top step at Bryce Canyon for 5,000 feet and spreads over 1.9 million acres. It would take a lifetime to explore as it encompasses not only Bryce National Park, with its pink and white spires, but extends through Zion National Park down to a bottom step in the Grand Canyon of Arizona. The Southern Paiute tribes avoided Bryce Canyon because the spires were believed to be evil people who'd been turned to stone. Their word "oo'doo" referred to feelings of fear and was mistranslated to our word: hoodoo. The Paiute call this place Angka-ku-wass-a-wits, meaning red painted faces.  The entire Grand Staircase, for which Bryce is a stepping-off point, is designed by chemistry, compression and erosion over millennia with layers of sediment compressed by inland waterways and mineral mixtures into rocks such as sandstone, limestone, coal and shale, all ...

In which Moominmama takes a snowmelt shower and is asked the question: hoodoo you love? Put off by the amusement park crowds in Zion National Park, Moominmama drove out to the western end to hike Taylor Creek. It's one of the rare trails off the beaten track that's not closed down due to a landslide. But I wasn't the only person trying to escape the crowds Though the hike is labeled easy to moderate, high water in the creek discouraged those who didn't want to get their feet wet or challenge their balance hopping across stepping stones. After a couple miles, many hikers turned back, giving Moominmama a little of the peace and quiet she craved. Already higher elevation from the start, the hike wends through juniper and pine, criss-crossing Taylor Creek up a high-walled red canyon into piles of heavily shaded, now-slushy snow.  The canyon dead-ends at a high cliff that channels snowmelt over an arched cave. The water sprinkles down forming an icy patch below the arch then...

  Wherein Moominmama explores new canyons in Utah and meets up with an "old" friend... Zion National Park is apparently the second most-visited national park after Grand Canyon. In the days before Easter, this is vividly apparent after it took an hour in line to get on a shuttle bus up the canyon my first day here. But since Moominmama is parked in a campground inside the park, I get to enjoy the towering cliffs without standing in line. And catching a shuttle bus at 8 a.m. to hike up to the West Rim successfully avoided the wait later in the day. A three-mile hike up the steep trail took me to an area where there was still snow, and the sandstone was grey instead of red. From there, I could actually look down on the iconic Angel's Landing trail (for which I failed to score a permit!) But the park, even with other hikers around, feels more intimate out on the cliffs than in the valley below. It is interesting to compare Zion to Arches, where I stayed for a week last sprin...

  In which Moominmama confronts a geological log jam and attempts to read Newspaper Rock... The story here starts over 200 million years ago when this part of Arizona, now Petrified Forest National Park, had a climate like Costa Rica. And a river ran through it.  Giant conifers grew along the river and when the sandy banks eroded, some of the trees fell into the water. Sometimes there were enough of them to catch on each other and create a log jam. In time, the silt washed over and buried them.  Without oxygen, fungus or bugs to break them down, the silica from the silt crept into the woody veins and corners. It hardened into the exact shape of the downed tree. Voila, a petrified forest, albeit on the ground. The one in Arizona is not unique, but it's one of the largest in the world. And the fossils are unbelievably realistic, down to the knots and bark of their source.  One of the giveaways, however, is that the logs often look as if they've been sliced by a chainsa...