Happy Birthday Rowan, Abe, Darwin and Mom

Most of the Murdock Clan came south for the long weekend to celebrate birthdays. I took Todd out for his first runs in the La Sals, and later went to Red Canyon Lodge for dinner with Alina. The last day they were here, we hiked out to the very end of Grandview Point and climbed some Fins in Behind the Rocks.

Skiing into the slickrock

Julies Glade

Climbing a fin

Behind the Rocks

Ty creeping up on the big jump-off. Todd holding the rock down.

Abbey had a chapter called "Dead Man at Grandview Point" in his book "Desert Solitiare" I really like his description of the view. So here it is

" The big jump-off is only a few steps south and beyond the edge lies another world, far way. Down below is the White Rim; deeper still is the gorge of the Colorado; off to the right is the defile of the Green River; looking past Junction Butte we can see the the barren point where the two rivers join to begin the wild race thorugh Cataract Canyon; beyond the confluence lies the wilderness of the Needles country, known only to a few cowboys and urnaium prospectors; on the west side of the junction is another labrynth of canyons, pinnacles and fins of naked stone, known to even fewer, closer to anything else in the forty-eight United States to genuine terra incognita-The Maze. Far beyond these hundreds of square miles of dessicated tableland rise the sheer walls of futher great mesas comparable in size and elevation to the one we stand on; and beyond the mesas are the mountains- the Abajos and Elk Ridge forty miles south, the La Sals and Tukuhnikivats forty miles to the east and teh Henrys fifty miles soutwest"




Grandview Point

Todd and Ty making sure the old man does not accidently go over backwards. The Abajos and Elk Ridge in the distance