Camping and Hiking - Owl Canyon, Rainbow Basin & Afton Canyon

Over the weekend, I went camping and hiking at Owl Canyon, Rainbow Basin and Afton Canyon. I apologize for the amount of pictures, but it was just so beautiful. Once again, be sure to click on smaller images so you can see the details!

We camped at Owl Canyon Campground and did a moonlight hike at Owl Canyon the first night (we got there around 7:00pm). The next day, we hiked Owl Canyon and Rainbow Basin.

Good morning!

In the picture on the right, there is a boulder towards the right side of the frame that looks like a bird puffing its chest out.

Charlie, Maria, Pam (not my sister -- but I liked this one, too!), Monja, Me and Robert. Robert was asking me how to look cool in a photo as the photo was actually being taken. I am obviously the person to ask.

                                   This was a choice I made.

In the picture on the right, the formation around the center of the photo looks like a wolf howling.

Peakbaggers! Edward, Me, Robert, Kevin, Maria, Pam and Monja.

All the different colored rock...so beautiful!

We were walking on the tops of ridges, but it's hard to capture in a photograph.

This is a very good example of why this place is called Rainbow Basin -- look at all the different colors of rock! It's breathtaking :)

There is a fault line where the rock is being pushed up in two different directions towards the center of the photograph. So...that's why it looks like that!

                                                 Yum.

I really like taking pictures with people in them because the scale of these large rocks and canyons and mountains is really hard to understand without a frame of reference.

Another mysterious memorial! And our campground from up above.

Maria and I climbed up to a ridge to watch the sunset. Cotton candy sky!

Monja had a brilliant idea -- Peep s'mores! Look at that poor little delicious bunny.

The next day, we drove to Afton Canyon for some hiking/exploring -- no one in the group (which was much smaller on Sunday) had ever been here before, so it was kind of an adventure for everyone.

These huge walls are just this muddy, crumbly stuff. They look like solid, hard rock, but it's really just hardened mud. There were big boulders and small rocks jutting out of it. I saw some on the ground that had fallen out of the walls. Sort of a scary thought when you're standing in there.

On the pink/white part of the mountain, you can see the remains of a mine.

At the mine thing. This was some sort of chute/pulley system.

Another choice. Look just a little to the left of the center of the lefthand photograph -- there I am. The righthand photograph is essentially an inset of the lefthand one. Hello!

Reverse. The view down from up there!

I wish I could say this is me, but it isn't. I was not feeling quite that brave that day. That's Charlie.

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The colors are just crazy! I thought this looked like a ball of pink zip ties, but I was informed that it is, in fact, a "barrel cactus".

Colors!

I think that's pretty much it. I did my best to not post a million photographs, but it is hard when everything is just so beautiful!