We got up around our normal time, got ready to go, and left in the Jeep around 8:05.

We headed up and over Guardsman Pass and then down to the Big Cottonwood Canyon highway. There were some nice patches of aspens, but immediately on the west side of Guardsman Pass there were several ski resorts near Brighton, so the hillsides weren't too photogenic. We went practically all the way to the end of the canyon near Cottonwood Heights, then turned around and headed back.

We stopped at the Donut Falls Trailhead then hiked up towards the falls. We went by a cow moose with twin calves near the path, but they quickly went into some thick brush before we could photograph them. There has been a rock slide recently at Donut Falls, so the water falls down and into the donut (hole) in the rock and then disappears among the new boulders instead of being visible from the bottom of the donut like it used to be. I wasn't very impressed by the main falls so I kept heading upstream. I found a nice cascade with wonderful reflected golden light, and spent my whole time photographing it. My favorite image of it was also one of my first compositions. Usually one improves the image the more one photographs a subject, but this time, after taking a really wide view, I focussed in on the cascade and golden reflection which first attracted me to the scene (left).

We returned to the RV around 12:05 and I downloaded the images I took this morning. I got an email from my outfitter for my gorilla photo tour, and he let me know that he was able to get permits for all five of the days we will do gorilla trekking. Earlier in the week, he had let me know that the permits for one of the days had already been taken, and I was quite bummed that we'd have to do golden monkey trekking on that day instead. I was so excited, and relieved, that we would now be able to do five days of gorilla trekking like I had promised my clients. I checked my bank online and saw that a money transfer had been completed so I could wire my outfitter the payment for the gorilla trekking permits. I left in the Jeep by myself around 12:30.
I had Clif Bars for lunch on my way ...

To a bank in Park City so I could wire the money to my outfitter.

I returned to the RV around 1:35 and stowed the solar-electric panels so they'd be ready for the afternoon. As I was doing that, two parachutists (?) were cliff soaring just up the hill from us. Their chutes looked like those for a paraglider, but the parachutists were just strapped in and didn't have a propulsion system. I came back in the RV and worked up a blog entry. J took a nap around 3:45 and I started to work up a travel schedule for South Africa. I was so excited to be thinking about returning to the spots I really enjoy there: Kruger National Park, Hluhluwe/Umfolizi Game Reserves, Addo Elephant National Park, Mountain Zebra National Park, and Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. J got up around 5:30 and we talked about the travel plans for South Africa.

We had dinner around 6:25 of Bertolli Italian Sausage & Rigatoni and cheesy garlic bread that J made.

While J did the dishes, I tilted the solar-electric panels to get them ready for tomorrow. Then I downselected the images I took this morning and processed one for the blog. I looked at GPS units on eBay and set up some snipes for units ending in the few couple of days.