Not so Emerald Pools

We woke up to the sound of snow falling on the roof and this view: 

It rained all morning so we stayed in till noon and then caught the shuttle bus to the trail to the three (lower, middle and upper) Emerald Pools.

It was pretty darn muddy.  But great views across the canyon.

We were hiking up amid the juniper and pinyon pines so we had our eyes peeled for pinyon jays, but no luck.  No wonder, we heard from a park ranger yesterday that the pinyon Jay population has fallen by 80 percent!

But we did see scrub jays

 

Towhees, a golden eagle, a says phoebe and ravens.

The rest of the hordes of visitors also thought this was a great hike to take.  Frankly, it was nuts.  

Some of the hordes.  We're walking behind a waterfall here.  I'm getting dripped on.

We spent all our time stepping aside to let people pass or rushing ahead to get out of someone's way. You really couldn't enjoy the scenery.

Then when we got to the Emerald pool

it was not very emerald due to all the flooding and because of the high water the destination had been reduced to this tiny platform.   

See my look of anguish?  Aagh get me out of here!

And there were another 150 people in line to stand on that spot.  

Waterfalls were pretty spectacular though.

In normal times you could probably hop over the creek, but we had to wade across it.  It did wash the red mud off our shoes.

They did provide a chain to hang onto to avoid getting washed over the falls, but we declined to Ford this crossing.

Then back through the mud to get down to the shuttle.

Xx