The plan was to do the entire Paintbrush Divide loop, which heads up Cascade Canyon to Lake Solitude, over the divide, and then back down Paintbrush Canyon to the car… but well, I puttered out from not eating enough on the trail and carrying too much extra water. We reached Lake Solitude, the resting stop before making the final uphill ascent to the divide, and I downed some Emergen-C and some carbs and instantly felt better. From there, we could see the trail to the top, and it looked simple enough, but it was getting late, and though I felt great, I wanted to keep feeling great. Heading up to the divide and down the other side would tack two extra hours onto our time, and so I had to make the hard decision to say no to the place I wanted to see so badly. We turned around, and headed back for the car. There’s always next time…

Several hours later, covered in dirt, we arrived back at dusk. In the end, we hiked 18 miles, which almost seems like a waste to not have just done two extra miles for the full loop, but those extra two miles are the most brutal ones… so I think we made a good decision. We picked huckleberries and rinsed off in the lake, changed clothes and headed out for a beer.

Becky in Cascade Canyon

a pretty red bird that let me be his friend and get really close

Becky shrinks her swollen feet in the chilly water of Lake Solitude

one of the many marmot friends we made

and a pika

and a moose

and as Becky is a plant biologist, we also made friends with all the flowers, like these paintbrushes and elephantheads.

the fresh huckleberries we picked and chowed down on at the end of the hike

and of course, my infamous bridge pose.

I headed up to work early and photographed the cliffs and the morning wildlife. The wild turkeys were out in huge flocks, the males strutting their stuff in an effort to try to find a mate. Secretly, I imagine they know what Thanksgiving is, and that they were actually celebrating having lived through it. If I were a turkey, I’d be celebrating too… especially on a morning as beautiful as this one.

I took a lot of photos of birds during my free time in Florida. We all know I dig birds. Here are a few of them.

Also, the title of this post really has nothing to do with anything, except is a reference to one of the great lolcats of our time… which you can find here.

There were critters everywhere, everything from tiny tadpoles to bighorn sheep. Out of sight, mountain lions lurked, and down below, enormous caterpillars crawled alongside our feet. The canyon walls towered so high above, some areas never even see sun. We spent our days walking in the water and our nights sleeping on sand under the stars. We winded through Buckskin Gulch, the longest slot canyon in the world, and ventured to one of the most remote and largest natural arches in the world too. We climbed over beaver dams and combed through reeds as thick as the South American jungle. And an epic ending to an epic hike, we came out of the canyon just as the Paria River collided with the mighty Colorado at the Grand Canyon. To call it great is an understatement. To call it amazing is too. It was so much more.