Behunin Canyon and Utah Wildflower Identification, Zion National Park, UT

Anna (friend of Luca and Roberto and an MIT grad) was visiting the USA and Zion from Switzerland, Italy and Stanford. Wait, Yuhua is from Stanford AND MIT. Anyway, they came here, we rallied a team from ZAC at the last minute, and on like the first HOT HOT HOT day started the hike up WAY too late. It was HOT!

Yuhua from Stanford, Anna from Italy, Tom, Daniel and Elisa and Nick (not shown) from ZAC.

Of course, any walk with Tom in the spring is a flower walk. No exceptions today – what did we find?
Utah Daisy – Erigeron utahensis gray – Sunflower Family
A very common flower in Zion, so common I have no previous pictures of it!

Competing with the Utah Daisy for commonness in Zion:
Hoary goldenaster – Heterotheca villosa (pursh) shinn. – Sunflower Family

UNcommon in the Park, rarely seen by me until this year – and mostly closed up for the day.
Desert Four O’clock – Mirabilis multiflora (torr) gray

The ever popular Spiderwort…Tradescantia occidentalis

I rarely hike Angels Landing in the middle of the day in summer.
Today, a large group of schoolkids from New Jersey were on the trail.

Springdale Rockdaisy aka Jones Rockdaisy—Perityle tenella

And perhaps the 3rd most popular flower in the Park – Palmer’s Penstemon – Penstemon palmeri

And this flower shows up often, too, most likely:
Varileaf phacelia or Caterpillar plant – Phacelia heterophylla
Waterleaf family – Hydrophyllaceae

Also regularly seen: Uinta groundsel – Senecio multilobatus

And a NEW photo for me, though I had seen the flower from time to time:
Stonecrop – Sedum lanceolatum
Orpine Family Crassulaceae
This was found in upper Behunin, on a rock.

In prior years, I have seen this one but rarely. This year, lots of colorful patches of:
Tapertip onion – Allium acuminatum

And finally, a cool one deep in the shade almost to the first rappel:
James starwort – Pseudostellaria jamesiana

Nick rapping, near the end of the canyon.

Oh yeah, we were doing Behunin Canyon. We found some other people at the first rappel - four guyz from New York - who were doing their FIRST Zion Canyon. Which uh, well, ended up with my camera in Nick's pack.

This was also a work-project canyon. At the first rappel - the rap I like best is the one at drop level, on the left. Which suffered from having only one bolt. I added a second bolt to this anchor.

Lower down, we found at the Fifth rappel, one of the two bolts had pulled out. A long piece of webbing ran back to a small tree. I put in another bolt here. 1/2" x 3-3/4" Rawl Powerbolts for both.

And Anna, on the same rap…

… and our guest from the exotic world of Stanford – Yuhua!

Toward the end, we took the higher on the penultimate rap. Elisa getting ready to rap.
Actually, the tree for this rap is pretty much dead, and the single bolt is pretty good, but not THAT good. Really could use another bolt, or something…