The Grand Staircase (Days 45-53)

Written 5/23/08

The duo reunite!

It was joyous reunion. Ben showed up at the cache after hitching a ride in from Cannonville. He had spent the last four weeks in Portland with a number of physical therapists and specialists to get him back on the trail as soon as possible. Now, with a literal pharmacy of tapes and supplies, and some practice hikes under his belt, he was feeling fit and rearing to get going again. He also came bearing gifts from the outside, including a new pair of trekking poles (I snapped one while hiking the Escalante corridor), a set of shoelaces, and a replacement spoon. He also surprised me with some fresh vegetables, salami, bagels, and cheese - a much needed culinary supplement to weeks of bucket food.

We followed the wash down to the entrance of Round Valley Draw where grey walls of Navajo emerged from beneath a thin layer of Carmel. The slot opened up quickly from a fissure in the ground. We lowered our packs into the crack, and chimneyed down 20 feet to retrieve them. The walls were narrow, and ribbed with angled intrusions cutting across the drainage. Fallen boulders required some down climbing and the handing off of packs. It was great having a companion again. The closest we came to swimming was at a deep section of the slot where we found ourselves walking on snow! The snowbank had backed up its own melt water, creating a dam behind it before it broke. Mud still caked the walls and the water-logging had even caused some sections of the wall to collapse.

Upper Hackberry Canyon

Round Valley Draw emptied into Hackberry Canyon. White walls of Navajo flanked the dry wash, sloping off into broad shoulders of stone. The sand in the wash was white as snow, like a wide river of sugar crystals. Though the canyon was dry, there were a number of box elder, singleleaf ash, globemallow and paintbrush growing along the sandy terraces. We walked past deep running joints that pinched out into narrow slivers high up the walls. Blackbrush and pinyons grew out of cracks in the rock, seeming to defy gravity. The upper side canyons were full of towering Ponderosa pines leaning drunkenly at odd angles, growing in collected dunes of fine sand. It was a real mindbender to think that the petrified sand dunes of the original parent rock were now eroding back into new dunes only to repeat the process over again.Water began seeping into the wash halfway down Hackberry, changing dramatically from an austere canyon of naked stone to a lush verdant corridor. Thick reeds lined the waterway like a dark green ribbon, and willows and cottonwoods spread their branches along the embankments. Pale minnows swam the running rivulets in the creek, darting beneath our splashing feet. The going was so smooth that at one point we shed the Chacos and hiked barefoot in the wet sand. It was luxurious.

We took time to explore several side canyons, including one called Stone Donkey. Hiking back in the wash, the ground was littered with plate-sized slabs of iron concretions, leeched out of the porous rock. The canyon itself narrowed up into a sliver of a crack less than three feet wide. Hips, knees and elbows were used to shimmy up the tight slot, chimneying over chokestones and flood debris. The roof cut out all light, leaving us with our headlamps in near complete darkness. We climbed all the way back into a small grotto at the base of a 50 foot rappel. It was a sweet slot. It was about as technical of an ascent as you could get without protection or climbing gear. Coming out again, we were blinded and cooked by the direct light, our eyes had grown used to the cool darkness inside the crack.

We continued on down canyon, where we passed several places where chunks of the cliff had collapsed into the creek. One rockfall was so recent that the leaves of the cottonwood caught in the slide were still supple and green. We even witnessed a small slide occur on its own accord, and watched the crash and tumble of rocks come plummeting down the hillside. A sobering reminder of geology in action, and natural forces at work.The canyon opened up into a colorful arching crescent of lower Hackberry. We climbed a steep bench to inspect the Frank Watson cabin, an old homesteader's dwelling from the early 1900's. The roof beams were sagging, and some woodrats had taken up residence in the fireplace, but it was tough to ask for a better location. The canyon cut east through the uplifted cliffs, back towards the Cockscomb, where it had eroded out a narrow passageway. We passed half a dozen dayhikers who were out exploring the wonders of the monument. In the dark corners, I found a few Hackberry trees for which the canyon was named. Throughout the canyon, I saw few invasive plant species, and the effects of grazing were minimal. Overall, the Hackberry drainage was in excellent shape, and from what I could tell, a great example of a healthy riparian corridor.

Historic Paria townsite

We exited the canyon into Cottonwood Wash, and met up with the muddied flow of the Paria River. Old timers once said it was "too thin to plow, too thick to drink." Turning up the Paria through the notch of the Box, we soon encountered a party of jeeps and ATV-ers roaring along the riverway. When the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was created in 1996, off-road vehicle use was prohibited off of all historic and established roads. But motorized recreationalists found a loophole in the monument's regulations, citing that the Paria floodplain was historically used as an important corridor for regional transportation, albeit back then with wagons and horses. Further up canyon, we encountered a volunteer motorized trails "ranger", backed by the county commissioners and state parks - and not the federal management bureau responsible for managing the area, who was patrolling the "trails" to improve relations between hikers and ATV-ers, and to encourage minimal impact by both groups. He argued that the revving sound of his ATV was a minimal intrusion onto the wilderness experience of others, but declined to comment on the long-term effects and soil damage left by vehicles well after their drone had dissipated from the canyons. The use of ORVs on the Paria is a hotly debated issue today, one that the BLM administrators are (hopefully) working to resolve.

Illegal ATV use

We hiked up the familiar braided Paria floodplain. With every storm, the river jumps its banks, cutting new routes, and abandoning old ones. The craggy Vermillion Cliffs and sherbert colored Chinle hills formed the walls of the river corridor. We saw plentiful evidence of people past and present, in the form of ancient petroglyphs and pictographs, numerous cowboy etchings, the old Pahreah townsite, and the abandoned Spencer gold mine.

We spent several days exploring the side drainages of the Upper Paria. We made a visit to an old study site for an ecology project I worked on. In 2006, I worked as a wildlife technician surveying spotted owls and trapping small mammals in the monument. It was cool to revisit some of my old haunts and to share some of my favorite places with Ben. We climbed up onto the rim a few times to explore the stone gardens and to take in the views. From on top, we could see the western half of the Kaiparowits Plateau and the terraced formations of the Grand Staircase. We found streaked standing fins and stone teepees, arranged in a powwow of short peaks like whisked whipped cream. We stretched out on warm slickrock and spent hours supervising the passing of delinquent clouds. Violet-green swallows bombed around us like avian fighter jets swooping up insects on the wing. A pair of golden eagles soared overhead in wide parallel arcs, lazily patrolling the world below. Who knew exploring could be so exhausting?

Fremont pictographs

Up near Deer Range Point, we found a remote panel of petroglyphs. The etchings were carved into the side of a narrow crack in a shallow drainage. The wall was stained black from the build-up of desert varnish, making the glyphs stand out clearly in stark relief. There were dozens of images of animals, spirals, suns, and snakes. But what was most intriguing was the location of the panel - it was literally in the middle of nowhere. Looking closer at the images, a progression of a half-dozen bighorn sheep seemed to walk across the panel, as if through the crack itself. Then it dawned on us that the panel was carved at the bottleneck of a sheep drive. It would have been possible to corral a group of sheep down off the mesa into the upper fork of the drainage. With the proper planning and communication, the sheep would've been funnelled into the chokepoint between the narrow walls, with no immediate way out. It was a perfect hunting spot, and eerily cool.

