Canyon Near The Wave in N. AZ

This two photo stitch was taken in The Wave permit area on Bureau of Land Management, Coyote Buttes North Unit, wilderness area in Northern Arizona.

I would like to have had a person in the photo for scale, but the sides were way too steep, including the place where I was standing. The green patches are not brush, but reasonable sized Utah Juniper trees. We hiked in at sunrise, we had the place to ourselves four hours. Next trip one of us will walk into the canyon from the lower end. It is probably two hundred feet deep. There are many other spectacular spots in this area for a reasonably short hike. We hiked three miles in and another two while there, so a reasonable eight mile hike, every step spectacular SW landscape.

This is a remembrance of a hike in July of 2009, looking forward to a six month trip in our motorhome, Turtle beginning in May.

Bob and Claire Rogers' lunch spot high overlooking The Wave

We had to drive our motorhome, Turtle about nine miles on a rough road, an adventure to tell at a later time. We leveled up and had wonderful evening light a great dinner and all the comforts of home; another million dollar view, for free.

The morning of our permit we awoke in darkness, ate a quick breakfast, were on the trail at first light, and had hiked two of  the three miles to The Wave by sunrise, with lots of stops along the way for photos.

Chasm near The Wave

We spend most of  the day scrambling all over the drainage that contains The Wave, which is itself quite small, and added another couple of tough steep miles. There is a small arch high on a cliff above The Wave, and we determined to get to it for our lunch spot. After a few dicey moves and an hour or more of climbing, and pausing for photos, we made it. The view of The Wave from the arch was spectacular. It appeared to get little use because of the difficulty in getting there. We took a second, slightly easier route back that led us to the Second Wave, and a spectacular chasm, nither of which most permit holders find, but we were able to pinpoint them from our raven’s roost high in the arch.

Claire on Steep Slickrock Backwards!

Strange Mars Like Formations Near The Wave

On the hike out in mid afternoon, we took a difficult slickrock side canyon high to some amazing fragile sandstone formations. I don’t have a name for them now, but will before I do the full post of this adventure in or new Turtle Chronicles, in the works.

How old is this tree?

No Motorhome Road!

These posts are meant to keep our readers informed of our travels, but of necessity must be short; we have been a week without Internet or cell signal. For each adventure you see here there have been three we haven’t been able to share yet.

Stay tuned.