The weather was perfect and the scenery, as usual breathtaking. Our backpacking trip to southern Utah this past weekend was astounding. We backpacked in to Upper Calf Creek Falls in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. To get there you have to hike down about a mile of slick rock. Once to the bottom, the trail becomes the stream and you feel like you are in paradise.

I have lived in Utah for about 8 years now and I am still taken aback by the state's natural wonders, even to places I have been before.

I have posted photos at Tom and Dee's Excellent Adventures

My first backpacking trip occured when I was 43. That was three years ago. That year I took two more backpacking trips and have been backpacking to various spots ever since.

I'm hooked.

I have a 4 day hiatus from teaching as part of the Utah Education Association's state conference for teachers. I'm going backpacking.

Today Tom and I are leaving for a 4 day backpacking trip to the beautiful Upper Calf Creek Falls in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Wilderness of Southern Utah. The area where we will backpack to is just below about a mile of slickrock into a paradise of all sorts of wonderful plant and animal life. The trail is the stream where fish skirt around your ankles as you hike through the beauty of the canyon.

This experience will be my "education" for the next four days as I remind myself of the beautiful surroundings in which I am fortunate enough to live. So I won't be blogging or reading (or hopefully even thingking) about polls on Bush or drilling for oil in Utah's beautiful public lands.

I'll be sure to post photos upon my return.

Here are two photos from our trip there a few years ago: