For our 6th anniversary we actually left our baby behind and went for a 3 day backpacking trip. My mom and Ian and Laura were so nice to watch Madelyn.
We went down to Southern Utah to a place called Coyote Gulch. It was an out and back trip.
Starting out.
After walking through a wide wash for a bit we dropped down into a canyon.
There were a lot of stream crossings. The first day we built ourselves lots of little bridges and did lots of hopping. I was loathe to get my feet wet.
We made ourselves a base camp so we didn't have to take our packs with us the next day. It was a gorgeous little spot. Plus I found 5 dollars.
(I'm checking out the canyon walls in this picture… not just staring vacantly into space…. er, I promise.)
Our second day took us further down the canyon we'd been following. Our goal was to get to the confluence of this little stream and the Escalante River.
Still building bridges. This didn't last too long that day. We ended up hiking bare foot for most of it. That way we could walk where ever we pleased and not have to worry about wet shoes! I have a weird thing about wet shoes. Yuck.
Swiss Cheese Falls.
There were tons of these little lizards running around and Rory went running around after them.
Poor Rory got sucked into the mud. I was going to just leave him but he managed to get himself out.
Yay! We made it! The nice blue water is the big Escalante River. After a little snack break we turned around and headed back to camp. If you notice I am actually wearing my shoes in the river at this point. It got too rocky to hike bare foot. I was grimacing in my mind.
Walking up stream made me feel a little car sick. The world was going the opposite direction from me.
A little toad(?) Rory found on the way back.
We didn't take any pictures the last day but it was gorgeous too. We made it out just fine and even made it home for Pete's wedding!