Further up the Paria, the walls of the canyon changed from red to white, demarcated by a clear line between the color bands. The white rock had lost all of its iron content, leached out into the plentiful concretions we found everywhere. We found numerous carvings by early pioneers at the turn of the century, as well as old time ranchers and cattlemen. But we also saw several recent inscriptions in the rock dated 12/26/07. Where are you now Mav, Red Dog, Klancy Ott? Their carved names seemed blatantly out of place.

Bull Valley Gorge

We turned up Sheep Creek and into the towering formation of the White Cliffs. The sheer walls were reminiscent of Zion, which was only 50 miles as the crow flies - but 350 trail miles away. We took a side trip up Bull Valley Gorge, one of the best slot canyons in the region. The etched relief cross-bedded dunes were visible in the wall, stacked layer upon layer for a thousand feet. Ponderosa pines and Douglas fir grew in every direction. Some trees had long sinuous root systems branching out further than they were tall, anchoring them to the treacherous face of naked rock. In a few places, trees had fallen against the opposite wall, still growing upward. The canyon squeezed into a tight narrows several hundred feet deep. Broken logs spanned the gap high overhead, jammed into place by raging flood waters. At the historic bridge at Skutumpah road, we looked up at the smashed remains of an old pickup truck that had slid off the bridge and gotten crushed in the upper reaches of the chasm. Two men died pinned in the cab while a third fell 200 feet to the floor below. Not a nice way to go. The truck had been wedged in place for over 60 years, and was in surprisingly good shape. We returned back down canyon over fallen boulders that choked the upper gorge.

We followed the white walls of Sheep Creek to the junction with Willis Creek. We found an interesting panel of petroglyphs, but they had been vandalized by visitors. I had never seen so much destruction of rock art before, and it really sullied the whole experience. The panel was easily accessible by ATVs and nearby settlements, but that was no excuse. It was disappointing to see. We followed Willis through a short section of hikable narrows. Dark clouds moved in and began to snow on us. We hurried to the cache and sat in our shelter, readying ourselves for a climb to the higher elevations and the Pink Cliffs of Bryce.

Section mileage: ~52 miles

Kaiparowits Plateau (Days 34-44)

Written 5/14/08

Leaving the cache, I began my ascent of the Straight Cliffs and the Eastern edge of the Kaiparowits Plateau, on of the last remaining wild and undeveloped areas in the lower 48. Open space. Desolate country. 

Kaiparowits Plateau

Part of the greater Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, the entire designation encompasses nearly 2 million acres of slickrock and canyons, is home to a wide array of plants and wildlife, and contains an untold treasure of paleontological and archaelogical sites. It truly is an amazing place. The creation of the monument was the keystone piece to linking up the parks in the region, creating an interconnected corridor across the Plateau, of which the Hayduke Trail takes great advantage. I climbed the Middle Pack Trail, an old route carved out of the Straight Cliffs through to a break in the rim. The vegetation changd from stands of juniper, serviceberry, and buffaloberry to thick pinions and mountain mahogany. Patches of snow covered the trail in places where I found some young Mule’s Ear sunflowers beginning to bloom.

From the rim at 7,300 feet I could see the ground I had covered the past several weeks. The wrinkled drainages of the Escalante, my camp in the Circle Cliffs, Mt. Ellen, and the Henry Range, back to the distant Abajo Mountain; to the North, the Aquarius Plateau and Boulder Mountain; and far South to the distant flat-topped mesas of the Navajo Reservation. Further to the West were the forested tops of Powell Point and Canaan Peak. The coral pink cliffs of Bryce, and the white Navajo ledges of the Grand Staircase. Not a bad view.

I crossed the mesa top though dense fields of sagebrush and pines. Several areas had burned, likely caused by lightning strikes during summer thunderstorms, this ridge being the highest point for miles around. I passed up the opportunity to take water from a couple of springs fouled by cattle. The cows had practically rendered them useless, ruining some of the few reliable water sources on the dry plateau. Instead, I filled up my containers with three days worth of water at Mudholes Spring, a fenced off little water hole in a shady grove of bare Aspen. I inspected a nearby supply cabin someone had built, decorated with rusted horseshoes and ranching equipment on its outer walls.

Beyond the Spring, I tried following the remains of a packtrail to the head of Monday Canyon, but it was like trying to catch a ghost. The trail would disappear and reappear, overgrown from years of neglect and infrequent use. It was useless. I ended up crossing overland, my legs scratched and bloodied after beating through the dense sage. Continuing on, I dropped into a side drainage at the head of Monday Canyon. The route to the bottom was dense with pines, brush, and fallen logs, but even with my big pack I was able to make it through. From the canyon floor, the vanilla sandstone walls rose into a series of tiered benches lined thick with trees. Wanting a better view through the foliage, I climbed up a nearby slope to look around.

Metate and Mano

Beneath an overhand I stumbled upon a ledge that held the remains of half a dozen ruins. Most of the sites had deteriorated into rubble, but one was still partially intact. Constructed in a circle, the ceiling poles had caved into the living area, the ends of the beams still supported by brick walls. The wood was weathered and charred, but the hand cut marks were still visible. Shredded Juniper bark lay draped across the poles; the soot of cooking fires stained the alcove wall. Among the packrat midden jammed into the walls I found dozens of ears of maize, the length and girth of an index finger. The ledge was scattered with broken arrowheads and potsherds of varying types—white clay, black clay, red painted. I even found a worn metate and mano, a handstone used to grind corn. The site was almost completely undisturbed, but unfortunately, cattle had accessed the ledge and left their calling card everywhere. Still it was impressive to come across. Throughout the canyon, I found several more ruins, dwellings and grainaries. I find it astonishing that an entire community of people could survive and thrive in such a difficult place.

The route through Monday Canyon was difficult to navigate. The drainage was blocked by pouroffs, boulders, and rockfalls. Continuing down to Rogers Canyon was more of the same. A vile-looking creek full of brown sludge and greasy mud cut a deep V through loose slopes of shale, the bottom choked with tamarisk. The only way I got through the obstacles was by taking cattle trails. Just follow the trampled path of destruction and splattered pancakes of manure, and you’ll get by. They may be dumb, but cows know how to traverse the landscape.

Navajo Canyon

Lower down, the vegetation thinned out and all but disappeared. The ground was sparsely covered by thorny black bush, hydra-like bladderweed, spring cactus, and the ubiquitous cheat grass. All around were the sunbaked hills of gray shale and oddly balanced rocks. In the distance, I could make out the towering buttes and stone moonlights of Glen Canyon. The land was stark and empty, a desolate moonscape. It was very survival to walk through.

