Chasing the Totality
Day Four: Nine Mile Canyon
From Boulder Town, UT 12 climbs sharply, roughly 3000 feet in 10 miles. Suddenly you are in deep pine forest, on top of the mesa with the red-and-white edges of distant mesas visible thousands of feet below.
Panorama from Point Lookout.
Access to the canyon was a huge disappointment, but we were delighted by clusters of Rocky Mountain Bee Plants, which were abuzz not only with bees but also hummingbirds.
We ended up camped on a side road, where nearby "Ant Hill" was the only bump on the landscape taller than the oil rigs.
Next: Rainbow Park, Dinosaur National Monument