Sunday, December 2, 2018

12/1/18: Nightmare Before Christmas

Still gets around OK with a missing leg. By my best research, this would be a Mojave Tarantula by name, which is a pretty boring name, much more so than a name like Pantsleeve Tarantula, Flying Tarantula or Toilet Tarantula.

Hiking Club’s final hike of 2018 was in Nightmare Gulch of Red Rock Canyon State Park. The ten-mile loop hike we did today offered a fun cross-country dayhike through the most interesting badlands this side of Death Valley.
We had a group of 19 for a day in ever-changing scenery
Not much vegetation out here
We always find interesting calcites in NMG. Could this have once been a tool?

Clouds and blue skies offered us great photo opportunities.  Now we're on higher ground.

  Returning downcanyon in the bed of the gulch 
 

An interesting erosional feature that I call ‘the downspout’. This was formed by differential erosion of the various soft layers of volcanic tuff by runoff


In the last two miles or so the drainage opens up into a wider valley.  The hike out in the low sun was beautiful.

Our group photo back at the trailhead, just before sundown