Our early rising strategy worked a trick today when we were the first at the parking lot for the Fall Canyon hike and didn't see a soul till halfway back on the return trip.
We were rewarded with 3 kinds of blooms on the trail to the canyon mouth.
Then we saw 5 birds fly overhead. Lots more plants in this canyon, even some fairly sizeable shrubs!
Alas though we heard a few birdcalls, it was pretty quiet. We were told to look for bighorn on the cliff sides but not today. Eventually the hike ends at an impassable 25-ft high dry falls.
So we ate our lunch in a sunny spot and hiked back out. It took 3 hours to hike 6 miles return.
Just as we were leaving the crowds arrived, including a hiking group of about 15 people. We checked for chuckwallah sunning on the rocks but didn't see any. Finally we identified a couple of rockwrens.
Since we were halfway already we continued up the highway to Uhehebe Crater.
This was very impressive, set in a moonscape of black gravel humps. You could walk down into the crater but we like our reward to be at the top of the hike so we can just coast back down afterwards. So we elected to do the 2-mile hike around the crater, with a side trip to Little Hebe Crater.
There were golden poppies blooming in Little Hebe
along with masses of a little flower
that turned the walls of the crater pink.
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