Favorite Mammals I

Cheetahs

I am starting a series of favorites by mammal. As you can imagine I have thousands of images after nine trips to Botswana. Since we are not traveling this year until May (new puppy), I thought this series would be interesting. Minimal words, mostly images.

Ivins, UTAH

We stayed three nights after Zion with friend, who have a weekend place in the desert outside St. George, UT in a place called Ivins. While we really enjoyed the visit with them, their patio offered wonderful views of bird life, including a quite friendly roadrunner, as well as colorful cacti and a chipmunk.

Zion National Park

Zion, one of the US’s most popular parks, is located at the intersection of Three major ecosystems – Mojave Desert, Colorado Plateau and Great Basin Valley. It was established as a national park in 1919. The park is essentially a narrow valley in the midst of very tall formations, with the Virgin River flowing through. The river initially flows through a narrow slot canyon 100′ below sandstone cliffs. This section, called the Narrows, is a very popular hiking location which offers the experience of wading in the river for as far as six miles up a much longer canyon.

The main visiting area is the first six miles of the canyon, where the cream/pink/red sandstone cliffs soar far above the valley floor. There are four life zones in the park – desert, riparian, woodland and conifer forest. The end of the shuttle ride is the Temple of Sinawava, where a one mile trail then leads to the Narrows. There are some seven hiking trails in the park, from short to six miles long and steep.

The main road from Springdale runs past the visitor center, climbs via switchback about five miles to a 1.1 mile long tunnel on the way to Mount Carmel and beyond. There are several viewpoints on the way up and beyond the tunnel.

Bryce National Park

Bryce is a top ten national park, one of several in Utah. It was discovered and named after Ebenezer Bryce, an early settler in the area, in 1874. It became a national park in 1928. The major feature of the park is Bryce Canyon. This is not a typical canyon, but is a collection of giant natural amphitheaters. They are distinctive for hoodoos – natural geological structures formed by frost weathering and stream erosion. The colors are dramatic with reds, orange and yellow colors.

Frost weathering is a mechanical weathering process that breaks down soil and rock through the freezing and thawing of water. The water seeps into cracks in rocks and freezes, expanding and putting pressure on the cracks to expand and break the rock.

The park offers numerous hiking and horse-backing opportunities. For those not so inclined, a 15 mile drive provides a significant number of overlooks which enable a wonderful view of the amphitheaters, as well as longer views of Escalante.