We camped in the beautiful San Rafael Swell for fall break. Scott loves the desert and visited San Rafael in August. He had a wonderful time and wanted to share it with us. I was struck by the fantastic stone formations in shades of peach, white, brown, green and purple. The towering cliffs gave us welcome shade in the afternoon but even so the the temperature was very moderate. I love this area for it's solitude even during the busy fall break. The San Rafael Reef is my new favorite camping spot. The best part about desert camping in the fall is that everything is dry! No muddy tents or wet chairs. Our children have really grown up and were delightful to be with on this trip. We had no incidents of red hot fire sticks being waved around, no meltdowns and best of all no arguing! The kids were good sports about hiking and once they got into the narrow canyons they really enjoyed themselves.
Crack Canyon. We camped about a half mile from here and could see the beautiful cliffs from our tent site.
Hiking Crack Canyon
It takes a strong man to walk a little dog.
The "subway" in Crack Canyon.
Ryan and Bethany's favorite part of our vacation was exploring Goblin Valley State Park. They loved climbing all the crazy hoodoos.
Entering Ding Canyon.
Ding Canyon has gorgeous slot canyons with swirls of color. Carter and I thought it was best place we explored. I loved the sensation of being between snug stone wall and seeing the blue sky way up high.
We dragged our dog up this canyon not really expecting that the kids would want to go very far, but they got excited and just kept hiking. Scott had to lift Ringo up and over several obstacles but Ringo seemed to take it with his usual good humor. I'm sure everyone thought we were torturing our poor dog.
