While we were staying in Kanab, we managed to get up and get going at a pretty reasonable hour every morning. We were not "first light" hikers by any means, but considering the fact that the young girls were along, we did pretty well. Every morning we would get up around 7:30 or 8:00, have breakfast, and then head out for the day. This second day was technically our first full day in Utah, as the day before had been Easter Sunday, and by the time we got the egg hunt out of the way, the morning was fairly advanced.
On this second day we decided to head out to the Cottonwood Canyon Road in Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. We had to drive about 50 miles east of town on Highway 89 before turning north into the monument. I had spent some time here last fall, and was anxious to go back.
Our first stop was just along the side of the road. Unlike last fall the weather was much warmer, and there were a lot of wildflowers blooming. We found more of the white flowers that were similar to our Gumbo Evening Primrose. There were also some orange follows similar to our Scarlet Mallow. But there were a lot of other plants that were very different and unusual to us. This included several kinds of cactus, as well as the Utah State flower, the Sego Lily.
The Cottonwood Valley Road is a rather rough backcountry road the cuts across the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument in a north south direction. It runs from Highway 89, we were started, up to Kodachrome Basin State Park to the north. It is over 40 miles long and it would take many days to explore all the interesting stops and trails along the way. It was our intention to explore a few of them, and get as far as we could. At some point we would need to make a decision as to whether to turn back, or carry on to the north. From the north end of the road it is about a 1-1/2 hour drive around Bryce Canyon National Park back around to Kanab.
On this day our second stop was at an outcropping layer of marine fossils. These were all clams or oysters of some sort, though I did see one small ammonite. We explored here for a while...
After this brief stop at the fossil beds we continued along the road. We stopped at the Paria River. There was still some water running in the river, but not a lot. We later learned that the southern Utah area only had a couple of snowfalls over the winter months, but no other precipitation. It was very dry to say the least. There are cattle pastured in the National Monument, so there river area was a bit of a mess. The cows had been coming down to drink and everything was rather trampled, with a lot of cow flops laying around. The dry weather and evaporation was also resulting in the formation of some white minerals, probably calcium or sodium based...? Despite this, the girls still wanted to go for a swim. The water was only about 6 inches deep in the deepest parts. We stayed here for a quite some time as the girls played in the river.
After drying off and packing up we hit the road yet again. We continued along the valley, stopping here and there to explore a little. Eventually the road left the Paria and crossed over the Cockscomb fault. This fault runs for many miles across southern Utah down into Arizona. It is visible from space and can be clearly seen on Google Earth. Cottonwood Creek follows the fault for a stretch through the National Monument and the area is quite spectacular. The rock outcrops and cliffs of the fault are prominent on one side of the road, while Cottonwood Creek and its namesake trees area prevalent on the other side. Once again we stopped here and explored for quite some time. The water of the creek was warm and running only about half an inch deep. The girls splashed around and played here for a couple of hours. They even found some tadpoles in the warm shallow water of the creek. I took a couple of photographs here with the view camera.
By this time it had become too late in the afternoon to consider driving all the way up the road, and then around to Kanab. We decided to turn around and head back the way that we had come. We made a couple of stops along the way, mostly to admire some of the wildflowers, the views, and the lizards. We eventually got back to Kanab and our house by evening, in time to have something to eat, relax, and make plans for our next day.
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