TRAVEL: White Pocket Utah - another version of desert pin striping

The rainy weather left us uncertain as to how to enjoy our last day in Kanab. One of the Travel Advisor write-ups described The Wave as a Bach fugue and White Pocket as Night on Bald Mountain. Programmatic rock formations, yes! -  the perfect end to our trip would be White Pocket.

Luckily, on our way home, a guide returned a morning inquiry and was willing to take us out there, confident that his Tahoe and his alternate path would take us safely upon the deep sandy off-road.

It was windy and cooler than our Wave hike day, and the sky was astonishing, as only Western skies can be, the clouds shouldering  each other and the skyline for display room.

Our guide was a personable Utah born former and still respectful Mormon, Mike. He was charmingly late because his mare's foal arrived early in response to the storm. This event seemed especially beguiling to Jane, still very much the queenly rural spirit representative in our group.  

It's a two hour trip out to White Pocket, entering from south 89A rather than 89, a much simpler trip which we could have made ourselves but for foot-deep sand, possibly wet from yesterday's rain.

We hiked down a sandy path, then gazed on more sandstone and slick rock, but in colors and shapes spectacular and wondrous strange indeed,

as if the rocks had simply stopped swirling only a moment ago, their currents and materials mysterious and drooping,unstable, though frozen lo, these millions of years.

Here the russets, siennas, and red ochre were violent and turbulently worked through with cream, taupe, and gray sandstone. The gray stone that topped off the headed mounds
yet seemed stripped of scalp or skin, bulbous globs of form that looked like exposed brain matter.

 Slick rock tree, planted by cowboys growing their own - shade.

Climbing slip rock is easier than it looks - the natural grit of sandstone offers the lug soles of a hiking boot a satisfying footfall.
Up and down, each view changes dramatically, the features of the rocks so compressed.

Mike explained that iron in the sand forms into small roughly spherical "marbles", which nestle spilled on the sandy surface.

Skull like, frosted top-offs abruptly exposed upon sandstone mounds.

We climbed up and into this "clamshell" hollow facing a gray frosted sentinel. 

Then down and on through...

this marvelous view and fun downhill scramble

The only native plant on the slick rock in this area - a seep gives opportunity to tiny tears, and a miniature hanging garden grows.

Interrupted divided striations, once whole and ongoing, like mini-earthquake faults.

On and on, being among the formations offers me an experience of strange connection, a feeling that my body and mind have unity with  the forms and shapes within space.

Sustaining my wonder at the finely scraped textures of the sandstone.

An expressive sagging scowl

Such evidence of might and power

Looking out 50 miles to the northwest, I think, towards Bryce and the higher mountains, still covered with a recent snow dusting.

In ponds like these breed the unusual and hardy fairy shrimp.  Their eggs lay in casings in the rock's depression, awaiting a rain puddle. Not just any puddle, but one that will become algae-filled and last for 5 days or so.

The eggs hatch and the tiny creatures have a few days to mate and lay new eggs before the puddle finally evaporates.

lupine

claret/scarlet/crimson hedgehog cactus

milkvetch?

As always, I marvel over wildflowers.

A condor sanctuary has been established here in the Vermilion Cliffs area off 89A for years now.  The population has grown to 75, a a better record than California's, I think.

Our guide said that beef carcasses are still put out for them.  On this windy day, we spotted none, but could find a nesting area stained white with their droppings. 

The two hour drive back to Kanab gave us more distant views across the sagebrush and redrock, green with recent spring rains.  

Then  one more night to dine and sleep in Kanab before saying goodbye to Lanny and Jane in Las Vegas.  Their flight left at midnight, and John and I drove home.  Back to Los Angeles, our world so separate from where we were, the discontinuity of the city always disappointing and yet the pleasure of return to a home and our chosen life and place.