valentine cliffs

We took a Valentine's Day hike today, a 3-1/2 hour round trip up Calf Creek to its lower falls and back. Wine, cheese, bread, and an apple made up our lunch.  Chosa bounded gleefully all the way, outrunning us at least 4:1. We were the only visitors in the canyon, and the hawks greeted us with shrieks that made us wonder if they were protecting nests.

Lower Calf Creek is a gorgeous canyon, part of the Escalante - Grand Staircase National Monument that Clinton set aside toward the end of his presidency.  If it were anywhere else, it would be a monument all its own. But within the context of southern Utah, it has a lot of competition.  For a fuller description and a photo of the falls, go here, or Google Calf Creek Falls.


Lower Calf Creek is one of my favorite walks, and in the sunlight of a clear and crisp winter day, I found plenty of fodder for my cliff textures fascination.  I snapped photos left and right.  The images here are examples of the beauty that I find in these sandstone curtains. The ancient layers of rock have been twisted and expanded and compressed over the centuries, have cracked and crumbled, and the visible surfaces are streaked with desert varnish in multiple layers.  The texture can range from creamy smoothness to jumbled chaos.  Every facade is different, and changes with the light and the season.