The Vicinity of Moab and Me: An Attempted Rapprochement

Southern Utah isn’t my place. It’s great for 12 hours or so, but then I want water and a color outside the orange-to-red part of the spectrum. Or, at least, THAT’S WHAT I THOUGHT.

Friday: Little Wild Horse and Bell Canyons

These slot-ish canyons are right near the BLM primitive camping sites just outside Goblin Valley State Park. It’s a fun hike. A little dry, I guess, but the occasional slick rock scrambles are entertaining, and, if you haven’t seen red rock in a couple years, it’s pretty.

That night, we stayed at Robber’s Roost (a hotel) in Green River. It was shady, but we didn’t get murdered. The most interesting thing about Green River is that the highest-rated restaurant is a taco truck at a closed-down gas station hanging out under a roof being held up with duct tape electrical tape (see below).

Fine, it’s the light being held up by the tape, not the roof.

Saturday: Druid Arch

Next day, we headed to Canyonlands, a park that I haven’t visited since the early oughts. There, we vultured our way into a parking space at the Elephant Rock trailhead and hiked on out to Druid Arch. It’s another hike with a lot of red rocks, not much water, and some fun slickrock obstacles of which I did not take photos for some reason. But here’s a panorama of the greater Druid Arch area, which would’ve been a decent panorama had I managed to not cut the top off of the arch.

And here’s somewhere else on that same hike, included for the sake of not implying that this is a short hike. Definitely a two-photo’er, at least.

And, at this point, we’d been in southern Utah for about 24 hours and everything seemed pretty good. All ready to pack up and go home and… well, but that wasn’t the plan, since it was still only Saturday. Ben’s cousin-in-law and her friend didn’t get to Moab till that evening, and there was still weekend remaining.

Sunday Morning: Floating the Colorado

Ergo, we went and rafted down the Colorado the next day. It was a pretty float, no real rapids, a lot of red rocks, and, confusingly, some water (!). Here’s the only photo that I appear to have taken of the event. Ben’s Pit Vipers were, as always, on point.

Sunday Afternoon: Corona Arch

I don’t remember. I wrote most of this post in June 2021, and it’s right now more than a year later. We hiked most of the way to the arch. Marissa’s dog sure wasn’t getting up that ladder, though, and seemed to be having a hard time throughout. But, Ben, Stephanie, and I went up the ladder, took in the long view of the arch, then called it good.

Sunday Evening: Delicate Arch

And, again, it’s been a while, and my recollection is that I was pretty tired to still be hiking at this point, and then the end of the hike tripped my acrophobia a little. But, I’d never been to Delicate Arch before, and now I have. So — that was cool.

It’s all fine. Just: dry, and everything is some shade between orange and red. And I still don’t *love* love southern Utah. Maybe I can boost the expected pleasantness period up to 24 hours now though.

Also, for a few months of my time with Ben, I had a sign on my fridge that said, in part, “remember, southern Utah is *nice*”. I dunno. It’s nice. I should like it. It’s been a weird last few years.

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Narrows IV: Riding the Lightning

I’m not quite a year behind on travel posts yet.

Last summer, I went with (led?) the River Heights 4th young men on a trip through the Narrows. This marked the third consecutive year of doing a trip through the Narrows (c.f., 2016, 2017).

I didn’t take my camera on this one because I was trying to live in the moment for once. Plus, I’ve probably taken enough photos in my life that badly convey that, hey, this canyon is kind of narrow. But for the sake of visual interest, here’s a photo on the walk back from dinner at a pretty meh cafe near the campground we stayed at.

This trip was way more fun than I thought it would be. All the kids were easy — helpful even.

It was also more exciting than I thought it would be.

It had been raining a lot during July (this trip was in July). During our cruise through the park the afternoon before our morning departure, it was clear that the rains had left the river very muddy — the 2016 and 2017 versions had a perfectly clear river. So, while that seemed a little unfortunate, from a weather perspective it looked like we had a pretty clear two-day window to complete the hike.

