Powell Plateau

Apologies for the delay... haven't been taking too many pictures and thus not having anything terribly exciting to display on here. Going to backtrack a bit. The weekend before last, I only had one day off... So Jesse and I headed to Swamp point after I was done work. A huge thunderstorm was raging just as we were leaving and we stopped in the meadows to watch the lightning... Made it out near the point and slept in the truck while the storm was raging around us. Intense!

A stormy night made for a beautiful morning out on the point.
Our plan was to hike up to Powell Plateau and Dutton Point. All the points on the plateau are named after the early geologists and surveyers of the Grand Canyon area. Dutton is a lot of people's favorite. He's responsible for all the Eastern names and some of the most beautiful scientific writing to describe the Geology of the Southwest.



Stopped to admire all the fossils (on right). Huge slabs (called fossil hashes) covered in crinoids, sponges, bryozoans, corals... So cool!


Also stopped to check out "Teddy's Cabin".. named because Teddy Roosevelt slept in that area when he went mountain lion hunting on the Powell Plateau but the cabin wasn't built until a few years later. Still a neat spot though. Apparently it has been a refuge for tired hikers for a very long time (There was a log in there that we browsed through and added to).

Came across lots of ruins and pottery shards. Picture on right is a nice big corrugated piece. There were tons of them! Lots of Lithics too. Supposedly there are metates (rock slabs for corn grinding) as well but we didn't come across any in our 7 mile stretch.



Stopped and had a snack on this huge ponderosa pine tree- Jesse for scale. Possibly the largest ponderosa I've seen here.




The trail ended but the beefalo have done an excellent job of creating their own trails so we didn't have much touble going the extra un-trailed stretch to Dutton Point.
It was beautiful! Big stretch of river, huge open canyon... lovely view.



Coming back up from the saddle at 2pm in direct sunlight was pretty tough... and hot! The only time I can think of when I actually asked Jesse to spit water in my face. Nice day though.