Backpacking trip down to Horseshoe Mesa

 Abby pointing at a benchmark, 1200 feet below the south rim!

 Caves on Horseshoe Mesa

 Weird.

 We walked out to the tip of this thing.

 gnoming

 I LOVE this agave.

I also love that this tree decided to crack open a rock, slide a root down, then move over to another crack in a rock.

I also really like this tree, the squiggliness of it.

This is my favorite picture of us getting to the top. It's snowing. We started hiking up in t-shirts.

Horseshoe Mesa on the Grandview trail

Wanted to go for a big hike before I have to hike up from Phantom next week. So I talked Tim into going down to Horseshoe Mesa with me. It was hellaciously hot. really really hot. However, there is a cave on the Mesa and it's nice and cool in there by comparison. If you eat lunch just outside of the mouth- it's like airconditioning because of the blowhole effect. Pretty flippin sweet.

I just recommend starting the hike much much earlier in the day. It's only 8 miles round trip to the cave, and only 2600 feet in elevation change, but it's ridiculously rough terrain. Not as bad as Tanner, or New Hance, but it just felt awful. 7 liters of water for one person wasn't quite enough. Hydrolite, gookinate, gatorade are absolutely necessary on this hike, electrolyte replacement is not optional.