the culprit

 Saturday morning was pretty as well.  After seeing the destruction Millcreek had caused in town, I was curious to see how the creek itself had fared.  Milton and I got a fairly early start, pulling into the Millcreek parking lot with only one other car ahead of us.

Looking at the confluence of the left- and right-hand canyons

We went up the rim trail and this time actually found a trail that went right along the rim of the right-hand canyon; when H, Milton and I had done this before, we followed an old jeep road more away from the rim until we found the trail that led down into the canyon.  We met several other people hiking with their dogs but Milton was more interested in the fact that the lizards were beginning to stir as the sun got stronger.

Cool formation on the rim

View of the La Sals from the Millcreek Canyon rim

We took the trail that dropped us into the canyon and as soon as we got down to creek level, everything was very wet and muddy.  The water had receded such that although it was running quite high, it was back within its banks, although in places it had moved those banks of its own accord.  There were tons of raccoon tracks in there, no doubt taking advantage of any edible critters left stranded as the waters fell back.

Debris field

Newly cleared cobblestones

We stopped just before we got to what we call the beaver glade (where the trees have been protected from beavers with chicken wire) and the creek was completely different: broader and lined with excavated cobblestones.  We went back down canyon on the other side of the creek; at the higher points, you could see just how wide the floodwaters had gone.  Down lower, as the creek emerged from the canyon, the flood damage didn't seem as destructive, but all the small trees lining the banks had been laid over and were covered with mud.  The creek itself looked like iced coffee now: less thick than it had looked on Friday.

All the cowboy hot tubs are under there somewhere

That's a good boy right there