exploration in coyote buttes south

After camping out just down the road from the trailhead for coyote buttes south, we woke up to get an early start because one of the guys had to get back to Salt Lake City that night, and we were actually just over the border into Arizona at this point.

There is a parking spot just off the road for low-clearance and two wheel drive vehicles. Do it. We were sandwiched between two cars as we switched to four wheel drive. It was slow going, but the fun was just getting started. I definitely felt the soft sand making the tires spin in some gnarly spots and that I was used to driving in mountain conditions. This was different though. Deep sand desert driving. It would've sucked to have gotten stuck here. None of us got stuck and we made it out safe too. Adventure before the adventure.

We marched through a bit of sand to reach this area.

I followed after he went. The girls went around right before even seeing this. She just did her longest day, 5 - 6 hours in Bryce Canyon, and then this long day hike. This is one of my favorite pics from this hike though.

You can double click on the pics to enlarge them a bit. I had to resize them for this blog, but have much better detailed pics if I want to try to put a few to print for our shop's cards (I've printed a small selection that's taken a LONG time to sell, but they look good. At least I think so).

Some of these fins were so delicate that they would break off if you stepped too close to the edge of one. A fragile area that is hikable by permit only. I've provided a link if you're interested.

[ coyote buttes south ]

We spotted this area and decided to hike in closer, as we thought we saw some cool stripes in the rock.

I followed that stripe just below my feet extending to the lower center. It was big enough for literally one foot in front of the other. I climbed up and over right looking for a possible way up and over the ridge top.

Jay taking some pics for the BLM. Yep, he was gettin' paid to do this, and we were on vacation.

We ended up going down and found a much easier way to travel along the ridge.

lunch break

Hiking up to the edge of a small canyon that two of the group dropped into. We opted to backtrack.

Another warm, beautiful day.

This coyote buttes local was so relaxed he let me lean in for a good shot of him. I kept quiet and left him alone.

Interesting shapes and textures were everywhere.

Dina, Allysia, Lizzie and Jake's off somewhere out front. I'm in my usual spot, pulling sweep, making sure everybody's accounted for. And of course, much slower than everybody because I'm always stopping to take pictures of rocks and lizards.