The night before we left, we were camping at a campground in the park. It was hot. This isn’t the exciting part. The temps were still in the mid-80s at 10 PM, though. I was intending to sleep in the back of my car. It was hot there. At 11, while everyone else (three other adults, nine teenage kids) was restlessly tossing in their tents, I got in the driver’s seat of my car, turned the engine over, and started up the A/C.

Then it occurred to me that, since I wasn’t sleeping, maybe I should take a little drive in the A/C (so the engine wouldn’t keep anyone awake).

Then it occurred to me that, so long as I got back to camp early enough the next morning, no one would probably care if I happened to have slept in my car or elsewhere.

Verizon had good coverage in the park. There was a brand new hotel in La Verkin with a $99 room available. So I booked it, drove 45 minutes to La Verkin, slept four hours, then drove 45 minutes back to the campsite so I could be there before 5 AM reverie.

We got the kids up and moving at 5, struck camp (I think I’m using that word right), packed up, then headed over to the park visitor’s center to meet the 6 AM van that would take us to the trailhead.

The van was, of course, late, and the ride to the trailhead was uneventful despite the company having told us the week before that, depending on the weather conditions, they might end up having to drop us off a mile from the trailhead because the road would be washed out. (It wasn’t, we were dropped off at the trailhead.)

So then we started in on the hike. As we would find out later, about an hour after we hit the trail, the Parks Service changed its canyon weather forecast from “flash floods possible” (the default forecast during most of the summer) to “flash floods probable” (meaning everyone would likely die).

Anyway. Once we got into it, the river was very muddy. Going was slower than it had been the two years previous since you couldn’t see where your next step was going to land. Was glad I’d told everyone that trekking poles weren’t optional (and that Dave, one of the leaders who didn’t come, had access to a wide array of used ski poles for the kids).

Our group was a little big (there were 13 of us total; don’t worry, the NPS has since “put my name on a list” for having too large a group) and we therefore had two campsites reserved (for which I’m also supposedly listed). We ended up splitting up our group with the faster hikers going to the further campsite.

We came upon the campsite at about 4:30. The trail off the river and into the campsite was a little vague, though. I tried to climb up the bank and stepped into a deep mud-hole that took me about thigh-deep into mud (and waist-deep into the water). The harder I tried to get out, the deeper I sank.

Fortunately there were other people there, and Matt, one of the young men who’d already made it ashore, pulled me out of there.

Everyone in our advanced group started setting up camp. Since this was southern Utah, which is a hot, dry place, and likely in part because of how miserably hot, dry it had been the night before, no one in our group (other than me) brought a tent with them. So it was kind of a happy moment when, after about 20 minutes, the light rain that had come stopped.

I checked my GPS transmitter for the night’s weather some time after dinner: 10% chance of 0.05″ of rain. And then around 10:30 the thunderstorm hit and continued most of the night, coming down in east coast-style waves. Which was fine for me — I had a tent and a rain fly. Just a little loud and a couple times I woke up wondering how high the river was and how close I was to floating away in it.

It was never that high. I was fine. That was the exciting part.

Next morning we walked the rest of the way back into the park. A couple miles from the end was a ranger checking the permits of every group with backpacks. She was the one who put my name on a list. They became aware of our too-large group when all the kids parents started calling the ranger station to see if their kids had drowned.

Anyway,

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Goblin Valley with Dog

In May I drove down to Goblin Valley with Dog.

The dog does not like riding in the car. I usually put her in her crate while driving anywhere with her, since otherwise she gets really agitated, wants to sit on my legs, then wants to crawl on my shoulders, then invariably wedges herself between the headrest and the side of the car. Invariably. Point being, I gave her another shot to sit up front with the human on this trip and she went all flat-eared on me, shedding most of her fur before giving it her all trying to kill us both before managing to wedge herself between the headrest and the side of the car.

I don’t actually get Goblin Valley. It’s a state park and in Utah fwiw, but I don’t see the point of staying there for more than about a half-hour. During our half-hour tour of the park, I took these pictures.

Which seems to be most of what there is to see there. Well — there was some slot canyon also, but we didn’t go there since doing so might have made it more difficult to disparage Goblin Valley after the fact (taking the dog into the slot canyon wouldn’t have worked well). The dog was thirsty most of the time. Also, all the hoodoos were cool, but if I’d let her off her leash, I never would have found her again. Also, when we pulled into the parking lot, there was a field trip of Park City private middle school kids who wanted to interact with the dog, with one of them fairly accurately describing to his classmates the various fur coloration possibilities of purebred Pembroke Welsh corgis.

Camped in one of the rough non-campsite campsites that you find on every dirt road within a couple miles of the park entrance. Was free and a cool location, but dry. Bats came out at night, though, which was nice. We slept in the back of the car, but not well.

The end.

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I Hiked the Narrows Again, October 2017 Version

TBH, the experience isn’t trite or cliche for having done it two years in a row now. OTOH, blogging about it kind of is (2016 Narrows hike, and that one previous that was pre-blog) .

So what made this one different?

• 2017 is a different year than 2016, and I am much wizened.
• It’s colder in October. Especially on the second day, after the swim. (Note to self: take clothes off prior to the swim next time.)
• Fall color!
• Mice at the campground.
• Non-relative as co-hiker.
• Overcrowded shuttle full of trust-fund kids all the way to the trailhead.
• Still kind of too many people for the last four miles, despite it being a Monday.
• I don’t remember what my pack weighed, but it was not very much (19 lbs.?).
• My favorite compact camera got destroyed on this trip. In another $400, will replace. Maybe.

Most of these photos are mine, but one is Layton’s, used with eventual permission and editing. Overall, his photos were way better. Perhaps I shouldn’t bemoan my camera as much as my lack of vision and mindfulness.

(King of the trust-funders, front-left.)

And my favorite, now-dead camera’s last-ever photo:

Goal for next time: Don’t take a camera, live in the moment, maybe write a haiku at the end. Also, be prepared for mice.

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Hiking the Narrows II: The Wrath of Zion

Overnight version of the Virgin River Narrows, undertaken July 23-24, 2016. The weather was warm. River flow was somewhere in the 40s, whatever that means. Ranger said there were no expected thunderstorms but that that could change at any second, and probably would, especially if I didn’t give him the exact license plate number of my brother’s truck*. Ranger was kind of, I dunno, flighty though, so <shrug>. We verified the weather forecast before setting out. And we’re sure glad we did! Although it didn’t really change anything; it’s good to have a good process.

Anyway, the weather was warm and dry for the two days of the trip. We eventually would stop at Campsite #5, which I had reserved back in May, somehow 30 minutes before the reservation system was supposed to be available. Let that be a lesson to you.

Fine. Photos, then some notes I guess.

Five intrepid, leaning adventures, having accepted the high probability of instantaneous death by narrowness. (I was also in the vicinity.)

The first part of the trail isn’t actually all that narrow.

After an hour or so. Still not that narrow, but narrowing.

Ever narrowing. Kind of like that ride they used to have at Disneyland (which was apparently called Adventure Thru Inner Space Presented by Monsanto). The one where you got shrunk to atom-size.

Father and daughter, contemplating the value of eventual tight spaces.

We took the one more traveled by — since our only other options were scaling rock walls or going in reverse.

My brother’s wardrobe malfunction.

Narrower.

Sometimes, the narrowness could only be addressed through close-proximity hiking.

Narrowness, extended upward. How high you think that is? I dunno, 500 feet? Looks like more. Fine, what number you want, 1,000? 2,000? Anyway.

Even the trees: narrow.

We’ll just tie up a rope and rappel down the (narrow) waterfall. No, no, that’s not a trail over there that goes around it. Don’t be foolish, I’ve been here before, you haven’t.

Helpfully, Craig indicates the direction of the sky.

Narrow, but also kind of wavy in spots.

Dusk falls at Campsite 5.

Next morning, Garry and Craig make a narrow escape. But not *that* narrow.

Knee-deep in narrow.

(Slight) evidence that I also was present.

Further evidence of narrowness.

More straight than.

Less straight, narrower again.

‘Nother picture. Same hike. Still fairly narrow (the canyon I mean).

Narrower still? (Trust me, I’m getting tired of putting photos into this post as well as coming up with not-even-pun captions.)

Point being, I guess, that the second day is, on average, narrower than the first. And the further you go, the more impressive+imposing the whole thing gets.

And then sometimes the water is a nice color.

And then, the river choked with day-hiking tourist hordes from below, you stop taking pictures — no matter how narrow the scenery — race to the bottom, take the bus back to the parking lot, then drive back to the trailhead so your brother can pick up his truck and, while you’re waiting for him to use the bathroom, you take a picture of your own car because, I dunno, you can I guess, plus you’ve taken over 300 photos in the last 36 hours so that by this point it just seems like it’s what you do.

See, ‘cuz the whole thing is called “The Narrows” and… eh, you wouldn’t get it. Had to be there probably.

Some other thoughts (numbered, because this WordPress theme handles bullets badly):

1. Stupid captions aside, this is still probably my favorite overnighter on earth.
2. Wish the other invitees would have made it as well, but ended up with a great company.
3. Last time we did this (2005), the water level was a little higher. This time seemed a little more easy-going as a result.
4. Plus, last time none of us had ever done it before, so there was some uncertainty about whether certain death lay around each narrow corner. It didn’t, it doesn’t.
5. I wouldn’t have minded having an earlier campsite (i.e., number 1–4). #5 was fine, but you’re pretty exposed in some pretty hot weather for the first couple hours of the hike, so a shorter Day 1 wouldn’t be the worst thing. Plus, the mid-way point is probably somewhere around campsite #1, Day 2 seemed a little too easy, and it felt like we ran into the tourist hordes way too soon.
6. And I don’t understand driving all the way from LA to Zion National Park and walking four miles upstream just so you can throw rocks into a river.
7. Zion NP is *packed* on a July Sunday. Next time: May or September, midweek, hope for the best.
8. And maybe try the shuttle.
9. I’ve gotten better at lightweight backpacking, although I’m questioning whether the TarpTent Notch is really overall preferable to my old Lightyear.
10. Osprey makes faulty bite valves. Stupid Osprey.
11. Mounds bars are a lot better solid than semi-melted.

I think that’s most of the important things.

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* I gave him the correct license plate number for the truck, which was still on the road a couple hundred miles away, then decided to give him the wrong one for my Jeep (located 50 feet away), cuz what the heck do you even need license plate numbers for dude? Anyway.

Cedar Breaks National Monument = Bryce Canyon – (.5 * Bryce Size) – (.95 * Bryce Crowds)

Basically Bryce Canyon, but not as big and definitely not as crowded. Similar hoodoos though. I was there on June 22nd, driving from SLC to San Diego.

Later that night I slept at a rest stop on the California side of the CA-NV line. I-15. The idling semi trucks were like white noise. The person whose car alarm went off once every two hours will one day pay for his (her) insolence.

Long before that, though:

A marmot.

The road out.

It’s a national monument that warrants about four photos and I *do* now realize that I should have taken more (a non-zero number of) pictures of the rest area. Although you’ve probably been there yourself — metaphorically if nothing else.

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Coyote Gulch Hike Featuring Jacob Hamblin Arch, An Overnighter

1. We set off from the Hurricane Wash trailhead and did the hike as an out-and-back overnighter, camping near the Jacob Hamblin Arch.
2. The most inspiring scenery of the hike (the series of high-walled amphitheaters that curve overhead) is hard to photograph.
3. Hiking to the arch and back from Hurricane Wash would be very doable as a day hike (ca. 14 miles).
4. The first five miles of the hike are merely pleasant; the good scenery picks up after the confluence with Coyote Gulch.
5. Hiking past the arch, there’s some cool scenery for a couple miles, but after the petroglyphs, there’s not much else on offer (we didn’t hike all the way to the confluence of the Escalante, though, so there might be something great that we missed).
6. The campsites were all pretty amazing with great views and soft sand for easy sleeping. Don’t know that I’ve ever slept any better on a backpacking trip.
7. You have to walk through the water in several spots, but you never have to go more than ankle deep if you don’t want.
8. We didn’t find the fresh water sources that I’ve seen referenced in other write-ups.
9. The problem with Mountain House isn’t that it tastes bad, it’s that it’s too much of one thing; the JetBoil is still an amazing product.
10. Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah is where this is.

