Memorial Day Weekend

We went on a backpacking trip to Dark Canyon for the weekend. Everything we read about it said it was a strenuous hike, but it doesn't quite prepare one for the experience.
This is a picture of the canyon that we hiked into, it's in the middle. The trail starts right in front of us. It was pretty steep and the 40 lb backpack didn't help. There is a lightly traveled trail into the canyon. Very lightly traveled, in fact if it weren't for the little piles of rocks marking the trail (the piles are called cairns), it would be nearly impossible to pick out.
The side of the canyon is about a 45 degree angle, there are switchbacks, but the terrain is really rough. It reminded me of walking down a precarious staircase...for miles. My legs were shaking by the time we got to the bottom.
The hike it was worth it though, it was pretty and quiet. The hike in deters most people I'm sure, we only saw a few other hikers the whole time.
The first night was really windy and sand blew into our tent the whole night. We definitely didn't get much sleep that night.
Luckily the wind died down and it was really nice the rest of the time.


We had a few days to rest our legs before we hiked out again.

It was a great trip AND we actually took pictures.
This is a huge step for us. We usually don't take a camera anywhere and when we do we forget to take pictures. I actually have even more that are posted here, it's kind of amazing.