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The weather report did not look very promising for the weekend but we packed up the kids and headed down to the San Rafael Swell anyways.   We arrived mid afternoon to North Temple wash and had to settle for a second rate campsite. We set up camp then drove north to hike the lower end for Fransworth Canyon. We hiked up the slot to the point where we hit water where the boys threw rocks while the dog swam. We took photos and leisurely walked back to the cars and made it back about 90 minutes after we started.

We left the Farnsworth Canyon trail head and drove up North Temple wash to the west side of Temple mountain. We took a few photos of the old car and the cabin at the Vanaduim king mine.

Lanik and I

We ate dinner sat around the camp fire then tried to do a bit a light painting. The clouds were to thick to get start trails so we spent our time making orbs and getting eaten by bugs.

The rain started around 2 or 3am and went all night long we woke up around 8 and packed up camp.  After we drove to the Goblin Valley VC to check the weather reports we decided to drive back to Green river to top of the tanks and try to drive up to the north end of the swell.

We arrived in Black Dragon Canyon under threatening skies but the rain had stopped and the roads were dry. We parked at the main art panel and hiked up to show the kids the cave, On our way down to form the cave the rain slowly then turned into a down pour. Within 5 minutes we rushed down to the car and started driving the rough road down canyon. Water falls poured into the canyons from all sides, this was my first flash flood.

The rain stopped and the wash not running very high to so we took some photos and made the four wash crossings to get out of the canyon. We got on I-70 and drove east towards Buckhorn Wash.  We stopped ad the San Rafael River bridge to eat lunch and let the kids play in the water.  As we drove up Buckhorn wash we made a quick stop to show the kids the Dinosaur footprints in the sandstone but they had more fun playing in the puddle next to it.

Next stop was the Wedge Overlook – perfect clouds and light this time. Bowen was far too busy to join us for a family photo.

While we enjoyed the Wedge we decided to stay one more night, we drove back down Buckhorn and found a great campsite not far off the road. We had never camped in Buckhorn but have drivien through it many times and were pretty shocked to see how little traffic actually passed by.

Camp

The clouds parted after sunset and we were able to take some photos of startrails.

Good times.