I started today a bit later, not finishing breakfast and posts until about 9:00. After breakfast I headed out to explore more of the local area. I started with a quick hike to Mossy Cave and Tropic Ditch Falls. The falls were neat, and some history to boot. In 1889 Mormon pioneers started digging this 10 mile ditch to irrigate their planned settlement – Tropic. It took 40 men 3 years to complete, but successfully supported their settlement, which remains as a farming community to this day. The Tropic Ditch causes far more rapid erosion and changes than the surrounding area, but still a neat little sight to see. Most cave was, well, a shallow cave. With moss. Didn’t even bother with a picture.
After that I drove a rather sketchy road to get to Willis Creek Narrows to hike a “novice-friendly” slot canyon. Over all a neat hike, but it was the first and last miles that really stood out, with the other 4 miles just a kinda cool hike through a wash.
The coolest part of the non-slot parts was seeing a raven take off from its nest. I immediately developed a back story for that since my brain doesn’t have much else to do at the moment.
4 hours earlier
The males raven is sitting on the couch watching golf and his wife asks him to go to the store to pick up a few things. He agrees and takes the list. As he is leaving, his wife calls out with one more item to get. She asks if he wants her to add it to the list, and he replies “Lorentz first establish the intelligence of ravens in 1927, and Heinrich furthered the aggregation of research on Covid intelligence. I will have you know that I have a relative stationed at the Tower of London, so I think I can remember one more item on the shopping list!”
Current time
The husband crow launches out of the nest with wings figuratively on fire after the tongue lashing his wife gave him because he did not, in fact, remember the one additional item he was supposed to get (Diapers? Baby formula? Carrion?).
Anyway, I just got darn lucky with the photo, so if anyone has connections with National Geographic, or Odin, I will gladly pass along the rights for the photo…
Next I headed to Kodachrome Basin State Park for a look-see. This area was featured by National Geographic in 1949, and a few years later named Kodachrome with approval by Kodak (you youngsters may not know the name, but you should). It was designated a state park in 1962 (some name shenanigans occurred in there).
A key feature of this area are the sandstone spires or clastic dikes. They are relatively unique to this area, and have competing theories on their origin. There is a decent but Wikipedia page on this, so I won’t get into it, but it made for a nice fun finisher for today’s activities.
The background geology is a great contrast, but please don’t ask me to explain any of this. I tried to do a little research on the geology of the area and it quite frankly just made new feel stupid, so, if you want to know more about it… read a book! (I know there is a quote here for a cartoon, maybe early 2000s, but I just can’t recall…)
So there you have it. A day with some adventure and variety. I will spare you the tales of laundry, but I will reveal that I have finally determined that the supplemental bed arrangement of the RV is superior to the table format.
Talk amongst yourselves.
Travel with Sherpa 
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