Winter at The Wave

Back from a Jan. 29 hike into the wave with Rene Pirolt, Monte Trumbill, and Bill Robertson (from South Carolina) through about 4" of new snow. Sadly, the Wave had snow and frozen ice on it, so not much there and I wouldn't recommend the effort after a snowfall. But, hey, you have the permit and you've traveled all the way down there so what are you gonna do? This is probably my best effort there.

Rod

Here's your intrepid moderator and Monte trekking through the snow.

What a bummer about the conditions. I remember Rene mentioning that he would head down there soon.

Mel-

Hmm - not what you were hoping for, I'm guessing.

You guys are brave, cause it was COLD. I was down there at the same time. The snow made it tough with all the roads that were closed. So I headed up to Bryce and it was very purdy there with all the snow.

Look on the bright side. You probably didn't have any problems finding your way back with fresh tracks in the snow.

Wish you had better conditions but it still looks like a lot of fun.

RichieV

Wow what an experience!! I figured a little snow to accent the red sandstone would be nice...but I didn’t expect to be postholing in the middle of the desert where this amount of snow is literally unheard of! I took us a good 2.5 hours to navigate to the wave, avoiding long ice covered slopes. Unfortunately, the snow was a “little too much of a good thing”, and the landscape looked more like Colorado in the winter than northern Arizona. However, it was definitely an adventure to hike in there and seeing this much snow.

Grant – we did see you on Monday at the top of the lookout above Lake Powel, just before the storm hit. I tried to get your attention, but you headed back down. By the way, this storm was something else! It hit so hard we had to move our cars behind a hotel building in fear the wind would do some serious damage. We saw large sheets of sheet metal (parts of roofs?) fly through the streets of Page, and saw the covered wagon of Ken’s Old West’s Steakhouse get torn up by the winds.

Wow. Talk about some nasty weather! Too bad about all the snow in the Wave, but you got some shots most other people don't have, that's for sure!

I like the first image! Seriously, the lilt of the clouds is just cool when contrasted with the "waves"/layers of sandstone. I'd probably try to push the saturation on the sandstone more, but that's my taste... It's kinda like you have "The Wave" in two different media... Way cool!

But, either way, I'm jealous. The one time that I went to Coyote Buttes, we didn't "win" the lottery for The Wave area. But, the ranger was SO nice and said, hey, if you can do it, we have permits available for South Coyote Buttes for today, so we went. And, we had a blast because we had the place all to ourselves. It's not quite as photogenic as The Wave, from what I hear, but to a 'Sconny, it's pretty wild! ;)

Tim!

Rod: It looks like you made the most of your trip. It was great to meet you during your stay in Moab. Melissa and I really enjoyed the conversation at dinner, too. Best of luck with the beautiful Steamboat book and I hope to meet up with you again!

Ah...so you guys were in that car at the lookout. I just drove up there very briefly to see the view before heading to Stud Horse Point. The storm hit right as I arrived at Stud Horse...it was a wicked one. I didn't even attempt to take a photograph.

Be glad the snow and ice were there! If not, that sand you were hiking through would have been equally treacherous and difficult. Oh wait, that's no different...

Yeah, no doubt, and you would have been sliding around in the mud if it were just a bit warmer. I was up that way back on the 13th and 14th. I actually bailed, because I didn't think the snow was helping compositionally.