Charlie Horse's 2018 Picture Thread

[Charlie Horse]

   

Here we left the goblins and moved up the canyon.  I knew most of the canyon was dead ends, but I was hoping I could find a way up.  I was lucky.  There was one, and only one way up a steep dirt scree field.  There was even some water in the canyon for the dog and goats.  The goats didn't want to jump a certain rock near the top, but eventually made it up without any issues.  Suddenly, up above, everything changed color.

   

In this layer the sandstone was light gray with a hint, or in this case, a lot of green. 

   

Ok.  So I can stand next to a 25 foot cliff that would probably kill me without a lot of worry.  But standing next to a 250 foot cliff freaks me out.  I ended up following a ledge, of all things, next to the main drop-off.  A 30-40 foot cliff up on one side, and the big drop on the other.  The ledge was 25-45 feet wide but for some reason I was doing the high-anxiety thing the whole mile or two that  we followed the ledge.  

   

   

Lucky for my sanity the goats didn't really go up to the edge very often.

   

I bet the pictures would be better if I dared get near the edge.

   

Too much smoke in the air kinda ruins the pictures.  No blue sky, no distant desert.

   

After the cliff I was moving along disappeared, I was on a upward sloping plane that led to Lookout Point.  I for sure wanted to go to the point, so even though it was getting hot, we trudged along a shortcut.  There was a 6 foot tall cairn on the point.  The point was at least 30 feet wide at the narrowest but had large overhangs.  Lucky for me the animals were too hot to care about the view.  I couldn't see much from there anyhow because of the smoke.  We headed back along the cliff edge and were getting closer to the car at last.

   

We dropped down the cliffs to a layer of goblin rock.  Smooth but hard stone surface that turns to goblins on the cliff face.  Very awesome scenery here.  You can see the red cliffs but Lookout Point is around the corner.

   

I think I have a few calendar entries from this trip!  The trip probably took about 6 hours and was around 12 miles, best guess.  Next week will be a totally different environment so stay tuned.