Nacho & Speedo

I headed up the drainage of Navajo Canyon, and got halfway through when I heard human voices and the clatter of trekking poles. ‘Who in their right mind would be out in this forbidding place?’ I wondered. Two figures popped out from behind a rock. I turned out to be Nacho and Speedo (their trail names of course), two ultralight thru-hikers Brian Frankel told us we might run into. The were doing a modified route in the opposite direction, going from Bryce to Moab in 5 weeks. Their friends Pepper and Trauma, whom I had been following since Arches, had just finished an East-to-West route in a blistering 35 days. Yikes. 2008 was turning into a big year on the HDT. During our little impromptu gathering we swapped stories, traded trail tips, and discussed the differences between the Ultralight approach of maildrops in towns versus the long term system of bucket caches. Each method has its own merits and advantages. But they require very different philosophies toward hiking the trail. Either way it was interesting to meet fellow Haydukers, especially such accomplished thru-hikers as these. We took some celebratory photos and wished each other luck on our journeys before heading our separate ways.

I continued on up Navajo Canyon, through Surprise Valley and to the water cache we had left on the ridge. In all directions spread the expansive reach of the Kaiparowits Plateau. To the south in the distance I could see across the border into Arizona—the Echo Cliffs, the Vermillion Cliffs, and the sloping rise of the Kaibab Plateau. I dropped down into the pastel-colored hills of Reese Canyon to where the drainage had cut down to some exposed beds of coal. Not too far away in the Burning Hills, a coal seam caught fire when struck by lightning and now smolders away slowly underground. At one point there were plans to mine much of the coal in the area, but the designation of the monument put a stop to that, blocking all resource extraction within its borders. For now at least.

Hiding from the swarm

I turned up Last Chance Creek, one of the few reliably flowing streams on the Plateau. Unfortunately, with running water come the bugs. The gnats were almost unbearable, orbiting my head like little winged electrons. I killed dozens at a time just by clapping indiscriminately around my face. It became an all-out war. The like to crawl into the folds of your ears, along your hairline, into your eyes. At some point, it became an unwinnable battle and I would submit myself to the aerial attack. Occasionally, brief moments of respite would come when the breeze would drive them away. But as always, they would return with an aggravated hunger. The relentless hordes were enough to drive a man insane.

Fortunately the wildlife more than made up for the bloodshed. I listened to the predawn howl of coyotes, and the sad long rueful coos of the mourning doves. I caught whiptail and leopard-nosed lizards, and even a fat 3-foot bull snake basking in the wash. Tadpoles filled the creek by the hundreds, writhing and feeding the soft mud. In the evenings, I walked the stream bed by moonlight, following the chorus of calls coming from the creek. I discovered reclusive Spadefoot toads singing away beneath the river stones, and dozens of spawning red-spotted toads mounted in amplexus. It was a springtime orchestra of love, and I let the lovers be.

The near disaster

I followed the creek up to our supplemental food cache for the section. We buried the bucket high up out of the wash, but when I got there the entire embankment was gone. Disappeared. Washed into the creek by the winter floods. I was stupefied. Luckily Ben had the fortuitous foresight to tie the bucket to a tree in case something like this did happen. I found the bucket balanced on the brink, 15 feet above the wash, still tied to the juniper that was ready to fall over itself. Nacho and Speedo had seen the cache and salvaged two of our water bottles—but the rest was history. The problem with caches is that you are completely reliant on their contents being there. Had the cache failed, it was nearly 40 miles in any direction to get anywhere. I would’ve been up Last Chance Creek without a paddle. The bucket was fine, but the whole situation was cutting it a little too close for comfort.

I took a much needed rest day, giving my legs some time to recuperate, my first day off since Hite. I camped out beneath a leafy cottonwood, relaxed, and just enjoyed myself for a day. Before leaving, I cached the bucket in a more secure location, and set off up the creek. I turned up Paradise Canyon, where I filed up with enough water to see me through the last 25 miles to the end of the section. Following a dirt road, I left the lower drainages and climbed out to the rolling arid benchlands of the western Kaiparowits Plateau. It felt great to be out of the canyons for a while and away from the bugs. I cruised along through branching junipers and fields of sage, and relished walking on a freshly graded road.

Along the way I met some BLM paleontologists on their way out to a dinosaur dig site. There were excavating some Hadrosaur skeletons out of the Kaiparowits Formation, but they also commonly find Triceratops, and the occasional Rex. This area is rich in dinosaur fossils. On par with the Badlands in Montana and the Gobi Desert in Mongolia, the Monument is unique in that it contains formations throughout the Mesozoic Era, from the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods. The entire dinosaur fossil history available in a single location, and enough to drive a rock hound wild. I was tempted to jump in the truck and join them. Growing up, my childhood occupation of choice was to be a paleontologist. But I had to keep on moving.

Grosvenor Arch

Crossing the bone dry washes out of Tommy Smith and Wahweep Creeks I made my way towards the Cockscomb, a long upthrust escarpment marking the Western edge of the Kaiparowits. Looking back from the ridge, I could see all the way back to the Straight Cliffs, and the miles and miles of open plateau. I hiked through The Gut of the Cockscomb, and descended into Butler Valley, where I stopped to spend some time at Grosvenor Arches. A delicately eroded double arch, it looks like a broken pretzel turned on it side. I sat and marveled at the unique spectacle of geology as I contemplated the nature of my journey. I have hiked almost 400 miles across the Plateau, mostly along, and have seen some pretty amazing things. Half the time I have to convince myself that this is all real. And now at the approximate midpoint of the trip, I look forward to the miles ahead, and the anticipated return of my hiking partner. I continued on down the road to the trailhead at Round Valley Draw, where I anxiously waited for the arrival of a hopefully healed Ben.

Section mileage: ~81 miles

Waterpocket Fold &The Escalante Corridor (Days 25-33)

Written 5/03/08

Lower Muley Twist

I set off from the Burr Trail in Capitol Reef with a fully loaded pack. I dropped some of my cold weather gear, and picked up an inflatable trail boat, paddles, and dry bags, in addition to a week and a half’s worth of food and water. Thank goodness for industrial strength stitching, cause my pack was bursting at the seams.

Lower Muley Twist was a fantastic canyon. Squeezed in on either side by Waterpocket Fold and the backside of the Circle Cliffs, Muley Twist cuts a sinuous canyon through some of the most spectacular walls around. Historically, it was used as a wagon road between the town of Boulder and Halls Crossing on the Colorado, and is so windy, that it was said it could “twist a mule.” The canyon starts off shallow, but soon cuts through the multiple layers of the upthrust fold. Tight meanders carved recessed amphitheaters so deep they practically cut out the sky. Gigantic walls of sheer white sandstone dropped 1000 feet to the canyon floor. It felt like walking the alleyways of stone skyscrapers. My neck started to cramp from looking up in all directions, and I had to remind myself to keep hiking if I was going to get anywhere.

Eventually, Muley Twist cut through the sandstone cliffs and joined Halls Creek. I filled up my water supplies from the Muley Tanks, one of the few semi-reliable water sources in an arid land of stone. Occurring in the natural depressions of the surface slickrock, the potholes and tanks of the region collect and store surface water and make life possible for countless animals and organisms. I noticed a multitude of tracks in the wash of animals all relying on the tanks to drink—coyote, mice, deer, sheep, cottontails. With filter in hand, I peered into the olive-colored waters rich with organic nutrients, and observed a tiny world at work. The edges were teeming with newly hatched tadpoles, writhing and feeding in the mud. Flashes of metallic green glistened from their dark bodies as they searched the sediment, oblivious to my presence. Aquatic beetles and water boatmen patrolled the depths, their wing-like paddles surging them through the murky waters. And barely visible to the naked eye were the sand fleas, fairy shrimp, and desert water crustaceans that call these pools home. An entire ecosystem in the palm of your hand.

