Babylon

It was just Zyla and I for the day, so we met up with Grandma and Papa to go for a hike out in the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve. Carl had a good idea of a place to go hiking, so we drove out toward Babylon. On the drive we saw a large snake that looked just like a rattlesnake, but it turned out instead to just be a Bull Snake. We saw this along a dirt road that took us out to the trailhead. Our goal for the day was to see a desert tortoise as I had been in Zion for 7 years and still never had located a desert tortoise.

We parked at the trailhead, where Carl led us out toward some dinosaur tracks. Nearly immediately, we spotted a desert tortoise. It was just a baby probably about a year old and not too large. We watched it for a bit and then let it go on its way. Then we went over to the dinosaur tracks. They were pretty neat going up the side of the cliff. I tried to point them out to Zyla, but she was not incredibly stoked about it. We took some photos and admired them, then headed back to the trailhead. So far we had not even hiked and we already had seen some interesting sights.

This would continue as there were a bunch of petroglyphs right at the trailhead. They were a pretty good example of petroglyphs and we enjoyed them thoroughly. You could just imagine the ancients hunting for game in this area. Then we began the hike. So far Zyla was walking, but if we wanted to make any ground, she was going to need to go in the backpack. I put her in there and then we were able to move a bit quicker. The scenery was less than inspiring as the previous summer there was a large fire in this area that kind of cleared out the vegetation.

It started out with a gradual uphill. We had a map with us, but it did not show the mileage or topography, so it was hard to tell where we were. There were also other trails coming in that were not on the map. At a junction, we sat down to have some lunch. Looking at the map, it seemed we had reached Historic Babylon on the Historic Babylon Trail. But we were mistaken when we kept going. When we finally reached it, we were four miles into the hike and it was just as far to go back the same way as to continue. So we kept going and eventually met up with the Little Purgatory Trail.
This one led us around and we were second guessing whether we were headed the right way. There were other little trails coming in that weren't on the map. But we stood the course and eventually made it back to the car. Everyone was pretty beat after that hike as Grandma and Papa liked to do some shorter hikes, but nothing of that length. And for me, I was carrying my two year old for many miles so that is enough to wear me out. It was a nice hike though the views were not incredibly inspiring, but a good trail with some good company.