Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Zebra Slot Canyon

















Today we hiked Harris Wash to Zebra and Tunnel slot canyons in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.  This was an amazing, albeit tiring, hike.  Total hike distance was almost 9 miles over quite a variety of terrain.  Quite a bit of the hike was in deep sand, something we are not used to and hiking through the sand was pretty exhausting.  It sure was worth it, though!  

Zebra slot canyon is short in length but amazingly beautiful.  The walls of the canyon are lined with stripes, making one think of the stripes on a Zebra, hence the name.  Unfortunately the most beautiful part of the canyon is very, very tight and I was too big to make it all the way in.  That's okay, though, because the part of the canyon that I saw was plenty beautiful.  Jessica was able to go in further than I was, and while she went ahead I stayed back and made this image.  

If you look near the bottom right of the image you can see a thin stripe of sand.  This is the floor of the canyon and is less than 1 foot wide.  You had to wiggle through this with your feet sideways.  One could always use the "chimney" technique and walk upwards along the wall using outstretched hands and feet, but I did not want to attempt this with my camera gear.  So, I stayed in this spot and enjoyed the beautiful lines and colors laid out before me :-)

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