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Back in the Saddle

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Published Date

February 23, 2007

    It had to come to an end. It just had to come to an end.
    Three days traveling in southern Utah brought temperatures in the 50s and 60s, blue, sunny skies, and parks I felt I personally owned, there were so few visitors during this, the mid-winter shoulder season.
    Sadly, all good things must come to an end. I returned home, traveling at times through a white out, to steady snow. Granted, it is February and I do live in the Rockies at almost 7,000 feet, but after such a gorgeous reprieve, you kinda think spring would have arrived everywhere, no?
    Anyway, in the days ahead I'll let you in on some of my travels, particularly to Arches and Natural Bridges National Monument. In the meantime, if you're thinking of a place to visit this spring or fall, you might want to start studying up on these two.

Comments

Submitted by admin on February 26, 2007 - 1:06pm.
If you were in Natural Bridges National Monument, then you were under the darkest skies among all of the national parks in the contiguous 48 states. I hope you took a telescope and a star chart, or at least some decent, large-aperture binoculars! I did a couple of editions of The WildeBeat on the monitoring and decline of the darkness of night skies: http://www.wildebeat.net/index.cgi/2005/10/#E013 http://www.wildebeat.net/index.cgi/2005/10/#E014 Six months later, Science News Magazine reported on that here: http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20060318/bob10.asp

Submitted by Kurt Repanshek on February 27, 2007 - 1:42pm.
Steve, I was indeed at Natural Bridges, and it provided an incredible star show. Even with the crescent moon the multitude of visible stars was fantastic. Unfortunately, I left my telescope at home. Not that I needed it;-)

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