Playing the slots at Cathedral Gorge

It was another chilly day as I left Cedar City, UT this morning. I drove about a half hour north to Parowan Gap Petroglyphs and Dinosaur Tracks sites. There was absolutely no one around. Okay, maybe 8:30 am is a bit early for people to sightsee, but not for me! There were some nice petroglyphs, but the dinosaur tracks were somewhat disappointing. But, they were the first dinosaur tracks I've seen outside of a museum, supposedly made by hadrosaurs. The petroglyphs were drawn by the ancestors of the modern day Southern Paiute tribe.

The rest of my day was spent at Cathedral Gorge State Park in Nevada. There was almost no one there, not surprising since it's off season and in the middle of nowhere. I had initially planned to hike the four mile Juniper Draw loop trail. But, when the nice lady in the visitor center mentioned the slot canyons, I changed my mind. The official literature calls them caves, but they are really a series of short slot canyons. After a quick lunch, I spent almost two hours exploring. I felt like a kid again...it was fun discovering how far a trail would take me.

Before leaving the park, I drove north a couple of miles and stopped at the park's Miller Point Overlook. I didn't get a chance to do my long hike, but I still got some of the views that I would have seen from this overlook. Beautiful!

Tomorrow, it will be yet another park visit...it just never gets old...then onward to the big city again. After the quiet and solitude of the parks, it will probably seem very annoyingly noisy!