Kodachrome Basin State Park

Good morning, my friends. When I left you yesterday, we weren't sure what the day would hold. The sky was threatening, and the forecast called for rain. We decided the state park made more sense since we could shelter in our truck if it started raining. So the hike is on this morning's agenda. It rained most of the night last night. I'm just hoping the trail and the road to the trailhead won't be impassable. We're expecting improved weather mid-day, and so we'll head out there and see what's what.

Yesterday's tour was of Kodachrome Basin State Park. The kitties were obviously begging us to stay as opened the door to leave.

From the RV park, we turned left instead of right for a change. The landscape here is beautiful in whatever direction we go.

It was about 10 miles to the state park entrance. We saw some abandoned structures along the way.

And this huge wind spinner. There was another smaller one just down the road.

We crossed over a nearly dry wash. Given the amount of rain that fell the night before, we were surprised not to see more water. This is the same wash that runs behind the campground.

It's open range here. Watch out for our bovine friends.

Ten miles later, we came to the park entrance.

It was more of the same spectacular landscape, only a little bigger, if that's possible.

We stopped at the visitor center in search of refrigerator magnets and shot glasses. Here's a little blurb about the park inside the visitor center door.

The unique feature of this park are the "pipes" I'm about to show you. This sign explains various theories about how they formed. No one really knows for sure. The sign is hard to read, and so I've cropped the lower two sections to make them easier to read.

So we started by driving to the end of the road that runs through the middle of the park. This was our view. I find the bands of color fascinating. If everything is mostly white, what accounts for those thin red stripes? What happened millions of years ago that resulted in that little bit of red layering?

So here's one of the pipes I mentioned above. There are at least 67 of these within the park boundaries.

They tower overhead.

There was a short loop trail here, and so we did a little walking.

Along the way, we passed these little nearly-bloomed-out cuties. These are Red Dome Blanketflower...a type of gaillardia.

This is how they look when they go to seed.

And, as always, we saw plenty of the black-eyed Susans.

Speaking of blooming things, we saw these nearly bloomed out Indian Paintbrush on a different hiking trail.

Also, this little bit of mallow.

We walked this trail for about half an hour, gaping at the scenery as we went.

The soil is interesting here. We've seen this in other places too. It almost looks like a miniature version of the landscape around us. To the right are some small prickly pear cacti.

We noticed this along the trail. No doubt this is the work of some animal. The seeds you see there were about the size of watermelon seeds. 

I picked up the pod to examine it. Later on, I realized this is a pod from a bloomed out yucca.

Here's another little cactus. What will it be? For now, it's only about as big as my pinky finger.

This is the iconic pipe of the park, and it's pictured on their website. And, yes, I know what it looks like. Please get your mind out of the gutter.

Finishing up that short hike, we drove back the way we came to stop at the Grand Parade trailhead. Here's a little information about our hike.

The sky was cloudy and threatening, and so we donned our rain parkas. As we started out, this was our view. 

Just about ten minutes later, the sun came out. Our shadow selves were happy about this. They wanted to go on the hike, but they can't survive when the sky clouds over.

 

Off we went...marveling at the pipes all around us. Keep in mind the "basin" part of the park name. We were walking in the basin with these formations towering all around us.

We were able to get right up beside some of the red cliffs.

These pockmarks were interesting. They were large like a dinner plate.

There was a wash at the foot of the cliff. It was wet, but without standing water.

The surface of these rocks fascinates me. This part looks like soft-serve ice cream.

At wetter times of the year, we suspect a waterfall runs here.

Looking behind me, I saw this:

We followed a spur trail into a box canyon.

Here's how that looked.

In some areas, it appeared like little fairy villages. The tallest of these little formations is about 12 inches.

Here's another.

Getting up close, it looks like this. Pressing on it, it was malleable.

Turning around and looking right, it looked like this.

Looking to the left, it looked like this.

Continuing back on the Grand Parade trail, we continued to walk among the towering cliffs.

Looking back, here's a pano of the area.

As we continued on, we were walking in the wash. It was wet and muddy, but not slippery.

As we approached this, it appeared man-made. 

And it was. With this being a box canyon, we suspect there was a gate here at one time, and perhaps cattle was corralled here...or horses.

Looking up...

The sky began to look more threatening as we returned to our truck. In the distance, it appeared to be raining. It was warm enough that we'd taken off our jackets.

We planned to leave the park when we reached our truck, but then we got interested in a dirt road leading to the east and to Chimney Rock. When we arrived, we looked across the landscape to see this:

And here it is. It was immense.

Here's the story behind it, and it explains something of how the park came to be.

The clouds were threatening, but they added interest to this already interesting landscape.

As we left the park, it began to rain. We could see Bryce Canyon National Park off in the distance as we drove away.

We passed by some more abandoned structures.

And this barn.

And back to our RV. Here, I feel I must take an inventory of the refrigerator magnets I've collected along the way. In our travels, I've only found one shot glass this time around.

But look at that one from "Willis Creek Slot Canyon" at the bottom. Well...that's on today's agenda. I suppose I might have jinxed us with the weather by buying the refrigerator magnet before doing the hike. As I've been writing, the sun has come and gone and come and gone. We're still hopeful it will be passable. And I really want to hike a good slot canyon. I've wanted to for years.

It rained for part of the afternoon. I spent some time on my slow-stitching.

Sadie was 'zhausted from keeping the home fires burning while we were away. She took a nap on her catio. (I'm glad she feels safe enough in her catio to sleep.)

And when I'm talking about "keeping the home fires burning," I'm talking about the slow cooker. I've always had a slow cooker in the five or so years we've owned this camper, but I've never used it. Until yesterday. I used it to make this Honey-Garlic Slow Cooking Chicken Thighs. This was another recipe that came down my email while we've been traveling. It's a great camping recipe, using only five ingredients easy to come by. I added some of the sauce to the peas to fancy them up a little bit. It was a tasty dinner, and it made the camper smell good.

After dinner, we went out for a walk around the campground. We wanted to see the horse section. As we walked, we passed by this horse-washing section. Okay. I hadn't really thought about this before, but I guess horses need washing every now and then.

Horses were not allowed to ride through the campground, but there were several horse trails leading off from their end of the park. Please give horses the right-of-way here.

I took pictures of a few of the horses. 

I'm estimating there were about two dozen, and this section of the campground was full. 

Some people have rigs that allow them to camp inside the trailer where the horse rides as they go down the road. 

I'd love to see inside one of them.

Oh yes, and if washing your horse isn't gratifying enough, there is a dog washing station over here.

Only dirty dogs need apply.

Well, that last picture disgusts Sadie. She's been helping me write this post.

So breakfast is next. We're giving some time for water to clear the canyon (we hope), and then we'll get off on our hike. This is our last night here in Cannonville. Tomorrow, we will cross into Nevada. There are still a couple more sight-seeing days ahead, but from here, we're heading for home. We expect to be home on Saturday.