Slot Canyons

The night we got out of Coyote Gulch, we attempted to make the drive up to Egypt trailhead for Neon and Ringtail Canyons.  It's 10 miles up a "high-clearance vehicles only" road, but I was hoping the Camry would qualify with enough driving skill.  Despite Bill getting out of the car in spots and me moving about 1.5 mph around the landmines of rocks, ruts, and high crowns, we only made it 8 of the 10 miles before having to turn around out of fear for the car.

Instead, we drove up to Escalante State Park and did a bit of hiking, so Bill got to see his first petrified forest.  Being a rock nut, he enjoyed it immensely.

Unfortunately, ESP is at 6700 feet elevation (compared to around 4500 for Coyote Gulch), and a cold front was moving in at the same time.  My 3-season tent was not made for the mid-20s, and the morning sights confirmed that the cold was not our imagination:

Even the jackrabbits were frozen:

In order to warm up we drove back to the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and explored the slot canyons of the Dry Fork of Coyote Gulch.  They. Were. Awesome.

Dry Fork was beautiful

Peakboo Canyon was fun

 


Spooky Canyon was tight

But Brimstone Canyon was just plain creepy.

At first it got so narrow we had to go sideways and suck in.

Then it got so narrow that we had to walk on tiptoes to fit our bodies through the right way.  Then it got so narrow that we had to climb up higher against the walls until we were high enough that the canyon was wide enough to cross.

Then it got so narrow that we were worried that one little slip would pin us into a suffocating death chamber.  It's the only place I've been where you can get acrophobia and claustrophobia at the same time.  (One climber got stuck there for 8 days before he was rescued.)  Since my wedding was only 8 days away, we decided that we'd had enough fun and turned back.

When the canyons had been hiked and the desert of the area sufficiently explored, we drove out to the Dixie Forest to camp.  It was a beautiful area with pronghorn and prarie dogs

and we found a nice place to camp

but, stupidly, were now at 7600 feet.  It was a very long, very cold night.  After waking up with ice on the rain fly and Bill's sleeping pad, we were ready to head out for Zion Canyon and warmer weather.

The bachelor trip continues...

On day 2, we were able to wake up and see where we had camped:

We wanted to get a closer look at Steven's Arch, so first thing in the morning we made a quick side trip down to the Escalante River.  We traversed the slickrock crossing that we had almost attempted the night before,

waded down the last stage of Coyote Gulch Creek,

trudged through the Escalante River,

and beheld the 8th largest natural arch in the world, with a base 220 feet across:

On the way back, I decided to avoid the slickrock crossing and take a crack at what the guidebooks call an "impenetrable boulder jam"

I do not think it means what they think it means.

When we got back to camp we threw on our packs and began making our way up Coyote Gulch.  It was a pleasant day to hike, full of wildlife, waterfalls, and arches.

Just past Coyote Natural Bridge we set up camp, once again left to ourselves (to this point we had only seen 3 other hikers in 1.5 days).  I hiked/climbed up to the highest point I could find and got a view of the beautiful turn in the river that we got to spend the night in.

Beats South LA, that's for sure.

The last picture we took were of some Anasazi ruins well up on the cliff face.  These turned up from time to time as we hiked, and the places you would find them in were remarkable - it was hard to imagine how anyone made it up that cliff, much less drug a bunch of heavy rocks there.  Then again, the ruins are 800 years old, so who knows what they might have looked like back then.

DAY 3:

The next morning we decided to get a jump on the day and make it out to the trailhead by the afternoon, in order to make time for more adventures:

As on previous days, tons of stream crossings awaited us, and we found our own creative ways of making them:

And we continued to explore the ins and outs of the little side canyons, finding awesome little spots in the process:

As the sun made its way across the sky, we reached the dry part of the Gulch and began to make our way to the end:

But there was one last obstacle in our path:

We gave it a wide bearth.  Thankfully, it did not give chase, and so we completed the Coyote Gulch segment of our trip with life and limb intact.

Last crazy trip as a bachelor

Last week Bill (my best friend of 19 years) and I went to Utah for a hiking trip.

