Monday, September 12, 2010 We left the North Rim and headed back into Utah. Our goal today was to go to the Paria Ranger Contact Station and find out about the process to get into the lottery to hike the Wave. What we found out was that we had to come back in the morning between 8:30 -9:00 and submit our application. At 9:00 am the rangers would announce what each group's number was and that number would go into a cage. They then spin the cage and draw numbers out until the 10 slots are filled. Those 10 folks then have the privilege of hike the Wave the next day (so for us, if our number was called we could hike on Wednesday). We said we would see them in the morning and left to find a place to camp fairly close by (since we had to be back so early).


There was a dirt road just down the highway a bit that Steve said looked promising. He thought it was BLM land and it followed Long Canyon, a dry river bed this time of year. We drove up the road about two miles and at a place where the road widened a bit we pulled over, popped the top and boondocked. We got there in the afternoon, so rested for a couple of hours and let the temperature drop a little.






We then explored the canyon, hiking up as far in the canyon as we could until it ended in a cliff. We went back down a bit, scrambled up and walked along the road to see where we head been.


Had our typically wonderful dinner that night, looked at the stars and went to bed.