From goblins to huge natural red arches, and isolated mesas to the colorful huge waves of the San Rafael Swell and the badlands beyond, the rocks in Utah are fantastic. Nothing much grows in Goblin Valley. It’s a landscape so unusual it was the setting for several alien movies. The only water nearby is in Onion Creek. The water looks clear and refreshing but when thirsty, look for a creek loaded with bugs and slime and hung over by weeds. You may get a bacterial infection, but Onion creep seeps out from rocks laden with uranium, and toxic chemicals, including arsenic! This water kills!
We drove out across the desert, past the carcass of a cow, past the parking lots for Little Wild Horse and Bell Canyons. Being a lovely spring day, the parking lots were crazy crowded in the way that induces a horrified shudder from mountainrats like us who have come to prefer their explorations to be of a more solitary kind. It is good people want to be out enjoying the canyons, we just don’t want to be there at the exact same time, so we drove a mile further on and found the trailhead for Ding.
That’s the way it was late this morning!
At midday the temperature was well into the eighties, but we had plenty of water, hats, and snacks, and an outline of the the trail, given by a friend. We thought if he can do it, we surely can! Only in hindsight we realized he must never have tackled it. We found two cars, we had the trail virtually to ourselves. The plan was to climb up Ding, a slot canyon carved through the swell by the erosion of water. The trail takes you up onto a rim, and then over the saddle, and a return through Dang, another slot. The photos tell all…….we climbed up chimneys, skirted deep potholes, clung to slick rocks, hung onto narrow ledges, and then descended on knotted ropes, and when the walls became too challenging, we waded through pools! It took five hours, this was challenging, way beyond our comfort level!
The next day, we opted for a museum, the John Wesley Powell Museum in Greenriver is great (cool and safe) and a stroll in the badlands in search of fossils (easy!)
The little green bug reached Denver after an uneventful journey of 1300 miles. Barry drove out in two days, and we collected it from the airport, and gave him a return ticket to Cleveland. We stayed overnight in Boulder, close by the King Sooper with its sad memorial to ten people slaughtered by a crazy man with a gun. Then after a snowy hike, wee took both cars back to Frisco and skiied with lightly clad kids at closing day at Copper. We had another day On more heavy wet trails at Arapaho. It is hard work, but their were no lift lines and the sun is super warm. I am ready to closet the skiis and though the snow is still drifted up in shady areas by Dillon Lake, bike trails are clear, and layered up in long pants and gloves, we rode around the lake and over Swan Mountain. In early May we drove through FairPlay, and across the prairie to Manitou to hike the incline. It is a well known workout on the site of the former incline railway. It has 2700 challenging steps up, followed by a gentle descent through the trees on the Barre trail. We stayed with Tom in his Dome house, not a conventional home, but then nor is its occupant!
From there it is a short drive through Colorado Springs, to the airport. We flew to San Francisco to be with Anna. The city was quiet and clean, homeless people have been shepherded into tent communities and empty hotels, to help control the spread of covid. We stayed at the Stanyon Hotel and could walk through the park to Anna’s apartment. Over the five days, we explored the whole of the Presidio, took rental bikes across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito, and then rode on to Larkspur to catch the ferry back. We had meals with Anna, and did a hilly urban hike around the Twin Peaks, and up and down the tiled steps. We had little fog and lots of sunshine, which made it all the more difficult to come back to the still cold weather of Colorado.
So we took advantage of a trip organized by our hiking group and spent a week in Moab.
We reserved a time slot to climb the Hanging Lake Trail, near Glenwood Springs. It was closed completely all last year after a huge fire swept across the area. We enjoyed the Devils Garden Trails in Arches National Park and then, with the group, we hiked Hidden Valley above Moab and criss-crossed Professor Creek on a trail to a waterfall. It was one of these friends, who sent us on to Greenriver, a town of 900, busy in the past when uranium was found nearby, and it became a base for anti ballistic missile testing in the 60s. It is now a deserted small town, but the Mexican food was great! The same friend handed us the sheet with the write-up that led to our grand adventure in the slots!
Great place to stay 
At last, in Frisco, Spring is outpacing winter. The ice has gone from the lake, the snow is retreating up the mountains, aspen are breaking into leaf, the birds are cheerful and along the trails we see grass and the earliest of spring flowers. There are muskrats and mink by the river, an occasional fox, and eagles and ospreys fishing in the now ice free lake. This is mud season, and we have the place almost to our selves. Most people have been vaccinated, they are traveling within the US, And best of all, the mask mandate has been lifted. We can venture out without one. How nice is that!
Where the Art is... 
What varied nature scenery you have encountered! Beautiful photos and a lovely discription of all your adventures! Thank you! Lynn