Parting the Water: Outback: Kings Canyon Oct. 1, 2009

People often ask me "what was the highlight of your vacation". Normally I say that all of it was pretty cool. But this section of the outback has generated more pictures than any other day. I guess this was sort of a highlight of the trip. I had a hard time trying to tell the story without all of them. So if you get tired along the way and want to just look at the pictures that's just fine.

During the early morning hours of October 1st (our last day in the outback) a thunder and lightning storm came up about 3:30 It was pouring down rain for breakfast at 4:30, luckily we had a sheltered area to sit. We loaded up and headed for King Canyon about 5:30 in hopes of getting some sunrise photos.

Since it was raining I doubted that we would get much of an opportunity for sunrise pictures, but it was a longer drive that I had suspected and therefore along the way I was able to get this shot. By the time we got to Kings Canyon it clouded up again and for the rest of the day we had a mix of sun and clouds.

Once we got to the Kings Canyon site we had a little talk about going on the trails, like there are not guard railings, escalators etc. and that the first part of the trip was up "heart attack hill". The trail is actually as steep as the left hand side of the hill below. The trail is mainly winding steps and rocks. The trail start just to the right of the small tree/shrub in the foreground and heads up the slope to the peak at the top.

We decided to go anyway.

It was, as it turned out, a pretty aggressive hike. Once again Karen was really glad she had trained for the effort.

I took this shot about a quarter of the way up, Karen is about half way between me and the folks at the bottom trying to decide if they wanted to start the climb.

This is about half way up

This is looking back into the canyon

Here I am about three quarters of the way to the top where the rest of our group have just gotten to a relatively level area.

I turned and looked back toward the parking area with the vast outback beyound.

We eventually got up to the summit where we were rewarded with a relatively level walk for a while. Once again Karen was really glad she had trained for the effort.

We assembled our group for a picture before we headed off for the rest of the hike. There were plenty of steps and steep narrow trails ahead, but we were past the worst part.

Periodically we would stop for a talk about native plant species that were unique and/or how the aboriginals had used the plant historically. We also got information on rock formations and the way the area developed.

You can see in the picture above the scale of these rock formations. That is Karen ahead of me right in front of the vegetation. Note that we are several hundred feet above the floor of the rest of the outback plain.

Even up at the higher levels, where there was virtually no soil, trees were growing right out of a crack in the rock.

Eventually we got back to the edge of the canyon with some rather dramatic views and a bit unnerving. Notice that everyone is a ways back from the edge.

Looking across the canyon we could see people walking along the top of the rim. They are not even visible in this picture.

This is as close to the edge as Karen was willing to stand.

Some of the growth patterns of plants illustrates the harse conditions that exist there. We were here in the spring and there was a little green here and there, During the summer is really gets hot and dry.

Here is a picture of Karen taking a picture of me taking a picture of her.

The picture above is where Karen is standing in the picture below. She was starting to get a little too frisky.

I tried to get her to climb out and stand on the ourcropping below. She said NO!

The picture below is a close up of the picture above. In the close up you can see the scale of the cliff by the people along the top ridge.

Karen said this was my "explorer picture". "Let's go over there." Behind me is a part of the canyon that we will eventually climb down and back up on the other side. There is a water feature (pool) and some interesting vegetation to be seen there.

You can just see the people near the water feature in the picture below.

We still had quite a hike to get to the point where we could access the canyon so off we went again.

Again it is spring there and the wild flowers even grow here right out of the rock

This is looking down into the "Garden of Eden Canyon"

We got to the stairs that would get us part way down into the canyon. About half way down there is bridge to cross and then the rest of the way down is to work your way along a series of narrow paths and trails along the canyon wall to get to the head of the canyon where the water was.

When we first got to the pool it was quiet and I got a few nice pictures of the rocks and sky reflecting off the water. Withing a few minute a breeze kicked up and put ripples on the surface.

Here another picture of karen taking a picture of me taking a picture of her.

Karen took these pictures of top knot pigeons. She said it took a long time to get them all to line up so nice.

She also got this one of me working by way back to the "safer" side of the pool.

This was a really great place to spend some time and to take a break, but eventually we had to start the climb back out of the canyon and the hike along the other side and down to the parking area.