Endut.

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Spooky and Peek-a-Boo Gulch II: Revenge of the Slot Canyon

Right, so headed out to southern Utah a couple weeks ago to meet up with two of my brothers and go backpacking in the world’s longest hikable slot canyon, Buckskin Gulch. Then it was too cold (per the ranger, the puddles were waist deep and, per the weather report, it was below freezing overnight therefore, per common sense, we considered the likelihood of frostbite), so we bailed on that one and drove up to Escalante* instead.

I hiked Spooky and Peek-a-Boo Gulches about the same time last year. It didn’t change much during the intervening 13 months. Here are pictures (obviously).

As was noted last year, it’s a very skinny slot canyon:

Getting through the gulches requires some amount of athleticism (or your older brother to offer you a hand):

It was sort of a rock-fall chimney that you had to climb through. I took the photo from the top part (I went first since I was athletic enough), Garry’s at the middle part, and Craig’s coming up from the bottom.

And then Peek-a-Boo has cool little features like this:

And this:

And then there’s the 20-foot drop to exit Peek-a-Boo, which isn’t as bad as it sounds. This is an awesome hike, btw. It doesn’t hold a lot of surprise for me at this point, but I’d do it again tomorrow just because it’s a fun set of situations to have to navigate.

Then we went to Lower Calf Creek Falls, which I’d also visited before (on the road trip). Not much wonder there, either, but a nice, easy hike and still pretty.

And then we went to Coyote Gulch on an overnighter, but that warrants its own post. Not that I’ll necessarily get around to it, just that it’s warranted.

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* That is to say, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument**, which is accessed via the town of Escalante.

** AKA, the Bill Clinton Came in Third in Utah, So He Didn’t Care about Pissing People Off There by Surprise-Executive-Decreeing a National Monument That Locals Didn’t Want Monument.

Utah’s Paria Canyon, An Overnighter

Hike started at the Paria Townsite, about 30 miles east of Kanab. The townsite was an actual town until 1900 or so and then was later used as the site for some (purpose-built) sets for a few western movies (of which I’ve only seen The Outlaw Josey Wales). Headed up the Paria River and through the canyon until I got tired and set up camp. Camp looked like:

Pretty area. Nothing really in terms of landmark, must-see stuff, but otoh, I didn’t see anyone else in the canyon/on the river at all over the 16-or-so miles I hiked. Kind of a muddy river. Spent maybe 20-percent of the time actually in the river (max: knee-deep). Was probably a good thing I took poles.

Ended up doing this hike because I didn’t really want to do the “big hike” I’d signed up for (Buckskin Gulch and the *Arizona* Paria). Mostly because four days was going to be too long to be sleeping on the ground and too short to have a good time on a 48-mile slot canyon hike through a river. I’ll do it on purpose some time, take my truck so I can park at one of the Utah-side trailheads, and go in at Wire Pass and out at White House. Some day.

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Spooky Gulch, Peek-a-Boo Gulch, and Dry Fork Hike

I was told that I had to do the “beginner” slot canyons along the Hole-in-the-Rock Road once in my life. They’re tourist hikes, thus the reluctance. If not for that, they’re pretty fantastic (was the gist).

They were pretty fantastic and there were a lot of tourists. Frex, here’s half of the parking lot:

It’s showing fewer than half the cars that were there. Kind of amazing given that you’re driving 28 miles down a washboardy dirt road. OTOH, the Prius made it, so it’s obviously not a big hurdle.

When I got there, there was a huge family group just heading down the trail. It was grandma’s birthday. Probably 40 people ranging from age 0 to maybe 80. The posted maximum group size is 12. They wore a lot of University of Utah gear. Draw your own conclusions. Mine involves West Valley City, one of those 2 1/2-year missions to Russia, and a ward where there is no Sunday school.

