Honeycomb Rocks - Dixie National Forest, Utah

Our plan was to camp for a night or two at Honeycomb Rocks, but like all plans, this one went awry, but in a very pleasant way. The campground was closed. Like many National

Forest areas there is dispersed camping allowed throughout the forest away from the campgrounds. The forest service road continued on by the campground, and so did we. About a quarter mile away the road climbed up a ridge to overlook the Upper Enterprise Reservoir.

It was Saturday and there was a full complement of rigs along the ridge getting ready to party so we continued along the road until it forded the inlet to the reservoir (we're so glad at times like this that we have a 4 wheel drive truck camper) and crossed to the other side of the lake and set up camp. It was early afternoon and shortly the shootin', hollerin' and rap music started up across the lake...and you know how well sound can carry across a lake. We did a little exploring and found that the lake was horseshoe shaped and the prettiest part of the lake lay behind another ridge that only a vehicle like ours could access.

Pack up the TC, raise the jacks, lock in the 4 wheel drive, up and over the ridge to the nicest little, serene, quiet, spot, right on the lake shore.

We set up camp and were met by the local greeters. We think these are dowitchers.

We had escaped the Saturday night yahoos on the other side of the lake, but had no shortage of visitors for the rest of our stay here.

A small group of 7 mule deer visited us most evenings and every morning.

There had been a very recent hatching of some kind of insect, (non-biting) that had the local cliff swallows in a feeding frenzy. The picture above illustrates how hard it is to capture a cliff swallow in full dive, but you get the picture.

Cheryl also caught (with her camera of course) an American Avocet fishing in the lake.

The first night we took a walk to find out what these honeycomb rocks were all about. It turns out that the rocks in the area are volcanic tuff, which is a light porous rock created by compression of volcanic ash over millions of years. They are scattered about the area in bits and pieces and also make up the canyons, ledges and plateaus that surround the lake.

 

Here's a picture of the namesake honeycomb.

It was beautiful on the lake, but we were exposed to the wind out there and the prediction was for more and greater winds over the next few days.

We elected to move a few hundred feet to a more sheltered spot.  The new spot provided us with a good place to do a load of laundry.

Traveling as we do for months at a time, laundry becomes an issue. We can, and do, go to laundromats, but it is often easier to just do a small wash in a 5 gallon bucket and hang it out to dry. We have our “Emergency Essentials” Bucket Washer (I'll post a picture sometime), our patented 4 hands wringer, and here in the west, between the dry air and the almost constant wind, the clothes are ready in a very short time.

It was still a peaceful scene, near the small inlet on the edge of the lake, and we were much less bothered by the wind, and we still had our visitors every morning.

 

We had the usual visits from Vultures. Cheryl calls it the beautiful flight of the ugly bird.

The desert is starting to come alive with flowers and we hope to be seeing many more in the coming weeks as we head east, through Kanab, and into the Paria river area, just west of Lake Powell and the Glen Canyon Dam.