Canyon tree frog

Loaded back up with water weight, I shouldered my pack and followed an old wagon trail down the dry meandering flood plain of the Halls Creek. Leaving the wash, I ventured into the depths of the Fold, hiking up lush side drainages lined with box elder, serviceberry, and ash trees. As I walked the narrow slickrock bottom, a small stone leaped out from underfoot, chirped, and landed in a nearby pool. It was a canyon tree frog. Scooping it up, I marveled at its chalky marbled back, cool grey skin, and lemon yellow toes. It blinked its large wet eyes at me before leaping from my palm back into the waters below. I continued on to the impressive Brimhall Double Arch, after stripping down and swimming a frigid boulder pool, deep in the shadowy depths of the canyon. Scrambling up the angled back of the Reef, I discovered dozens of waterpockets, tanks, and holds all flush with water from the wet winter. Pools spilled into pools, the overflow of one filling the next in succession along the stairstepped crease. I had never seen anything like it before.

Further down Halls Creek, I reached the foot of the 2,200 ft Red Slide, a massive collapse in the walls of the Circle Cliffs that broke through and buried the Fold. I hiked the remains of an old uranium mine track that switchbacked its way up the broad shoulder of the ancient mudslide. As I climbed the rose colored walls of Johnson Mesa fell away to the East. I had an impressive view for miles up and down Waterpocket Fold, the angled monocline jutting out of the crust and ending in a steep ridge of triangular teeth. Leaving the track, I navigated overland to the base of the curving cliffs, grunting heavily and struggling beneath the weigh of my pack. Still climbing, I broke through silver weathered pinyon branches, and ducked beneath sprawling junipers trying to find the path of least resistance. With little energy to spare, I crested the saddle just before sunset and has the whole world spread beneath me. To the East rose the dominant peaks of the Henry Range: Ellsworth, Holmes, Hillers, Pennell, and far away to the North, Mt. Ellen. I looked out over the top of Capitol Reef to the flat benchlands of the foothill mesas. To the West, where I was headed next, spread the Southern parabolic curve of the Circle Cliffs and the low-lying Purple Hills, the wrinkled drainages of the Escalante corridor, and far off on the horizon. The stretching reef of Fifty-Mile Mountain and the eastern edge of the Kaiparowits Plateau. An impressive view.

Waterpocket Fold from the Red Slide

I climbed down from the saddle and dropped into the upper drainages of Middle Moody Canyon. Still exhausted and dehydrated from my climb up the slide, I had a tough day working my way down. The canyon seemed to change personality as it cut through the different sedimentary layers. In the maroon narrows of the Moenkopi, I found fossilized slabs of cracked mud, covered by the flaking crust of the most recent storm—the same phenomenon in the same place but separated by millions of years. Mind-blowing. Further down, it cut through purple benches of lavender stone, producing knobby grape-like formations. Beyond, in the Colorful Chinle, I stepped over an entire petrified tree that had eroded out of the embankment. This place is a geologic wonderland.

I followed Middle Moody down to its confluence with the Escalante River, where I half-expected to meet a roaring torrent of silty mud, best navigated by boat, or not at all, than by foot. Instead, I was ecstatic to find a cool, clear river running no more than kneedeep. I waded out into the flow, easily able to see the worn cobbles of the riverbed, as sandy colored fish darted between my legs. I shouted with joy and splashed in the emerald waters. Stripping down I plunged deep into pools, swimming, kicking, feeling the cool wetness circulate around my parched body for the first time in weeks. I was a sponge soaking it all in, devouring it, consuming it. I sprawled out on a rock in the sun, absorbing the warmth from above and below and felt the droplets evaporate from my skin like cool kisses.

Escalante Corridor

It was time to test out the trail boat I had been lugging around for 35 miles. I pulled out raft and paddle and hauled her to a calm eddy and inflated her. Every craft needs a name, and what better than the newly christened ‘Bonnie Abbzug.’ Hayduke himself would’ve been proud. She took some getting used to, but she was river worthy. I had to kneel down in front for optimal ballast, and with paddles in either hand, we went floating along with the current. We crashed over small rapids like uncoupling boxcars, spray flying everywhere. I startled a beaver from the bank with my shouts of glee, sending it splashing into the river, tail churning beneath the surface. I took her out before any real rapids, in feat of ripping out her bottom or puncturing a sidewall. But it was good to know she was worth her mettle. I packed her back away with hopes I wouldn’t be forced to use her.

On a map, the Escalante River looks like it was drawn by a five year old, a long squiggly line from the Aquarius Plateau to the Colorado River. The canyon is an entrenched meander of bowknots, bends, twists, and turns, cutting through towering wingate cliffs, and carving huge arching amphitheaters, overhanging ledges, abandoned rincons, slopes of fallen rock. The turrets and domes of Navajo and red benches of Kayenta appeared high on the canyon rim, hinting at the world above. So close, yet so far away. But I was down deep in the gut of the gorge with little else but sheer walls on either side.

Trail ledger

The Escalante was full of life. Animal tracks cluttered the mudflats: heron, beaver, sheep, coyote, fox. I encountered ravens, merganser, wild turkey, and a countless number of songbirds and waterfowl I couldn’t identify. Whiptail lizards left signature of reptilian calligraphy in the soft sand. Large fish leapt in the swirling eddies. Plumes of cottonwood fluff sailed on the breeze like specks of arboreal dandruff. I passed hanging canyons that emptied into thin air, and sculpted performance halls with acoustics that would drive a symphony conductor wild.

I followed the narrow corridor for almost thirty miles, crossing and recrossing the river hundreds of times, wading across gravel bars and around rapids, climbing up and down steeply vegetated embankments and rockfalls, clawing through dense thickets of willow and flood debris. Footing was treacherous with slick rocks, loose boulders, and sharp beaver gnawed punji sticks that threatened serious puncture or impalement with false step. The river grew deeper, swifter, and wider with more obstacles every mile. 

The deep gorge funneled the desert gusts into a high speed wind tunnel, blinding me with sand and pelting me with grit till my flesh was raw. By the end, I was scraped, cut, bashed, and bruised; my skin was chafed, cracked and bloodied. These were some of the most tedious and arduous miles I’d ever gone through, but I found myself loving every minute of it.

While hiking the riverway, I imagined running the Escalante at high water. With a canoe or whitewater kayak, you could hit all of the sweeping turns, deep holes, and plunging drops at every rapid. Few full-sized cottonwoods lined the embankments, and all the vegetation was relatively young growth, only a couple of years. Draining a wide reach of the region, a lot of water moves through this corridor. And when the Escalante blows, it blows big. The river must come crashing down the channel in a seething mass, knocking everything out of the way like bowling pins. Flood debris was wrapped and tangled around tree trunks, strained from the flows and stacked 20 feet high. Entire cottonwood trees were left stranded on top of house-sized boulders. Rockfalls trapped branches and sticks thirty feet above water level. Wrath of God-type floods. I wouldn’t want to be here when these happen, cause you wouldn’t be for much longer.

