Balanced Rock

Brent and I headed down toward Moab and the Arches National Park. Our friends, the Millers, have been there many times and between their gorgeous photos and our trip several years ago to Bryce Canyon, I was really anxious to visit another of the canyon lands national parks.

Much like Bryce, you can drive through Arches, making stops at various vistas and you have the option to take short or long hikes as you desire. Balanced Rock is fantastic just from the parking lot, but the hike was a short and easy one so off we went. Check out Balanced Rock and my cheesy shot at the end of our hike.

Hey, sorry, just had to do it! LOL!

The Uintas - Provo River Falls

I had never heard of the Uintas before this year when Bill Hacket suggested we take a day trip out there to check it out. Bill is an avid fisherman, so you know that was really a reconaissance trip!

Check out this river falls on the Provo River. We walked down along the river, to view the whole series of falls. Just spectacular!

This whole area is just filled with hikes to beautiful mountain lakes and I understand there's some great fishibng to be had. I have no doubt Bill and Debby will be spending lots of time there in the future.

The Uintas - Hike to Wall Lake

The Uintas as on the eastern side of the Wasatch Mountain range. We didn't have time to see much, but we did the Provo River water falls, Wall Lake, and Mirror Lake. We set out on this 2 mile round trip to Wall Lake.

The scenery was absolutely spectacular, but I was being eaten alive by the bugs. A quick stop to apply some bug spray and we were on our way again. We passed these two "ponds" on our way to Wall Lake. It really looked like moose territory, but we ween't lucky enough to see any wildlife on this hike.

We started off with beautiful blue skies, but by the time we reached Wall Lake, the skies were beginning to look like rain.

I enjoyed walking along a gurgling brook for part of the hike.

And then suddenly everything opened up to this huge, incredible lake. Check out the snow. At almost 11,000 feet, there was still snow on the ground.

A Hike in Harriman

Jim Kemp suggested an earlyt afternoon hike along a high ridge in Harriman State Park. Originally, this was a working ranch owned by the wealthy Harriman family. Today it's still somewhat of a working ranch with cattle. The grounds are beautiful, with lots of fishing, hiking, and wildlife.

Everything is about two weeks late this year, so we were lucky to see lots of wildflowers. Unfortunately, I only remember the name of the purple ones, but Debby Hackett and Jim Kimp knew the names, and Jim even knew the Latin names too.

Huckleberries are huge in this area. You find huckleberry ice cream, pancakes, muffins, etc. Here are some very green huckleberries which will ripen up by the end of summer.

Old Faithful Geyser Basin

Bill kindly took this photo of Debby, Brent and I entering the Old Faithful Geyser basin. When we were here three years ago, it was a rainy, overcast day where you could barely differentiate the geyser water from the cloudy sky. Not only that, we only saw one geyser go off, the predictable Old Faithful. This time, we saw five different geysers blow. It was incredible. Blue, blue skies, plenty of geysers, and good friends. What a day.

We waited patiently for 20 minuts or so before Old Faithful finally blew its top. There were plenty of tourists but they didn't detract from this beautiful sight.

Anemone was one of my favorites the last time because it's just so different looking from the others. While Anemone doesn't blow off in a big tower of water, it was interesting to watch it fill with water and then spout off several feet high.

While the above picture of the Grand Geyser doesn't look so impressive while it's passive, take a look below as the Grand blows off steam.

Apparently Beehive (below) is tied to Grand. As the Grand Geyser spout was ending, the ranger said that Beehive would be going off between 5-20 minutes after. We opted not to walk back to Beehive, but to walk across the geyser field and watch it from afar. Beehive is supposed to be one of the most spectacular, spouting 150-200 feet in the air.

After leaving the Old Faithful Geyser Basin, we took a ride on the Firehole River Drive Loop. Luck was with us as we saw this huge geyser go off.

I am always fascinated by the incredible colors of the bacteria mats.

Depression Geyser

Crested Geyser.

Brent at Castle Geyser

Trail Ride in Harriman State Park Idaho

A long time ago my friend Renee talked us into a trail ride when we went to Vail skiing. It was so much fun that we occasionally try to do them in different areas of the country. Since he guys were fishing (yes, again), Debby and I drove ov er to Harriman State Park to do our trail ride.

There were only the two of us, and the wrangler still agreed to take us on a 2-hour trail ride up the ridge. I took a few photos while I was bouncing along on my horse, Simon. I was shocked that the photos came out as good as they did.

Deb looks like she's definitely done this before a time or two.

This was the incredible view from the top of the ridge. I am disappointed that my camera isn't good enough to really show off the Grand Tetons in the horizon. Doesn't matter, the view was absoluely spectacular.

Yes, this proves that I did, in fact, get up on a large animal with a mind of its own!

Our wrangler, Chet, took this great pic of Deb and I.

I am pleased to report that my knees, and my butt, survived this 2-hour ride very admirably!

Yellowstone - Midway Geyser Basin

There is considerable runoff from the geyser field into the Firehole River. What a surreal sight.

We crossed the bridge and hiked along the boardwalk trail into the main part of the geyser field.

This is Excelsion Geyser Crater. This large crater is beautiful but difficult to photograph with all the steam rising.

There are just amazing vistas as you look out across the geyser field. You can see the smoke of the fumeroles in the distance.

I love looking at the different colors and textures of the bacteria mats. Here you can see some bison hoofprints in the mat.

Opal Pool. I love the color of this pool and the beautiful colors of the bacteria mat.

You can see how windy it was from Debby's hair blowing in her face! Check out the Turqoise Pool behind her.

This is the turquoise pool. With the wonderful blue sky, the pool really took on the blue color

The guys decided to do some fishing in the Firehole River. While they did this, Debby and I decided to hike up above the Grand Prismatic Spring and also to hike to Angel Falls. Another kind hiker took this picture of Debby and I overlooking the Grand Prismatic Spring.

Unbelievable picture of the Grand Prismatic Spring. It is so large I didn't even try to take a picture from ground level. I am tickled pink with this picture.

After hiking up for the Prismatic Spring pics, Debby and I continued on the trail to go to Angel Falls. We walked for a little while and saw the sign 1.6 miles to Angel Falls. Well, we walked and we walked and came upon Goose Lake. While the lake was beautiful, it was becoming rapidly apparent that we had hiked too far and were not in "falls" territory.

When we returned to the sign, we realized that we were supposed to turn off the main trail to head to Angel Falls. We were out of time to meet the guys, so we were out of luck this trip. Guess I'll need to come back again!