4/3/12 - Glen Canyon NRA

Winter’s over, and we’re back on the road again!  We met some wonderful people while we were in the Verde Valley, but we're both glad to be traveling once more. 

We drove north to Page, AZ—this is the view out the window of the RV at the park where we’re staying.  It’s great fun to climb on...unless the wind is blowing and then it's scary!

Page was founded when they started building Glen Canyon Dam in the late '50s.  It’s close to Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and the dam (naturally), Lake Powell (of course), plus some of the sculpted sandstone cliffs and canyons of Grand Staircase-Escalante NM and Vermillion Cliffs NM (stay tuned). 

First stop:  hike to the dam overlook. 

On the way back up, some guy told us we must be in better shape than the people who came up before us—they were really huffin’ and puffin’!  (Apparently all the walking I've done all winter actually worked!)

A Navajo girl in costume and her friends were heading down to take her picture.  I wonder what the occasion was?  (Apparently the guy up above was impressed too.)

Next it was back in the truck, across the bridge to the Glen Canyon NRA Visitor Center.  We met some folks there from Belgium, on a month's tour of the US--chatted with them for a bit. 

On the advise of a ranger who gave me several suggestions for hikes, we went back across the bridge to the Hanging Garden trailhead.  It's a short hike across the sand and rocks to a sheltered garden of maidenhair fern, quite a surprise in the middle of the desert. 

 

 

 

The wildflowers are starting to bloom along the way--there are more pictures if you follow the link below; this is my fav--but I don't know what it is! 

I've got two links this time; one for Glen Canyon NRA:  Glen Canyon
and one for the trail:  Hanging Garden