Morning Glory & Fisher Towers May 7, 2011

I was surprised to see how two places that were a few mere thirty minutes apart could be so absolutely different in every way.  Both the Morning Glory Canyon (also known as Negro Bill Trail) and Fisher Towers are along Scenic Highway 128 east of Moab.  I hiked out of Morning Glory a few days ago after canyoneering but it was just our means to the end, it wasn't an enjoy the journey hike.  There had to be a reason it is called Morning Glory and that was our motivation to hike it in the morning and save Fisher Towers for the afternoon. 

Even though we were fairly early there were still a few cars already there.  At 9:30am the sun was already intense.  I went with long sleeves the entire day, no baring my arms today.  After checking out the trailhead story, we hit the trail.

There were lots of cacti ready to bloom but that wasn't going to be happening today so I took a photo of this flower.  This part of Utah is not wild with flowers so I took what I could get.  The trial was winding, narrow and the trail head warned of all of the poison ivy which looked different then any kind of poison ivy I saw before so I was on guard.

Not far into the hike, I was realizing why this canyon is called Morning Glory.  The meandering creek with all its refections was a glorious sight.  It looked like a whole different place then the other day on the hike out.  I like seeing the canyon walls in the water.

Others too were discovering why it was called Morning Glory!  

This was my landing place when I rappelled on Thursday.  Look down and you can see the bridge's reflection in the pool.

Look up and there is Morning Glory Bridge in all her glory!  

It looks small but it is 120 feet up (although some say 75 feet).  It's span is 243 feet.

This was a cool place, not just scenery-wise but temperature-wise too. We had lunch here and of course I had to explore around and touch and feel everything, except the poison ivy.  Thank you Adventure Designer for the photo.

My GPS went a little wonky in this canyon as you can tell from my track. I like how it shows we were down in a canyon wandering around.  I'm glad we completed this one when we did, lots of other folks were just heading in to make their own discoveries.

Just 30 minutes down the road was our afternoon adventure.   The trailhead parking lot was packed and it was not packed with just hikers but climbers too.  This is not a very long hike but it took us forever.  Every few minutes or so we stopped for more then a few minutes in awe of the scenery.

Not very long into the hike, we were in amongst these magnificent towers.

It was blue sky, red rock, green trees everywhere and when I saw a splash of yellow I had to capture it!

Every now and then something caught my eye.  We stopped and took the time to look around and investigate what that movement was.  If you look at the photo below, at the left, look closely at that cork screw looking little pointy pillar.  From this vantage point, it is hard to tell what is going on there, so..........

.....I zoomed in! WOW!

Checking the sign in box on our way out, we found that these folks are from Alberta.  We spent most of our time watching them go up and down this thing.  I wanted to give it a try on a lower pillar.  This was as far as my courage got me!  See me in the bottom right!

With the clock ticking away, my thermometer reading +38C and a big day ahead tomorrow, we declared this our turn-around point and turned around for a fairly quick return hike. 

I also declared I love Moab!