TRAVEL: Johnson Canyon & Lick Wash

The next day the weather was even more problematic.  Rain in the desert makes marginal roads impassable, fills streams with extreme suddenness. Caution led us to drive out to Lick Wash via Johnson Canyon, a less-visited area around Kanab but the only recommendation to be had that day from BLM.

A butte I couldn't resist hiking to and attempting to climb.  This was not feasible but it was still a beautiful cream edifice with Indian paintbrush folded into its drainage lines.

Lick Wash was not water filled in the mid-day, but damp areas revealed that the rainstorms had dipped into the wash and trailed their evidence.

The wash was sunless on that day, and its rocks, though deeply striated, were subdued greyed and taupe.  Spring had not yet released the leaves from their buds on the trees in the wash, and I can only imagine what a lovely place it would be later on in spring.  Nonetheless, it was a remote 
surprise, the wash cut deep into the plateau around it.

This tree root had to have been 30 or 40 feet long,extending well down to the canyon floor, looking like two alligators having a fight in a brown river.  It rained hard on the way back to the motel, and a wrong turn had us driving through muddy stream beds. Lanny and Jane did a marvelous job at the do-it-yourself carwash cleaning the Jeep up, and our boots too.