Hike Through Buckskin Gulch
	Mark & Wa
	Buckskin Gulch is in the area of the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. This was the second interesting hike which Wadeth planned for us. The Vermillion Cliffs area is composed of deep purple canyon walls and narrow deep slots forming from washes.
1. Our hikes at Coyote Gulch and Buckskin brought us so close to the Grandiose Canyon that we could almost spit on it. Since I have a new policy to stop avoiding the things that I have always avoided (like swarms of yuppies in $400 gore-tex rain suits, for example) we decided to have a look.
2. At the Grandiose Canyon I found two things truly awesome and amazing. The first was this peaceful free camping area with aspens and hail. It hailed all night and we had to sleep in the car. But it was awesome and freezing.
3. The second incredible thing at the Grandiose Canyon was this great spartan shower house at the park campground entrance which had a strange military ambiance. But we needed showers and there they were.
4. There was a man in a ninja mask standing at the laundry doorway, which was next to the shower house, and he looked menacing but was actually just wearing the mask because he had become cold due to the inertia of waiting for his laundry. I wanted a picture of him, but this raises one of the very few disadvantages of the Nikon D90 SLR: it is impossible to be subtle because it is LARGE.
5. At the park lodge there is a huge log cabin-style restaurant and there was a beautiful gargantuan buffet heaped to the ceiling with eggs and potatoes, and I was starving. I headed down the stairs and I was probably drooling and my knuckles were dragging on the stairs, clop clop clop. But to my extraordinary chagrin, a pale-faced geekly restaurant captain in a black vest and hugging a leatherette seating plan intercepted me and stated that the restaurant was closed. It was 3 minutes till 10 am. I just took a deep breath in the manner of more evolved neandethals, turned and walked toward the back door of our car, which was the door through which I would gain access to the coolers stuffed with every type of camping food that I was quite tired of eating by then. Nevertheless I ate a large amount of peanut butter crackers with milk. Then I stood on the little wall in picture #3 and jumped up and down. I did not want a picture of the captain.
6. I felt Bay-Area retirees in gore-tex suits rolling up on me in a throng. I assertively spat on the Grandiose Canyon, from an aggro kung-fu stance. Then I proclaimed, as I had done in Mazatlan in June, Let me out of here! Thus, I bolted, and Wa came along with me, and we departed from the Grandiose Canyon.
7. But not before a few more poses in front of placards expounding the natural history of the canyon.
8. Apparently, I have just seen too many pictures of the Grandiose Canyon, and I had had my prejudicial attitudes about national parks reinforced by certain events which occurred at Crater Lake this past July. But let me not go on about that. I had a great Mathew-warm shower. Let's get on to Buckskin...
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48. Click the picture to see me rotate 90 degrees.
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58. Marble Canyon. This reminds me of the Rio gorge near Taos.
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	Flash flood !