Paw Hole

Monday, May 27th
Memorial Day
Day Off #1

Fred talked me into trying again for a Wave permit.  At this point, I am willing to forego seeing The Wave in return for not enduring the depressing and upsetting experience of the lottery.  Adding to the unpleasantness of not securing a permit were the BLM staffers assigned to help visitors:  One was sarcastic and purposefully obtuse while the other was either uninformed or reluctant to provide requested information. Definitely not like the friendly, helpful folks at the Pisgah National Forest Visitor Center...

 

Lottery officials operating their state-of-the-art selection equipment

(a Bingo set)

 



As an alternative, we purchased a permit for the Paw Hole in the Coyote Buttes South area of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.  (I have no idea if Paw Hole refers to the appendage at the end of an animal's leg or the man who's married to Maw.) Whatever the name means, it belongs to a enchantingly strange and magically lovely place. 

Some have called the formations 'sandstone teepees' but that is an inadequate and, in my opinion, an inaccurate description.  They reminded me of the swirly tops of Dairy Queen ice cream cones!  We enjoyed discovering unearthly-colored and surreal-shaped rocks and the spaces around and between them.   Exploring the Paw Hole required walking in deep, powedery sand and climbing steep, high dunes-- exhausting but worth every ounce of exertion! As with everything worthwhile, getting there wasn't easy--40 miles east on Route 89 and then 20 on House Rock Valley (unpaved and rough) and the final leg on two-track through our nemesis, deep sand.  This time we and the Jeep were up to the task.