Stevens Arch

I took the time to explore some of the drainages that fed into the main channel. I love the intimacy of small side canyons. The main riverway was magnificent, but also rugged, raw, and wild. Back up the side canyons, the world is quiet, peaceful, serene. The feeling of a Zen sanctuary, a secret lovers’ hideaway. Hanging seeps dripped from the walls, cooled by soft mosses and lacy black-veined maidenhair ferns. Dark morning shadows shaded the deep recesses of horseshoe bends. Water striders skittered across the perfect reflection of the walls above, whole schools of minnows wandered the shallows below. I could have sat in the silence of an alcove for days back there, and just watched the world go by.

Towards the end of the Escalante, I encountered the newest geological layer on the Colorado Plateau—the Lake Powell Formation. Backed up behind Glen Canyon Dam, Lake Powell has left a pale bathtub ring of sun and silt, deposited by years of accumulation at high water. Miles of the Escalante and canyons of the Colorado, not to mention Glen Canyon itself, were flooded out and are silting up beneath the ‘Gem of the Southwest.’ But the falling lake levels have recently exposed hundreds of miles of shoreline that have been submerged for decades. I went on a kayak tip a few years ago, and was fortunate to visit sites like Cathedral in the Desert that had returned from the abyss. If these canyons bear any resemblance to what still surfaces, it is saddening to think about what was lost when Glen Canyon became no more.

The flow became sluggish and the wading difficult. Thick silt and tiny rocks fell out of suspension, collecting in a loose bed of slippery grit that slid into your shoes. Small rocks rubbed and irritated my feet, forcing me to shake out my Chacos every few steps. I looked over my shoulder and saw the curving window of the Stevens Arch behind me. The fifth largest arch in the region, there are stories of daredevil pilots, illegally flying through the gaping hole in the wall. I suddenly realized that my days of solitude were about to end. It had been over six days without seeing another human being—just me and my thoughts.

Cactus blooms

I rounded the bend to Coyote Gulch and suddenly encountered eight people in the first five minutes. The impact of human foot traffic was soon evident, but it was far less than the destruction of ATVs, offroad vehicles, and grazing cattle. Coyote Gulch receives a lot of visitation for one reason—it is simply gorgeous. I spent a few days working my way up the canyon, just relaxing and taking in the wonderful scenery. The sandy creek flowed through thick reeds, beneath towering streaked walls. I walked through park like groves of verdant green cottonwoods, their delicate leaves dancing in the breeze. There was a dazzling array of springtime flowers. Pink plumes of tamarisk; paper-thin magenta flowers of beavertail cactus; pale, lavender-tinged blossoms of narrowleaf yucca; trumpet-shaped red perstemon and scarlet gilia; fields of low-lying ivory primrose. A venerable oasis in the desert. Water flowed from everywhere out of the walls, over the rock, along the ground.

I drank deeply from sweet dripping springs, and followed seeps back to lush pools lined with clematis vines and poison ivy. I passed beneath Coyote Natural Bridge, and gazed up at Cliff Arch and Jacob Hamblin Arch. I chased up onto ledges and caves, where I found a dwelling tucked away below an overhand. I laid out in a curving amphitheatre and listened to the sound of the creek echo throughout the chamber. The place was divine.

Jacob Hamblin Arch

I passed dozens of hikers along the way, each out enjoying the wonders of the canyon. I met two backpackers, Rob and Jim, who were geologists from Salt Lake City. One of them had heard of the HDT, and they were interested in the logistics of the trip. It was nice being in the company of others who shared an interest in being outdoors for a change.

I stretched my stay to the last cup of granola, until I was out of rations and hat to pack it up. I reluctantly headed up the canyon, through Hurricane Wash, where I reentered the adobe swells of Navajo dunes. The drainage cut through some nice narrows, where I walked beneath a squawking nest of ravens. Following the draw back out to Hole-in-the-Rock road, I dug up the next cache, and started preparations for the next section across the vast wilderness of the Kaiparowits Plateau.

Section mileage: ~73 miles

Henry Mountains (Days 20-24)

Written 4/24/08

I camped on the Poison Benches at the base of the eastern slopes of the Henrys, not far from the cache. I could see the early morning traffic of boats and trailers headed for Bullfrog Marina for a day on Lake Powell. Not me. I was headed for the Henry Mountains, the last discovered mountain range in the lower 48.

Approaching the Henry Mountains

I packed up early and set off across the dry shrubland of the Poison Benches, elevated fingers above the rolling Burr Desert. On either side of the bench, gullies carved at the rock, cutting the fluted flanks of Mancos shale. Massive gusts blew me sideways, my pack acting as a sail. At some points, I was leaning into the wind with my entire weight. The strong westerlies sent an armada of clouds racing across the peaks all day.

I spent the day gaining elevation and moving in and out of different ecotones. I started out in shrub steppe, with salt brush and purple prickly pear; and was soon walking through stately pinon and gnarled juniper woodlands. The dirt road climbed higher up the east flank of Mt. Ellen, up Crescent Creek where I found myself amid ponderosa pine, Douglas firs and quaking aspen. Oregon grape covered the forest floor, and patches of Gambels oak still held their fall leaves. It was a total grind of a climb, and for the first time I found it difficult to fuel the furnace within. I couldn’t eat enough.

I soon reached the snowline and found myself postholing past my knees. The snow still lingered where the road turned into the shaded recesses of the cool canyons. A tree exploded nearby, sending my heart racing in my throat. I had startled a grouse from its perch as it noisily took off through the trees. Deer had been following the roads, picking their way through the snow. They didn’t seem to be faring any better than I was in the soft snow, their narrow hooves worse off than my clunky boots. Snowshoes might have helped, but there were enough bare patches that it was hikable without them. I made camp at Wickiup Pass at 9200 feet, the high camp on the trail. That evening, I watched the near full moon rise through a grove of naked aspen. It felt good to be in the alpine again.

Mt. Ellen south summit - 11, 419 feet

I got up early to take advantage of the frozen crust from the cold night. My nalgenes froze again, and I had slush in my Camelbak, but the freeze made walking the snowbanks easier. Past treeline, I turned up the summit ridge and hiked the sloping shoulder to Mt. Ellen’s south summit at 11,419 feet. Normally, there is quite a view from on top. But the high winds the past week had churned the desert into a cloud of dust, and practically cut visibility to the foothills. Disappointed, I ate my lunch behind a snowdrift and tried not to get blown off the mountain. A few wind-whipped firs grew below the ridgeline, completely branchless on the windward side. Contorted and bent, they looked like haggard evergreen flagpoles blowing in the wind.

I began my descent down the south summit ridge, with views of impressive Mt. Pennell and Mt. Hillers, the next peaks in the range, to the south. The ridge was strewn with alternating piles of colorful granite talus: champagne pink, steely blue, rusty iron. Burnt orange and lime green lichens clung fiercely to the rocks, spread like bacterial cultures. It was a gravity descent down, and I had to choose my footing carefully or else risk falling down either side of the mountain. I soon reentered pinon and juniper forest and picked my way through the Sweetwater Creek drainage. The small creek carried the snowmelt from the peaks above, and lived up to its namesake. Walking through the brush, I found a broken coyote skull, and the ribcage of a bison protruding from an embankment. Wild rose grew on the slopes, sticking me with their thorns. My knees and wrists were sore from the 5000 ft descent. As I rested, a black-chinned hummingbird landed on the tip of a nearby branch, flashing its brilliant gorgette, the twig barely bowed beneath its weight. I watched a spotted towhee peck in the dust beneath a juniper, while pinon jays chased each other above.

