Zion: Day 2

Last night it actually snowed a bit and I had some wet slushy snow on the truck.

    I dove up the canyon to the furthest point you can drive, the “Temple of Sinawava”.

I didn’t see a temple, the only thing there was a 1500 ft waterfall, that’s probably what they are referring to.

Still raining in the morning and I had planned to put the finishing touches on both the paintings I started yesterday, but then the sun teased me and lured me out of the grotto.

 I drove back up the canyon to get some sunshine shots, just maybe, oh please, oh please.

Nope, nothing to write home about at least……and yet here I am writing …irony.

I did go up to the “Weeping Rock”. A big undercut in the wall of the canyon that allows you to get behind the waterfall. It makes for a pretty view.

    On the trail to Weeping Rock its obvious there had been a little landslide, part of the trail was damaged, the trees were toppled, gashed on the upside, and there were very large boulders at the bottom. I played CSI to try and pinpoint where the slide came from..

 I looked up first, using gravity as my first clue. The debris field didn’t go up very high, so I spotted an exposed area of rock that was much lighter than the surrounding area and surmised this was where it all started. The bark on the trees left standing were gashed so you could see there was some violence during this little slide. It’s easy to see in person, hard to photograph, but I tried. There is no dramatic blue lighting or tight shirted beautiful detectives (budget constraints).

       
The lighter colored area of rock in the upper right, is where these boulders used to be.(photo 1 and 2)
Photo 2 shows the size compared to the people.
The scars on the trees show it's path down the mountain, and the damage to the cambien.(thats for, Roy,Keith and Scott) 
 
I feel pretty confident in my theory of what happened….now if I can figure out who had motive, and opportunity; were the boulders the target? or maybe the trees?

I did get some good photos of possible paintings and went back to the grotto to paint. I finished one and started another so I have three going now.

 
Finally a shot of my humble abode. Nice place eh?

The Superbowl was today , so I went to the lodge and watched in the bar area. The game started at 4:30 here MST, seems too early. I’m accustomed to CST , The West coast really starts early, you could watch it and make 8pm dinner reservations.

Spoiler Alert:

For those of you whom are only getting your news from this blog, New Orleans won.

Tomorrow is forecast to be sunny, which will make for difficult decisions, stay in and paint, go out and paint, hike or bike, or get tons more photo reference. Oh the stress.