I’ve flown a long way to hang out in Utah, part 1

Skazka (Fairytale) Canyon, Kyrgyzstan, is filled with red rocks, hoodoos, fins, and small-scale painted desert formations. 

There's even Mormon tea growing all over the place here, though they don't call it that. (Don't ask me what they call it. Ephedra something something, no doubt.)

Skazka Canyon sits in the foothills on the south side of Issyk-Kul, which is, yes, a great salt lake. [It’s visible in the photo below, behind all the red rock, stretching off to the horizon.] The lake is about 120 miles long by 40 miles wide and is 2200 feet deep (which Utah's Great Salt Lake is definitely not). Issyk-Kul lies in a basin ringed by branches of the Tian Shan range, the Celestial Mountains.  

With endless snowy peaks topping out from 13000 to 24000 feet, the Tian Shans are the reason I’m here. I suspect there will be more mountain photos in this blog's future.