Ever been to a boneyard?

Hike to the Wave, Part 1

A few years ago we visited the “Wave.” Ever since, we wanted to return, even with a long drive to the trailhead and a difficult 6 mile hike. Unfortunately, you can’t just go when you want. First, you have to win the lottery. Really. After three years of playing, we finally won a second time. You see, the Bureau of Land Management only issues 20 passes per day to visit the Wave. That doesn’t sound so bad until you understand that there are about 500 applicants per day. And each of those applicants can request up to six passes. So, do the math. It took us about three years to win.

This visit to the Wave we wanted to see some of the additional sites – The Second Wave (truly an original name), the Boneyard, and Sand Cove. All were highly recommended and considered to be almost as good as the original Wave. By adding these sites, we are turning a six mile hike into a nine mile hike with many ups and downs. Even for the more rugged hiker (and we certainly do not fit into this class, just look at us), it can be exhausting.

We set out early as it takes about an hour to get the trailhead and another 90 minutes of hiking to get to the Wave. We bundled up and set off. As we approached the Wave (we were still 1/4 mile away), we could see that it was still completely in shadow. We decided to visit the Wave later in the day. So, off we went to the Boneyard. It is aptly named as the rock formations are latticed and look a bit like bones. We figured we do a quick stop and then head to the Second Wave.

Once we got there, we were overwhelmed. Instead of a few bones, we got boned! We shot some, scampered some, shot some more, scampered some more, and shot a lot more. We stayed there well over an hour. We stayed so long that we got concerned that we would’t get to see everything due to time constraints as the sun goes down early in December. Check out some shots from the Boneyard: