I headed up the mountains with Bob. Our objective was to visit a canyon in the Gardens of Stone area. It was a canyon that I had visited quite a few years earlier, and one that I thought may provide some photo opportunities for the Gardens of Stone In Focus Photographic Competition.
Unlike many of the canyons in the Gardens of Stone, this canyon is fairly wet. It has a fair bit of water going through it and some quite deep pools. But it was a very cold way. Well, we hoped to bridge all these pools.
The walk in to the canyon was fairly short – down a fire road, along a scrubby ridge and then down a scrubby side gully. In front of us was the canyon. We had to get wet feet as we walk through the canyon. At the deep pools – we did manage to bridge them and avoid getting really wet. It was a bit tricky though – for me – with a camera dangling around my neck and a tripod in my hand. But it was worthwhile – the canyon was quite pretty and did provide a series of nice photos.
After my photo taking, we headed out up a differs ridge than the one we had gone down and then found ourselves back on the fire road.
Our second objective was not far away – a large sandstone cave. This was soon reached and I took a few more photos. This cave is typical in form for the area – these large wind eroded caves seem quite common in the Gardens of Stone, but this one was very large and went in a fair way to form a high vaulted aven.
The majority of photos of the canyon that I took for the competition will be posted later.