I made my way off the mountain, and onto the sloping crest of Tarantula Mesa. Looking back from the rim, you could really see how the granite intrusion that became the Henrys forced their way through the sandstone crust, forcing the top layers aside like broken plywood. To the west stood the awesome ridge of Capitol Reef. Waterpocket Fold, a 100-mile wrinkle in the earth’s crust, stood on end across the horizon. I could see the white teeth of Oyster Shell Reef, and the pale humpbacks of Capitol Dome. Stretching to the Reef were the spidery fingers of Tarantula Mesa. As I walked across the mesa top, I found shot-up gas containers, spent .22 cartridges, and empty beer cans (domestic only) along the roadside—welcome signs to redneck country and the all-purpose BLM public lands.

Halfway across the mesa, I came across almost a dozen people standing around in the road, and five silver Ford F-series two-ton pickup trucks parked in the middle of nowhere. Walking up, I took them all by surprise having arrived on foot. They turned out to be a group of folks from the BLM, DNR, Sportsmen for Wildlife, biologists, ranchers, and locals who were working together on a rangeland improvement project. Back in the 1960s, bulldozers chained half the mesa top, clearing out trees to improve grazing for cattle. But lack of water left the wanton destruction for naught. Uprooted trees now litter the landscape like a graveyard. The joint project is to drill a 350-ft well to feed a cattle trough, to improve conditions for animals on the arid range. The hope is the new water source will attract and provide refuge for wildlife, cows and the wild bison that roam the Henrys.

Swap Mesa

They offered me a cold beverage, and I gladly accepted. One guy asked me, “What happened to your skis?” in regards to my trekking poles. The ranchers got a good kick out of that one. When asked where I was headed, I told them Waterpocket Fold—the immediate response was, “There aren’t many ways off this here mesa.” They were right. Tarantula Mesa drops clear off on almost all sides. One of the ranchers suggested an alternate route. He turned out to be the ranch manager of the Sandy Ranch below the mesa on the Notom-Bullfrog road. It was a bulldozed cattle path he had helped improve, but it took me too far north off the route. Still, it was nice to have an alternate plan in case the route I was taking didn’t work out. I thanked him heartily for the valuable advice, and wished them luck on their project, and took off.

Crossing overland, I navigated to the entry point at the end of a rocky spit. I was a bit nervous about the route down, and with due reason. Looking over the edge, it was a 500-foot sheer drop to the canyon floor. The book describes the route off the mesa as having a lot of ‘exposure’. But that could mean a lot of things. I guess what I was most anxious about was just not knowing what to expect. Hiking solo out here, there is little room for error—you are your only safety net. Fear, I realized, is a natural response to the physical challenge of your capabilities. Without fear, we would’ve all died long ago. But if you are rational about it, you can harness your anxieties and channel them into a tool to help you succeed. Thus, fear can become an asset, and not a hindrance.

Mt. Ellen

I entered the drop point and it wasn’t so bad. The route was cairned, and it traversed some benches down a sloping shoulder, before descending a loose scree slope to the bottom. I only had to lower my pack in a couple of places, but in reality, I thought there was more exposure descending the ridgeline of Mt. Ellen. Loose dirt filled the tops of my boots as I glisaded down the scree field, kicking boulders out of the way. Looking back up to the khaki rim, I safely got off the mesa.

I picked my way around the base of the cliffs, hiking around the heads of deeply cut drainages on Swap Mesa. I walked in and around hoodoos and slabs of fallen caprock from the rim above. Broken arrowheads littered the ground, as well as frail rusty cans from old mining camps. New types of iron concretions began to appear. Bowl shaped, they resembled empty walnut shells, birds nests, and abalone. Some were formed into flat washers, while others were split spheres, ranging in size from a bottle cap to your entire head. It’s crazy what you find out here.

I descended off Swap Mesa into Swap Canyon, where I soon crossed the border into Capitol Reef, the third national park on the route. Dodging rolling tumbleweeds, I made it to the massive switchbacks of the Burr Trail, where the road climbs the sloped back of Waterpocket Fold. Named after an old rancher in the area, John Atlantic Burr built this trail to get cattle through the reef. Apparently, he died of a urinary tract infection, after he tried fixing it himself with (ahem) a rusty piece of wire. Don’t try this one at home, kids. Them ranchers were hearty in those days.

Burr Trail

From the top of the switchbacks I could pick out my entire route down from the summit of Mt Ellen, and across Tarantula and Swap mesas. What a view. I spent a day at the top of the Burr Trail, organizing food and gear for the next leg of the journey. Next up, the Escalante.

Section mileage: ~49 miles

Hite to Poison Spring (Days 16-19)

Written 4/19/08

Before setting off on my solo continuation of the trip, I made the decision to purchase a PLB – Personal Locator Beacon. I had been issued similar PLBs on the fishing boats in Alaska. The devices can be activated in a serious emergency and the proper authorities are notified. According to the directions, a serious emergency qualifies as potential loss of life, limb, eyesight or property. While I hope I wont be losing any of those, a PLB is a prudent device to be carrying with me in the places I will be headed.

With everything ready to go again, Ben drove me to the trail in Hite, where we dug up the buckets and split the supplies for one. It was an emotional heartfelt goodbye, and I didn't want to see him go. With plans to meet up somewhere along the trail, I shouldered my pack, and set out for new territory.  I contoured around the base of the Orange Cliffs, and headed up Rock Canyon, where I met my first solo trial. The route climbs a scree slope and passes through a short chimney climb to the canyon rim. I made it through the chimney without difficulty, and began to hoist my pack up with a length of webbing. The pack got stuck beneath the ledge, and the sheer weight nearly pulled me over. No anchors, not good. I retied the pack and tried again, but a sections worth of food and 2.5 gallons of water refused to move. I partially unloaded the pack and hand carried items to the top to lighten the load. Wedging my body into the crack, I hauled the pack to the middle ledge, and dead-lifted it over my head barely getting it to the rim. I was beat, but everything was on top.  So much for a first day.

Looking across the Red Ledges, I felt like I was on the surface of Mars. Rolling red benches spread to the north, cut by low gullies, small washes and shallow drainages.  The land was sparsely covered with low shrubs: Mormon Tea, Saltbrush, bunchgrasses, Buffalo Berry, fiery explosions of Indian Paintbrush dotted the hillsides adding another hue of red to the landscape’s vermilion palette. I crossed overland following my compass and the winding line on the topo map. Each drainage melted into the next, with few landmarks to sight the way. It’d be easy to get lost up here, if you weren’t careful. I saw little sign of human presence except some rusty cowboy cans, and the enigmatic stone cairns of the forgotten Chinese Trail. The few pagoda-shaped stacks were the only features for miles around. I descended the Red Ledges a vertical 600 ft following a steep boulder field to the bottom of Fiddler Cove Canyon. 

