Our priority is to "indulge" ourselves - great idea, eh?
We breakfasted at Twentyfivemain, and sat at outside tables in the morning warmth.
This hot chocolate was served in a soup bowl!
Today's hike was up north of Ivins in the Red Cliffs Desert Region.
I loved these tents (we had to cross through a campground to get to a trailhead),
looking like some desert beetles we have seen, hunkered down in the shade:
Unlike our previous hikes which climbed high above the desert floor, this one was on a trail following the Quail River through a narrow gorge.
We were always looking up at red cliffs, towering formations looming over us.
We thought the tip of this one looked like a Zuni fetish bear:
The canyon was deep, but the sun still cut through enough that it was a hot hike.
We were grateful for the coolness in darker places; plus the shadows made for
interesting colors in the cliffs:
Four happy hikers: Joe, Vickie, Lou, and this ML:
What a fun surprise to find this purple bush in the depths of the gorge. The individual blooms
resembled a lilac, but nothing else about it did:
Sometimes the trail diverted from the riverside.
Jo, Lou, and Vic scramble ahead:
I call this one "Fire in the Hole".
(Another reminder here that I never enhance the color of my photos.)
This is the kind of illumination we had for most of the hike:
And then there were the cooling caves:
Often the opening for a trail was so narrow that we had to cross the river several times.
And yes, we got our feet wet, as the trail was only as wide as the river itself.
We did lots of rock-jumping and teetering:
Here is an example, where I went on ahead:
Red cliffs were not the only beautiful sight.
This is desert globemallow, brilliant unto itself:
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