The end of summer was pretty wet around here. Towards the end of September, I organized an Escalante Fest, and invited some folks. Larry Halford from Winthrop, Washington and Chris Hood from Vancouver, BC came down for some Zion Classics, and then headed out to Escalante to meet the other Festers... All this coincided with me finally biting the bullet and getting a digital SLR - so many of the shots here are my new rig, but I haven't read the instruction manual yet, so there's some degree of just plain playing around with it, and I did not bring it into the canyons with me (except one). The other consequence of this is that the pictures are BIGGER (and hopefully, better). Enjoy.

Coming out for the event were Kari, Bryan and Torre Moe-Hoffman, recently converts to westernism.

First up: Jungle Love. Here we are plunging into the 'warm-up pool'.

Bette Wise-Steffen from Salt Lake showing good form.

Kari swimming the upper waterfall.

After a pleasant stroll, another waterfall and a rappel. Chris Hood, our International Visitor goes over the edge.

Larry Halford looking good for the upcoming face shot.

Also down for the event were (L to R) Bill Aho, Kari Moe-Hoffman, Carol Petrelli and Bette Wise-Steffan. It is good to have a raincoat for this kind of rappel, in addition to a wet suit on this cool fall afternoon.

Bill Aho from SLC about to take the plunge.

Bette staying away from the action in the middle of the waterfall rappel.

Bette getting ready for a short swim.

Larry lookin' kinda grizzled.

We did some other canyons too, but I did not take any pictures so...

Onto a few pics around the homestead

My favorite niece Rylin came by for a quick visit, with her friend Rachel on their way down to Baja to teach sailing courses. 
(This shots for you, Alicia).

We-all went and did Englestead Canyon with Steve McDonald and friends. Here's a pic from Steve of his friend Tinker rapping the second rap in Englestead.

We-all went and did Englestead Canyon with Steve McDonald and friends.

I didn't take any digital pictures on that trip, but here's one from earlier in the summer of Eva, my co-worker at Zion Adventure Company going over the edge.

Then some shots playing with the new camera. Fall colors, out my back door, kinda sorta.

Then some flower shots. Maybe Dave can identify this one - in my backyard.

Rabbit Brush, which makes my nose itch.

Ex-flowers, now seed pods.

And finally, some milkweed pods. Thanks for visiting.