The summer hikes are rocking on here in Utah. This past week we had some rain and a bit of a break from the stifling heat. It made for some lovely hikes and is foreshadowning the ever-approaching Fall weather.
This week I made several fun discoveries, one on the trail and one off that trail that I happened to discover while roaming through mountainside. All of my hikes were in the morning and there were two mornings in a row that had incredible sunrises, one due to weather and the other due to smoke from a hay fire in Utah County, the one I live in. In fact, the photo above is one of those smokey haze pictures in Provo Canyon.
Once I hiked a bit deeper into the canyon, I happened to see this furry creature on the edge of an a small jutting out cliff. This small jut sticks out from the cliffs that fall down into Johnson’s Hole. I have never seen it before because you can only see if for about 10 steps on the trail. I just happened to catch it out of the corner of my eye.
I feel like this little guy was in the middle of his morning meditation as he was not at all impacted by my presence. He did not move a muscle for about 5 minutes.
The morning prior to the hazey morning hike was also an amazing morning. We had hard rain the day before and some stormy clouds were still lingering.
There were a few other shots from this morning’s hike that I also liked. They are shown below.
DISCOVERIES
On two back to back days, I came across interesting “discoveries.” On the first day, I decided to wander off trail and I came across three small “fields” that had stakes with metal tags twinkling in the sun. In fact, the twinlking is what caught my eye from a distance.
Each field had rows that had been tilled. There were grids of string laid out in the fields to help with spacing. The stakes were evenly spaced and were demarked with a numbered tag.
I could not see any evidence of any type of consistent growth. As a result, I have no idea what the planting areas were attempting to do.
The very next day, while I was actually on a trail that snaked around others trails I had been on before, I came across another set of plantings. These plantings did not have tags nor were they in grids like the day before.
Another difference is that I could actually see evidence of growth and similiarity of plants growing within each location.
On one of the days, I took a different kind of trail – a wet one. I didn’t take lots of pix of this journey, but one of my faves is below.
The last set of pictures, also taken early in the morning, shows some high tech birds…because, (here comes the punch line) they were all on line.
Get it?
My friend Robert Stinson sent me a terrific photo the other day that he shot of birds on a wire. It was one of his best pix yet. So when I saw the birds this morning, I was inspired to try some of my own. I like them, but they are not as good as they one he sent me.
The Umenum 