Saturday, June 28, 2008

Holy cow, I found the sun!

For the first half of my day today, things were restful and relaxing. I decided to take it easy this morning and just kicked it in the apartment, got some cleaning done, did some goofin on photoshop and the like. When two o' clock rolled around, however, the beautiful sunny weather was screaming at me to come out and play. I decided I'd go hiking. But rather than shoot around the same familiar hikes I've done millions of times before, I decided to get online and do some investigating. I wanted to find something new and fun.

After a few minutes of browsing, I happened upon this. (Scroll down to where it says "The Diamond Fork Canyon Sun Stone Man")

Well, I thought it would be SO cool to find this, but I had no idea where to begin. I looked for some lead online as to the location of these petroglyphs, but I came up empty. Undaunted, I took off for Diamond Fork Canyon for some hiking, pretty sure I had no chance to find the sun face.

As I drove up the canyon, I admired the red rock outcroppings every few miles and wondered, while passing each one, if that one held the sun face. Pretty soon I came to a small recreation area called Red Ledges. By then, though, I had completely forgotten about the sun face and was only looking to climb on the rocks and get a good vantage point from which to shoot the valley.

I was welcomed by these gorgeous, flowing sandstone ribbons. From there I began my ascent.

I had probably climbed to about 50 feet off the canyon floor, and had just come up through a small patch of scrub oak to a large rock wall and BAM! There it was:


The sun face, and a moon, both carved into the sandstone. The sun face had six rays on it's head, just like the descriptions I'd read about. In fact, from pictures I'd seen, I KNEW this was it. I could NOT believe it! I had found the sun without really thinking about it! : )

Here is a picture I took up close and inverted to bring out more detail. Isn't it cool?

The sun is obviously older than the moon. It's detail has been eroded and lichen now grows over some of the carvings. The moon looks newer, which makes me think it's a hoax. Then again, the sun could also simply be the work of an early settler, and nothing more. But it's fun to think about the possibilities of it being carved by people who occupied these valleys before the Mormon pioneers - especially when associated with some sort of hidden treasure.

I was able to get a beautiful shot of the valley from up there...

And also spotted a small alcove in the rock, which looked promising for treasure, but turned up empty. I thought of crawling inside and taking a picture, but the cliff below it was far enough to kill me if I fell. That wouldn't be good.

On the way down this hummingbird came out of NOWHERE and started darting at my head! It would hover momentarily and then take aggresive swipes at me! It was freaking me out! I thought for a moment that it was rabid, but soon realized why it was freaking out...

It had a tiny little nest in the tree above me!

Here it is up close. I was unable to get my camera high enough to see inside the nest, but it almost looks like there is a little bird in it in the lower left hand corner.

On the way down, nature called and I got to use this out-house. I took this picture to show you how creepy it looked. Yeah, it's clean, but that's a HOLE! There could be a monster down there! *shudder*

No, this is not me straining on the toilet. (My roommate assumed it was, so I thought I'd clarify. Why would I take a picture of that, though? Blech!) This is actually me making my scared face. I'm always convinced in an outhouse that there is some freaky poop man hiding in the darkness below, just waiting... WAITING for the opportunity to pull me down into his filthy bog of waste.

Anyway, that's all!

-Barry

8 comments:

  1. Wow Bar! Was that in Spanish fork Canyon?? That potty looked pretty darn nice to me after the Mexican bus depot potty from HELL!! hahaha I hate for you to hike alone but thanks for sharing the experience. love you, mom

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  2. Was it a witch potty? Your Mom told me the story. Your pictures are absolutly beautiful, what talent!

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  3. Peter was out one day with his timber crew and they were attacked by hummingbirds. They all have to wear bright orange construction helmets and the birds were mistaking them for flowers. So every now and then a hummingbird would swoop down and tap at his helmet! What an awesome find, though, Barry! Working up in the Uintas has given me the opportunity to find all kinds of interesting hiking spots. I'm just gonna go hiking crazy this summer! :D

    Also...I hate outhouses, too. They give me the creeps...and they smell bad.

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  4. Barry, PLEASE CALL ME next time you go hiking! I totally want to start doing more hiking and you're the man to take me!

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  5. That looked like a fun hike. It would be fun if all us Cann cousins got together for a hike sometime.

    -Damon

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  6. Hey Barry,

    when we were reading your blog we didn't realize we were signed in as my sister Esther. Sorry.

    -Clair

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  7. ha! poop man.

    again, your pictures are amazing!

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  8. I wish I had read this last week since I spent Saturday hiking in the Red Ledges picnic area! Sad. Next time my boys and I will have to look for the sun.

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