THE WAVE

I know you have been all waiting on pins and needles to see my pictures from hiking The Wave on the weekend of the big eclipse. Well! Here you go, lots of pictures and details :)

The Wave allows 20 people a day but there were way more than 20 cars in the parking lot. This is part of a panoramic shot that I took.

Here we are almost to The Wave! I was so so hot, we were both dehydrated and I just got so super tired walking! It was mostly a flat hike but there were at least 3 hill/mountain type things to climb up and over. I'm so glad we had our hiking sticks. We took a lot of rests along the way while the rest of the group went ahead without us. Luckily we had walkie talkies to keep in touch. When we got about 10 minutes from The Wave my body was so hot and exhausted so we stopped and laid on a big flat rock in some shade and rested for at least 30 minutes. 

In the picture above, Tony is carrying the backpack with all the food in it and pinned to the outside is our pink permit. There was a ranger and sheriff at The Wave (we heard about but never saw them) who were turning people away if they did not have a permit.

Our view from rock we sat and rested on before going the rest of the way to The Wave

Pretty flowers we saw along the way

I was so hot and tired and sweaty (wearing a black shirt was not a smart idea even though the material was super thin), that I had no energy to take many pictures or vlog along the way. Kind of bummed about that because the scenery as we hiked was very pretty!

Cool trail in the sand of lizard prints, we saw quite a few lizards and some of them seemed bigger than normal.

Arrived at The Wave! We sat our gear down on a rock , rested again and then 

did some exploring.

One of my favorites that I took

Relaxing. 

Up behind me is where we watched the eclipse until it disappeared behind the ridge. Darn it! Our friends hiked higher, I wish I had had the energy, and got some great pictures of the ring of fire.

Here is the picture I took with my phone through the protective glasses. Exciting I know.

Watching the eclipse with my safe glasses on!

Tony with his glasses on..well, almost

A cool shot Tony got of me

 

The design where Tony was standing was kind of cool

Another cool design. Maybe water sat here or something

Our friends hiked to the top of that rock you see in the middle!

Looking up

After the eclipse was over and people had come down from their climb up to the other tall rock, we had dinner. Tony made chicken and mashed potatoes. Austin had saved water for us to make the potatoes and use to cook the chicken so it didnt burn. I shouldn't have poured out the juice from the jar I guess. We were all very hungry. Austin and Parker decided to head back to the car and Tony & I stayed and waited for it to get dark so Scott could take some nighttime pictures at The Wave.

It was so worth it to stay and help Scott. Here is one of the shots he got:

Simply amazing. 

When he posts it on his Smugmug we are going to order a big size print to hang over our bed. Tony & I helped operate separate flashes and we all were holding one to light up the area and take this picture. The stars are incredible as well as the lines on the rocks.

And while I'm at it, here's a picture he put together of the eclipse

He really is one of the best photographers in Utah and I feel so honored he was able to come with us on our adventures in southern UT.

Here is a link to his website if you'd like to check out more of his work or order prints.

We left the Wave around 10:30pm and started hiking back to the car. Of course we got lost. Tony & I got lost the first time back in January 2010 and we were hiking back to the car when it was still daylight! This time it was pitch black besides our headlamps. We walked and walked, luckily it was cooler out , esp because I was sharing less than 1/2 camelback full of water with Tony. We finally got ahold of Parker and Austin on the radios and they shined a flashlight and yelled to help us know which direction to go. Scott had a green laser light he shined around to help them see where we were at. We didnt get back to the car until between 1-2AM and then we drove alll the way back to Lindon to get our car, gear loaded back in Tony's truck and drive to SLC. We got home a little after 8am. Just in time to shower and I was able to start work on time. Man, what a trip.