Lone Rock Part 4 - Cottonwood Canyon, Cockscomb Crotch and Grosvenor Arch

Thursday, November 2nd

With another forecasted beautiful day, Ray, me, Dianne, Steve and Freya were all loaded up in the car with a picnic lunch for our next road adventures. Off we went to explore the Cottonwood Canyon which enables you to see the very eastern portion of the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument.  The turn-off to the canyon is only 20 minutes west on Highway 89. We ended up driving 60 miles return on a fairly good gravel road and even made it to the Grosvenor Arch, a place that Ray wanted to see since investigating our trip down here last summer. Absolutely fantastic views of the Canyon and Cockscomb Crotch. The Cockscomb parallels Cottonwood Creek and Wash with Cads Crotch on the east. The Cockscomb extends south into Arizona from Utah.  The eroded rocks look like a rooster's comb.

What a fabulous drive. With me driving as usual and getting kidded about driving like "Super Mario Kart", an old video game. After the first 10 miles or so around every corner it was "look at that" and I would pull over and the boys would jump out to take some pictures. It was a little breezy and cool out so Dianne and I were fine sitting in the car for the first 15 miles until it warmed up.  Specially since I'm usually parked in the middle of a one and a half lane road and needed to move in a hurry if there is any traffic!  Fortunately there was minimal other cars on the road as the dust clouds were huge!

First up was Brigham Plains winding our way towards the canyon.

Next stop is Rock House Cove. This sure shows the large chunks of rock breaking off the hillsides and landing in the valley.

Yup the chunks are huge.

Freya with her best buddy Dianne.

Ray being eaten by a rock pumpkin!

 Where is Steve???

Oh there he is!

The road carried along and met up with the Paria River which we saw the other day from the other side of these mountains.

There be cows down there!

Will someone throw this stick! (picture by Steve)

Next up are views of The Cockscomb Crotch. Ray just loves saying that description and had us all laughing. Ever since he saw the name in our Benchmark Atlas he's wanted to discover it! It did have very interesting rock formations and colours. Sometimes it was hard to get great pictures without powerlines in them as the road seems to follow the powerline path.

This is along the Cottonwood River.

The gravel road threading through the valley.

After a multitude of stops we came to the Cottonwood Narrows where all our jaws really did drop when I came over the hill.

Our two Besties!

That was absolutely amazing. We decided as it's only 10 more miles, we would carry on to Grosvenor Arch where they have a picnic area and have our lunch. We'd tried to see this arch from the Bryce Canyon/Kodachrome Basin earlier in October, but some heavy rain two weeks earlier and I didn't like the look of the red muddy road with the car, so we nixed the idea. Now we were so close and the road was good ... away we went and so glad we did.

What a gorgeous picnic site.with the arch in the background (and clean pit toilet too, always necessary for a lunch break! lol)

 They have a great path up to the double arches.

Steve managed to find this third arch forming on the back side.

Ray took this picture standing and looking straight up ... a long way up.

 The ride to the arch with all of the stops seemed to take a long time but the drive home took me only 1 hour ... yup I know how to make time on gravel roads safely. Did not scare anyone or so they said.

Once back, we relaxed for a few hours and then it was time for Dianne and I to get our scheduled pedicure. With my penchant for ingrown toenails I need to get my feet done every 4 to 5 weeks and I was now pushing 6. Since getting here a week ago I have tried several shops to get an appointment and finally was able to schedule this one at 4:30 pm. Dianne and I did not realise the appointment was with the ladies husband as he is her nail tech. We looked at him and at each other,  shrugged our shoulders and said "okay we are ready for our pedicures". I have had lots of Vietnamese gentleman do my pedicure before but it was the first time for Dianne to have a man do her feet. lol

My feet getting painted.

Shelley the shops owner, said her husband is better at this than she is. They run a small but full service spa, with hair styling, waxing, massage and nails. Anyways, as Dianne and I were the last appointment of the day for nails, with both Shelley and her husband, we were treated to a lot of pampering. It also turned out that their massage therapist's last appointment had cancelled so while the man did our cutting of nails, getting rid of callouses etc, Shelley and her massage therapist both massaged our feet at the same time. When the man finished with one set of feet, he moved to the other person and back and forth. I think Dianne and I ended up with about 45 minutes of foot and leg massage. The whole appointment took 2 1/2 hours and we felt very pampered. (This was longer than usual ... but since we had tried to get an appointment for 4 days they treated us to more time.) They all kept us in stitches laughing with their stories of their family and town. Good hints on where to eat and especially where not to eat! Where to go to see the balloon festival etc. So if you are ever in Page Arizona, we would highly recommend Dimensions Salon & Spa

Dianne and I did not get back home until after 7 pm in the dark and very tired but happy for the day we had.