ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZip! On hands and knees I crawl, slowly and deliberately, out of my tent, bones creaking and muscles aching. Why on Earth do I do this? Why do I subject myself to this torture, sleeping atop a clammy boat mattress on the cold, hard ground with a measly six-inch square of two-inch foam sponge as a pillow?
Oh wait, I know why. Because I get to wake up to this:
The sun rises on the Redwall Limestone (click on any pic to enlargenate |
It is inevitable, along this downstream Grand Canyon journey. The rock layers we have come to know so intimately must now retreat, above and beyond the water level of the Colorado River. They now graciously extend the limelight to newer (at least to our eyes) yet older layers. We have spent the morning hours enveloped within the sheer walls of the Redwall Limestone, getting to know its Mooney Falls and Thunder Springs members, Vaseyโs Paradise, Redwall Cavern, the Bridge of Sighs. Our j-rigs are transporting us down canyon and down section, into deeper geologic time.
The Redwall recedes from river level (click on any pic to enlargenate |