Dirty Devil River

Following sheep tracks and the occasional cairn, I picked my way through loose scree and rock, trying carefully not to disturb the balanced angles of repose. Down on the canyon floor, I soon found myself at the confluence of the Dirty Devil River. Draining a wide region from the Fishlake Plateau, the Henry Mountains, Fremont River and the Burr Desert, the Dirty Devil can carry a mere trickle to as much water as the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. At my first crossing, I headed out with my trekking poles testing the depth. The silty water was flowing quickly, rising to just past my knees. Up canyon, I found better, shallower places to cross, but once I wasn’t so lucky.  At one place, I stepped onto the shore and my feet sunk into a mudhole the consistency of thick pudding. The weight of my pack bogged me down like a bloated cow, sinking me to my thighs. I tried one leg, and then the other, but I was stuck good. I leaned forward, shifting my weight, my poles useless in the muck. The mud sucked the Chacos right off my feet, and I had to reach down up to my shoulder to retrieve them. Shuffling around in the mud trap, I was finally able to extract myself, half-covered in nastiness.

I continued up the river corridor, navigating the 8 foot silt banks deposited at high water. Debris lay strewn everywhere including 20ft wooden beams swept down from up river.  I navigated a maze of flooded tamarisk and willows, beating back branches as I walked. Scores of tumbleweeds lined the riverbank like fleets of abandoned shopping carts. Dry mud flats cracked in geometric patterns, the edges curled in the sun. I followed the deep meanders of the river beneath sheer towering walls. In the early morning on a sandbar, I found a blooming garden of pale white and pink primrose flowers, their heart-shaped petals revealing their inner stamens.

I left the Dirty Devil, and headed up Poison Spring Canyon – The start of my 7000ft climb to the top of Mt Ellen. It was a beautiful canyon. The stream bed cut its way back up through the geologic layers. Massive chunks of Wingate sandstone had fallen from the cliff face, the canyon seemed to crumble like the walls of Jericho.  Rock squirrels played on the scree slopes, and fat spiny lizards basked on boulders in the morning sun. At the Chinle layer, I found numerous drill holes and several posted BLM authorized uranium claim sites. Poison Springs is a beautiful canyon, but it might not be for long. Last fall we noticed they had installed several new oil wells on the mesa top of Island in the Sky, just outside the boundary to Canyonlands NP. Is no place sacred anymore?

Up canyon, I ran into a field biologist named Glenn, out conducting Mexican Spotted Owl surveys for a private consulting group. The project was a preliminary survey of the canyon to ensure that no threatened owls resided in the area so that the mining industry could proceed with their drilling. Having previous conducted spotted owl work myself, I told him about a small slot I had explored earlier in the day that definitely had owl sign. He too had found some potential roosts and would check them out later.  Promising news for the owls, not for the miners. Take that resource extraction!

Glenn offered to “buy me a cocktail”, and I couldn’t say no. We kicked back with ice cold margaritas (ooh!) and chips and salsa (ooh! ooh!). Absolute luxuries on the trail. He lived in southwest Colorado, and we soon realized we had mutual contacts in the park service up at Mesa Verde. Glenn was impressed with the trail, and was currently attempting a large trip of his own. He was tackling, in sections, the actual continental divide, not the popular CDT. It involved technical climbing and walking the ridgeline of the continent. No one has actually done it before, and he was spending several years piecing it together. It was nice to share camp and enjoy the company of an interesting guy. 

Further on, the Wingate disappeared, giving way to the red Kayenta, and the adobe Navajo domes. I filled up my containers from a masoned off pipe spring coming straight from the rocks. Delicious cool clear sandstone filtered water. I realized I had done 3 dry camps, and carried enough water to avoid taking from the Dirty Devil and a nasty case of the runs.  Going dry for that long might not be as easy once the weather warms up.

Poison Spring Canyon

While exploring a side canyon, I accidentally spooked a Great Horned Owl from its day roost. Small mammal bones littered the ledge like discarded toothpicks. I climbed higher, through the red benches and on top of the large swells of undulating Navajo. Gale-force winds nearly toppled me over, pummeling me with incredible force from every direction. To the west, stood the snow capped Henrys looming above the drainage.  From above, Poison Spring Canyon was a vulnerable oasis in the middle of the Burr Desert. A narrow ribbon of verdant green and lush Cottonwoods wound its way through sagebrush flats and sandy dunes.  Walking the rim, I found puddles of iron marbles – small round balls collected in depressions in the slickrock. Some were perfectly round, as smooth as glass marbles, while others were cracked like splitting zygotes.  The mitosis of stone. Shapes like raspberries, flying saucers, and paired testicles. The “moki balls” are formed when water leaches out the iron into precipitate formations from the ferrous sandstone. I had never seen such variety in the concretions before.

I walked out the last miles of the canyon with my hat plastered against my face. Wind howled through the gully, blasting me with grit. I crossed Highway 95, dug up the cache buckets, and began the climb to Mt Ellen.

Section mileage: ~36 miles

Canyonlands NP - and a change in plans

Salt Creek - Canyonlands NP

Before setting out into Canyonlands, we took a day of rest at the Outpost to resettle ourselves before really plunging in deep. We picked up our backcountry permit at the ranger station, and ended up weathering out our first heavy storm from the comfort of the barstools at the Outpost grill. Rain dumped down on Beef Basin and the Needles, as we enjoyed hot fajitas and tasty burgers - some much appreciated home cooking by Tracy and Gary. The two of them run the Outpost entirely by themselves, a quirky little camping establishment on literally the edge of nowhere. They haul in their own water, run the place on solar, and are the caretakers and hosts to all who pass through. It was refreshing to see families out camping and visiting their national parks, instead of daytripping from the nearest town with Corporate comfort facilities. The west used to be full of little places like this that are now are falling by the wayside. I'm glad to know that places like the Outpost are still holding on, and we were glad to pay them a visit.

We embarked on our first major modification to the trail. Instead of heading through the Grabens and Butler Wash, we decided to route our journey through Salt Creek in the eastern section of the Needles, reconnecting with the trail in Beef Basin.

Salt Creek ruins

In the past few weeks, I realized how much there really is out here. The problem with the Hayduke Trail is that you travel through a narrow corridor across the Plateau, while getting to see some incredible places. But even then you can't see it all. My list of places to visit off the trail keeps getting longer the deeper we get in. Our itinerary of 100 days is insufficient time to explore the trail. It would take more than an entire lifetime of thorough exploration and appreciation to really get a sense of this place. I guess we'll have to our best instead.

Salt Creek was absolutely incredible. The canyon cut through bands of stacked salmon and creme Cedar Mesa sandstone, carving out towering walls and recessed alcoves. Charcoal stained tears seemed to drip down the sheer cliff faces. Pillars, spires, and sculpted arches abound. We hiked through thick reeds, stands of willow, and forests of naked cottonwoods. Sagebrush and prickly pear grow on the banks of the free-flowing creek. Every bend brought new views and vistas. We hiked along small falls into cool green pools, ideal swimming holes in summertime. Giant pink pastries and golden bagettes sat atop balanced pedestals of stone. We walked among stone gardens shaped like spaceships and frigates, whales and witches hats. I spent one morning exploring the trail up to Angel Arch, following fresh mountain lion prints up the frozen wash. Fine needles of ice spread like feathers in the sand. Every feeder canyon into the main channel tempted exploration and discovery. We had to keep on moving.

