A Couple Of Canyons....

If I was a couple of canyons short of a full house, I just drew the last cards I needed. For our farewell to the Sedona area we headed out of Cottonwood through Sedona and drove out through Oak Creek Canyon. Another very nice canyon with a beautiful little creek running down the center of it. It may not be the frozen north but it's still winter here so I have no idea why so many people were wading and something resembling swimming in those waters. "How's the water?" "Ice cold!" The bystanders are wearing fleece jackets and the polar bears are doing their thing in a relative state of undress. Ah, yes, the wild west!

So while Oak Creek Canyon was lovely, we were actually just driving on through on our merry way past Flagstaff, AZ and on into Walnut Canyon. Now, I'm sorry. I was misinformed. I thought I was going to be driving through Walnut Canyon. But as there is no road through the canyon, that was some pretty poor planning. Walnut Canyon (Walnut Canyon National Monument to be precise) is a gigantic hole in the ground with sheer cliffs that house ruin after ruin of the cliff dwelling type. You can stand at the top and peer down if you like, but you won't get the full effect. Oh, no! To fully get a sense of what you are dealing with here, you must hike and hold on as best you can while you descend some 400 vertical feet down to the dwellings. Now I understand why they use mules to go down into the Grand Canyon. They have four feet, and by the way, they can see where all four of them are going because their eyes are set so far back in their head. I, on the other hand, was trying so desperately to see where my two feet were going and trying to grab a few photos at the same time that I tripped and flipped and nearly went off the narrow path which is only partially defined by a hand rail. I was trying to figure out if the park service ran out of money and couldn't place the rails all the way down...or whether terrorizing National Park pass-holders was part of the design. After all, the former residents of this canyon ran up and down these cliffs like mountain goats- farming at the top and gathering water at the bottom. How they did that without stairs, let alone a handrail, is frankly beyond me. I thought about it. A lot! It's still beyond me. I have yet to figure out why anyone would even want to live there in the first place. For sure, though, living there was part of the survival of the fittest law of nature. Either you were fit...or the sheer going up and down would kill you. At 7000 feet of elevation, coming back up out of the canyon took my breath away. Literally. I am not talking about the view. I might still be down there but the trails closed at 4:30 and I was already pushing the deadline and my luck when I made it up and out. Was it worth doing? Sure. Half of discovery is about finding the things you want to do more of. The other half is discovering the things that fall into the "once is enough" category. Until they put the canyon elevator in??? I'm good, thanks!

Here's a look at some of the day's sightings....