05/27/10 - La Sal Pass, Moab, Ut

Still no Bambi, but this one's more interesting than a lizard I think - not sure what it is though??
I think I need 2 camera's - I can't change lenses when I spot a critter and I can't get the other pictures with the big lens on :o!

	It was windy again so we decided that we'd head back up to the mountains and try the La Sal Pass road/trail. The trail started out as a nice road......
	but it quickly turned into a rocky, sometimes narrow trail.
	The views were really great. It seemed like we were on top of the world.
	Then we came to this stretch of road which is described in the book as "a rocky talus ridge that may be intimidating to novice drivers". Novice drivers - that would be me. Intimidated, that would also be me :)) I walked up it a ways to check it out and this picture is the easy part of the trail - I didn't get any pictures of the harder part :( So we opted for the go around - a gentler road that ran down through the trees around this section of the trail and then rejoined it a little furhter down. So we backed up a couple of feet and headed down the alternate route -
	Down the hill, ford a nice little creek and there it was that same snow turned into a huge block of ice lining the road ahead. This shot shows it in all the shady spots ahead, but you'll notice there are no tracks in it --- there are some tracks starting into it, they don't go all the way across so the previous attempt failed. Well I guess I'll have to get un-imtimidated and go up the "rocky talus ridge"
	At the top of the narrow, rocky talus ridge we found a pull out that looked perfect for our picnic so we stopped to get a bite to eat. No place to set up the tripod so you just get the honey and the empty chair next to her :))
	We were admiring our flower of the day when a couple ATV 's that had passed us heading up to the pass came by. According to them the road ahead looked like an avalance had run over it, there were several trees down and the road was impassable. If those little ATV's couldn't get through or over the obstruction I figured we couldn't either so we decided we'd turn around and head back.
	So back down the talus ridge we went. It was fairly steep, but you put MLOYL into low range and he just crawls right over whatever it ahead. We're been really impressed with how well he's handled everything we've thrown at him - we still haven't tried the step he can't climb, but that's my age and the caution that comes with it I think..... One of these days we'll have a partner to run with us and we'll try a few more daring routes :))
	The views going back down were just as spectacular as they were when we stopped on the way up to admire the. This is looking back up the hills at where we had hoped to get :))

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