This is Bill:

Bill and I both have marriages to forever end our single lives this spring, and so we planned an epic trip to celebrate.  This is how it went:

DAY 1

After picking up Bill at the Las Vegas airport, we drove to Escalante, Utah and met a nice local man named George, who shuttled us to the Crack-in-the-Wall trailhead of Coyote Gulch.  (the road to the trailhead required 4-wheel-drive, plus we only wanted to complete Coyote Gulch one-way in order to leave time for other pursuits)

The trail started in the bleak Utah desert:

After a couple miles of hiking and playing around on the rocks we were able to see the canyons we were targeting:

Backpacks don't fit in Crack-in-the-Wall, so you have to lower them down two ledges.  Here's the second one (there's no pictures of the first drop since Bill had to hold me on the ledge as I tried to safely drop down 80 pounds of backpack without falling off myself).

Crack-in-the-Wall is the coolest way I have ever seen to enter a canyon:

Due to a whole day of getting outselves across the country, we didn't get started until past 6pm, and soon darkness overcame us.  Continuing hiking down the trail wasn't too bad at first, but it got tougher when we got to the slickrock:

We put on headlamps as we prepared to make the long slickrock crossing (which you'll see in tomorrow's post):

but I suddenly realized that a good camping spot might just be on our side of the crossing.  Since hiking on smooth sloped rock 20' above the canyon floor in the dark didn't seem like the best idea, we turned and went the other way.  Sure enough, we soon found a satisfactory spot to set up our tent.  Despite a hot wind blowing sand through the mesh all night, we had safely made it into the gulch.

If you want to see the full set of pictures from the day, go here.

Okay, for the whole story now.  No, this wasn't an April Fools joke (though it was funny to see ya'all twist like that).  And yes, my actions were mind-numblingly stupid.  So please don't leave comments reminding me of that.

About 4:40pm yesterday, I was walking from the thrift store back to the center when I saw a group of outstanding young men tagging the wall of the center.  It blew my mind that they would do such a thing in broad daylight on a busy street.  As I am self-designated upholder of our fine nation's laws, I thought about how I might gather evidence.  Realizing I didn't have my camera on site, I decided to snap a discreet picture with my camera phone as they stood up and began to walk away.  Of course, I didn't get their faces.  So I sped up and walked by them on the sidewalk.  As I walked by, one of the young men decided to stick his foot out and attempt to trip me.  I took into consideration the anger in this young man's heart and knew that he was just reaching out for help and probably wanted me to bring him to justice.  So I turned around and snapped a picture of a couple of their faces.  (or so I thought - stupid camera phone failed on me with that one.)  This caused the startled young men to let loose some exclamations and a short flurry of fists to the general area of my head.  UFC candidates they are not - I'm not quite even sure what those blows were intended to do, except to begin a friendly round of sparring on the sidewalk as a goodwill gesture.  They also appeared to be UCLA fans, or at least like the shirts, as they attempted to remove mine forcibly but couldn't quite tear the front half off.  They must have not realized that they hadn't given me time to put away my phone.  I didn't want to get it hurt so rather than playing along, I chose to disengage by strolling across 6 lanes of rush-hour Hawthorne traffic.  Two of them joined me.  About 5 lanes into my weaving excursion, a tire iron skidded by me.  Perhaps they were starting a game of catch.  The young man should have realized that it's really hard to throw something at a moving object while you yourself are running - somebody might have gotten hurt.  Since the two most virgorous pursuers had joined me on that side of the road, I decided to make my way back across Hawthorne, earning some upset expressions from drivers just trying to get home for the day.  At this point several fire engines let of their sirens on the way to an unrelated incident.  This must have spooked the poor kids, as they ended their pursuit at this point.  I walked back into the center with my shirt ripped mostly off my body, a small raised lump on my left cheekbone, a sore spot on my right temple, and a scratch and bruise on my back.  The ladies in the center responded as expected despite my reassurances, and the police were called in to get an account.  I checked for the tire iron but it had been removed from the scene.  From the graffiti it appears that the young men were members of the a local club called the "Lennox Boys" (or some spelling variation thereof), and the police chose to add a charge of "assault with a deadly weapon" to their list of griviences with the group.

So went my Tuesday.  I apologize for the unfortunate date and the confusion that it brought.