Anasazi pictographs

But the most incredible part of Salt Creek were the archaological sites. Ruins and pictograph panels were everywhere, some of the most impressive we have ever seen. The most incredible part about it is that the park service doesn't list them on maps or even advertise their existance. In fact, we saw no sign of cataloging, digging, or stabilization. They are just there for you to discover, as they have sat for a thousand years. We found dozens of stone graineries and storage bins, the fingerprints from the original builders still imprinted in the mud. Ancient corncobs, juniper logs, and potshards. We came across numerous pictograph panels, with images of detailed figures painted with decorated sashes and regalia. Some wore elaborate headdresses, globe earrings, and hanging necklaces. We found negative hands outlined in blowpaint, the single act of breathing recorded on stone for a millenia. I found the print of a small child, the size and height of an eight-year-old. We were absolutely blown away by the few sites we came across. Who knows how many more places lay hidden away, undiscovered?

We hiked out the head of the canyon, following an abandoned pack trail up a scree slope. Not much was left of it, but it was a logical exit point to continue our trek overland. We climbed high along the slopes below Elk Ridge, and easily found our first winter cache just outside Beef Basin. The view from the cache was spectacular. We could see the Roan Cliffs and Sierra La Sals to the north and east, and all the way to the Henrys and Boulder Mountain to the west. And everything in between. We could see a quarter of the state of Utah from our vantage point.

And this is where things changed. Ben had been keeping a close watch on his ankle, since it had begun acting up. But his right knee had begun bothering him, and had been getting progressively worse the last several days. He thought with a little rest, we might get through it. But from there, we were headed even deeper into the backcountry - into Youngs Canyon and Dark Canyon. These canyons are deep crevasses with no way out if something were to go wrong. We decided to play it safe and hike out.

We repacked the cache and routed ourselves through Beef Basin. We hiked among grazing cows and fields of cheatgrass. Lizards scurried in the dust beneath our feet. And the dirt roads were choked with traffic jams of thorny tumbleweeds. Ah, the open range. We hiked back into the park through Chestler Park and the Needles, and eventually got to the pavement and a trailhead. A friendly hiker offered us a ride, and thus we hitched back into Moab and retrieved Ben's truck.

La Sals above the Needles District

From here we are at a crossroads. We spent alot of time deliberating and discussing our options. Ben's projected recovery will take several weeks, and we decided it might be best for him to recouperate back home in Oregon. As for me, I plan on continuing the route, hiking the trail solo. Upon his recovery, Ben will come back down and rejoin me on the trail. But for now I will continue on from Hite, alone.

Hurrah Pass to Needles Outpost

[Written April 8, 2008]
Well, we knew from the beginning that the trip wouldn’t go exactly as planned. We just hadn’t counted on it happening so soon. While hiking through Arches, Ben’s Achilles in his left heel stated bothering him. Not good. He was later diagnosed with minor Achilles tendinitis. With the rest of the trip on the horizon, we decided that rest and time off was the best course of action. Once out of town, there were no good places to really rejoin the trail. Thus, we split up the gear and decided to meet up again at the end of section 2 at the Needles District of Canyonlands. We had lunch together at the Birthing Rock, an incredible petroglyph panel up Kane Creek. The panel features a woman figure giving birth to a globe-like being. Her hands are outstretched with all her fingers carved in distinct relief. Around her, sets of footprints track across the panel, while bighorn sheep frolic with sinuous snakes and multi-legged centipedes. Men with pointed spears thrust arrows into horned animals frozen in stone.

We parted ways, and I headed up to Hurrah Pass to retrieve our first bucket cache. It was like Christmas, opening up the buckets we had packed 7 months ago. Everything I needed was stashed away. I gorged on canned fruit and kippered herring while I divided up the supplies for the upcoming leg. My pack was like a massive brick on my back, propelling me downhill. I felt like a lumbering giant, ready to topple over. I began force feeding myself to cut down on the weight. The hike may have actually been pleasant, it were not for the incessant barrage of ATVs, dirt bikes, and jeeps buzzing past, and not one of them had a smile on their faces! It’s an OHV paradise out here—innumerable canyons to drive up and explore. But every off-roader I’ve talked to has nothing but complaints regarding driving regulations on public lands. Too bad for you, Mr. ATV.

The road followed the Colorado River down Meander Canyon, as I contoured along the base of the Wingate Cliffs. Temples of stacked beets rose into strange hoodoo formations, while other had toppled and fallen like overzealous ice cream cones. From the road, I had views of Island in the Sky, an isolated portion of Canyonlands that sits above the confluence of the Green and Colorado rivers. Eventually, I got to the head of Lockhart Canyon, and dropped down in off the road. I had been camping dry for 25 miles, and got my first water from a trickle of a tiny seep. I stumbled across a rancher’s tool cache, and discovered the skeleton of a female bighorn sheep in the bottom of the wash. The hide was still intact on the forehead and snout, and had turned hard and stiff around the eye sockets. I ran my fingers over the ridged horns, the slender crescents of bone arching back over the skull. What sights this animal must’ve seen, what secrets of this place it must’ve known!

I continued down into and back out the canyon up into Lockhart Basin. A small storm front moved in. From the comfort of an overhang, I listened to rain fall in the desert. Low clouds moved in hugging the mesa tops. I could barely make out the sandstone cliffs through the silver veneer of rain. The storm passed by, leaving small puddles in the depressions of stone. The world was left glistening and damp.

I crossed overland into the head of Rustler Canyon, following cattle tracks into the main wash. A large pour-off kept the bovine out of the lower canyon. I navigated around the ledge lowering my pack to ease in the downclimb. I soon found myself at the confluence of Indian Creek, a beautiful free-flowing stream. Cottonwoods spread their branches across the canyon, seemingly touching both sides at once. Dropping my pack, I headed down canyon to the confluence with the Colorado. At the mouth, a flock of Canada geese were startled by my approach, their honking cries echoing off the canyon walls. A Great Blue heron circled overhead. On my way back, I detoured to a pair of waterfalls over a double pour-off. The top falls poured into a large inaccessible chamber amplifying the sound into a raucous wave of sound. The sound of water in the desert.

The trail continued up and out of Indian Creek, climbing slickrock benches to the western ridge of the drainage. I walked across fields of vermillion chert, strewn across the mesa top. A turkey vulture soared by on the afternoon thermals. No meal here, my friend. Best keep on moving. I picked a route down into a small unnamed drainage, and crossed the border of Canyonlands National Park. A quick road walk got me to the Needles Outpost, a small campground and grill run by Tracy and Gary—who were kind enough to hold a cache bucket for us over the winter.

And I successfully made the rendezvous with Ben. My voice was hoarse and cracked after not talking to anyone for 5 days. The hiking duo are reunited again.

Next up: The Needles and Dark Canyon. We push on to Hite.

Section mileage: ~47 miles