Wildflowers up in the high country

Panguitch Lake

Old homestead outside of Panguitch

Escalante State Park, Escalante, UT: Clear and sunny this morning so we filled our packs, got on our hiking shoes and headed out. Had breakfast first and then headed over to the Forest Service visitor center to see about the viability of a slot canyon hike today. They advised against it because there’s rain in the forecast. When we came out of the restaurant after having breakfast we did notice a bunch of clouds rolling in. The one we wanted to do was Willis Creek Narrows which is down towards Cannonville. So they suggested we check with the visitor center there which is only a few miles from the trailhead. By the time we got there the sky had turned black and there was lightning. So we nixed the slot canyon hike and started driving back to Escalante. Started raining a little. Noticed a forest road that goes up through a side canyon and decided to explore that a little. It would have been neat to hike this almost dry wash up into this side canyon, but the weather was threatening. The canyon was getting deeper and the road was getting closer to the edge so we decided to turn around. That was scary making a three-point turn. Back into Escalante and stopped at the grocery store there to pick up a few things. In the middle of our shopping the power went out and we were plunged into darkness. Finished up our shopping in the dark, checked out and left. Back to our site and sat out for a while until the rain started coming down harder. Just had sandwiches for dinner. A pretty nice day—upper 80s. We leave tomorrow for a National Forest campground near Capital Reef. No hook-ups there either. We didn’t have to run the generator at all. The solar panels did their job.