Headed down the trail:

You can actually see the entrance to Peek-a-Boo Gulch in that photo, but you’d have to know what you’re looking for. It’s just a fold in the rock, about halfway up and 25% over from the left. Waldo and so forth. Here’s what it (the opening) looks like zoomed in:

It goes toward the left. Anyway.

Catherine at the B&B had given me instructions that involved starting the loop by going up Peek-a-Boo. By the time I got down there, though, I’d caught up to The Family Group and, thinking that a narrow slot canyon might decrease the usual joy I receive at listening to the cries of a hundred ten-year-olds, I kept going toward Spooky Gulch.

Which, after the fact, I think was better anyway. It’s narrower, but a whole lot easier to get into.

Here’s the one place I had to get down on hands and knees and crawl along the dirt like a common lizard:

And then things got narrower.

So I think that was the narrowest spot in the canyon. I had to walk through their sideways and, even doing so, the rock walls were compressing my chest as I slid through. It’d probably be less dramatic if you squatted down a little bit, but I didn’t do that. (I had to take the backpack off in order to fit through sideways.)

This would kind of be a bad hike if you were claustrophobic. Or, like, stout.

After a while, you come to parts of the slot where you have to scramble a little. Here’s one:

Not sure if the photo captures it, but you’re trying to squeeze through some tight spaces while climbing up “steps” that are chest-high and not crack your head open in the process. It’s kind of fun. Here’s another little hole I had to climb through (photo taken after climbing):

While you’re walking through the gulch, there are some spots where the sun gets down to the bottom of the slot, others where you can’t see the sky. It’s interesting. The rock formations are cool and weird, Seussian even.

Oh, and it’s sort of awkward (especially in Spooky Gulch) when you hear someone coming down the canyon when you’re going up. There aren’t a lot of convenient passing locations.

Not too long after the arch, you exit Spooky and you’re up on a flat, red-sand plain. According to the directions I got from the B&B hostess, I needed to turn left at a right angle and keep walking until I found Peek-a-Boo Gulch. Catherine, the hostess, suggested that I err on cutting the angle too acutely rather than too obliquely, since if I missed the end of the slot I’d end up wandering through the desert for a couple weeks before probably dying.

Here’s what the route between the gulches looks like:

I figured that so long as I followed the footsteps, at least I’d see where other people had died of dehydration before doing so myself. Didn’t work out that way, of course. Here’s the top of Peek-a-Boo Gulch (close to the top anyway):

So, yeah, then you basically just go down there. Peek-a-Boo Gulch isn’t quite as narrow as Spooky, but it’s got a few more unusual features. Here’s a hairpin turn I thought was cool:

Yep. Then here’s a cool arch+light situation:

It’s kind of hard to get into good positions to take photos in there sometimes. Here’s a bridge overhead:

And then you’re just about at the bottom of Peek-a-Boo, where it gets kind of interesting. There are a couple of big pot holes that you have to either long-jump or climb down and back up. Fortunately there were some people around there so that when my long jump fell a little short I got a hand-up so I didn’t have to retreat down into the mud. These potholes are positioned between some pretty cool arches:

And then this is how Peek-a-Boo ends. Or how it begins if you start here:

So it’s pretty close to straight up from where I’m standing to where the green jacket guy is, and then it’s pretty much straight down from where I’m standing to the bottom of that wall. And at this point, I was wondering how it is that this is such a *tourist* hike. Seems like a lot of narrow squeezes, pull-ups, having to trust your entire weight to the friction between the soles of your boots and a near-vertical wall, and stuff like that to be such a tourist hike. Oh well. Maybe it’d be way more crowded without those features. Or maybe way less.

Catherine also suggested heading up Dry Fork as sort of a cool-down after Spooky and Peek-a-Boo. It was nice, not nearly as dramatic, but: nice.

It does open up a little better and let a little more light in, though.

Then once you get to the top of Dry Fork, you head cross-country looking for the parking lot.

Really cool experience, something I hadn’t done before, worth doing, etc.

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