Tracking Mike
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Extra vacation days at the end of the year made for an opportunity to head to Southern Utah and check out Zion in the winter again. The snow had hit the area pretty good. The campground at the park entrance had all melted off, but once you got into the main areas of the park, there was a lot of snow. There was a lot of limited access on the trails due to ice and the risk of falling ice. We went up to the West side of Zion which typically is fairly accessible due to the sun it gets, but there was still a few feet on the ground. Checkerboard Mesa was buried, with no hint of the underlying rock. We explored a bit in the backcountry, but we weren't dressed for it since we had just gotten into the area, and we could've used some snowshoes to get out a bit further.
Our second day we went up into the Emerald Pools. The lower pool trail was closed at the pool due to a sheet of ice on the trail, and an iced over railing. We had ice traction on our feet, so we got through that no problem. The water was flowing nicely in the waterfalls and made for some cool shots. As usual, the middle pool was unremarkeable...The upper pool had a few sections that were ice as well, making some difficult trekking for those without traction. The upper pool was mostly frozen, with a gorgeous waterfall coming down into it. After that we ventured down the river walk, by the Narrows a little until we hit the spot where it was closed off.
With the conditions we had, we decided to move on somewhere else, so we took off to Page for the night, and then on to Moab through Monument Valley. That's always a cool area of the country to drive through. We had enough time to get up into Arches and hike to the tunnel I had heard about. It was pretty easy to get to, even with a layer of snow on the ground. There were a lot of other recent footprints, but we didn't see anyone else. I only had a vague idea of its location from what I studied on Google Earth 4 months back, but we made it up there in good time. It's really cool to see a natural feature like that, and getting into the Arches backcountry is something I have wanted to do for a while. I want to get back there a lot more in the coming year. The next day we visited Landscape Arch. There was quite a bit more snow in that area of the park. I still can't believe that arch is still standing. It barely has any depth to it on the right side. I went there with the full intention of seeing it for the last time. Speaking of, I headed up the trail to see the remains of Wall Arch. It's hard to tell that anything was there, except for the debris on the ground.
View the pictures of the Zion/Moab trip
January 6, 2009
December 3, 2008
We initially planned to do the Boucher Trail, but with the amount of precip we didn't want to be on such a rugged trail, and fortunately due to the weather there were a few cancellations so we were able to get permits for the Tonto East area over 3 nights.
We got to the Grand Canyon on Thanksgiving, and it was snowing, and incredibly cold. The clouds were playing with the tourists, giving only brief glimpses of the canyon to everyone. The cloud level was about a 1/3 of the way down the canyon walls. We got to the Grandview Trailhead using a Xanterra taxi. What a rip! To get from the South Kaibab Trail Parking to the Grandview Trailhead, it cost us $43.
Fortunately even though there was 4 inches on the ground on the rim, the trail was relatively uncovered, unfortunately, our visibility was about 50 ft. It was kind of cool though, even though we didn't have any views for a while. It felt like some chinese based movie where they're on a trail in the mountains, and it's really foggy. It wasn't until we reached a saddle that we had any view of the canyon, but it was short lived. Once we dropped further down the clouds became fleeting and finally we were completely below the cloud level.
After another few hours of hiking we made it to Cottonwood Creek. There were a few campsites after heading down canyon a ways, and we camped at one of the first, with some shelter from trees, right where the flowing creek came in. As you continue down towards where the Tonto heads East below Horseshoe Mesa there are a few larger, flatter campsites on the rock shelves above the creekbed.
After that, things were again very characteristic of the Tonto Trail. Never climbing much, or dropping much, but extensive routes to the tops of drainages, and back to the river, all at the same elevation. Grapevine is supposed to be one of the worst drainages to navigate around. At the beginning, the other side is very close, but to get there you have to go 3 miles up and 3 miles back, but this is the Tonto - flat miles that go by quickly. We camped before Boulder Creek, just around the corner from Grapevine, and had basically the same vista to hike to as we did the morning before.
Lonetree was my primary water source. It's only been a week, but I can't remember if I filled up anywhere else. The potholes in Lonetree were still in the morning shadows, and it was a huge coldsink, and was freezing!
Our next night was Cremation Creek, right before the area boundary line. Cremation was a challenge to get through after a few days of easy walking. Instead of maintaining a constant elevation here, you drop in and out of a series of canyons. Close to the top of the last canyon is a campsite with rock benches, a huge overhanging rock for shade, and a large flat spot to camp on.
From there the fun ends. It's a nice climb up to the Tipoff on the South Kaibab and then the challenging climb up the South Kaibab. Foolishly I didn't eat my granola for breakfast, and my energy stores tanked halfway up. I didn't want to take myself on a blood sugar roller coaster ride by eating enough of something to get me the rest of the way out, so I put up with a shuffling pace, waiting for energy from fat stores to be freed up and muscle broken down for energy. It took a little longer to get out, but I did it. The total trip was just over 28 miles.
For Tonto Trail planning check out the All Hikers Website.
Check out the pictures
We got to the Grand Canyon on Thanksgiving, and it was snowing, and incredibly cold. The clouds were playing with the tourists, giving only brief glimpses of the canyon to everyone. The cloud level was about a 1/3 of the way down the canyon walls. We got to the Grandview Trailhead using a Xanterra taxi. What a rip! To get from the South Kaibab Trail Parking to the Grandview Trailhead, it cost us $43.
Fortunately even though there was 4 inches on the ground on the rim, the trail was relatively uncovered, unfortunately, our visibility was about 50 ft. It was kind of cool though, even though we didn't have any views for a while. It felt like some chinese based movie where they're on a trail in the mountains, and it's really foggy. It wasn't until we reached a saddle that we had any view of the canyon, but it was short lived. Once we dropped further down the clouds became fleeting and finally we were completely below the cloud level.
After another few hours of hiking we made it to Cottonwood Creek. There were a few campsites after heading down canyon a ways, and we camped at one of the first, with some shelter from trees, right where the flowing creek came in. As you continue down towards where the Tonto heads East below Horseshoe Mesa there are a few larger, flatter campsites on the rock shelves above the creekbed.
After that, things were again very characteristic of the Tonto Trail. Never climbing much, or dropping much, but extensive routes to the tops of drainages, and back to the river, all at the same elevation. Grapevine is supposed to be one of the worst drainages to navigate around. At the beginning, the other side is very close, but to get there you have to go 3 miles up and 3 miles back, but this is the Tonto - flat miles that go by quickly. We camped before Boulder Creek, just around the corner from Grapevine, and had basically the same vista to hike to as we did the morning before.
Lonetree was my primary water source. It's only been a week, but I can't remember if I filled up anywhere else. The potholes in Lonetree were still in the morning shadows, and it was a huge coldsink, and was freezing!
Our next night was Cremation Creek, right before the area boundary line. Cremation was a challenge to get through after a few days of easy walking. Instead of maintaining a constant elevation here, you drop in and out of a series of canyons. Close to the top of the last canyon is a campsite with rock benches, a huge overhanging rock for shade, and a large flat spot to camp on.
From there the fun ends. It's a nice climb up to the Tipoff on the South Kaibab and then the challenging climb up the South Kaibab. Foolishly I didn't eat my granola for breakfast, and my energy stores tanked halfway up. I didn't want to take myself on a blood sugar roller coaster ride by eating enough of something to get me the rest of the way out, so I put up with a shuffling pace, waiting for energy from fat stores to be freed up and muscle broken down for energy. It took a little longer to get out, but I did it. The total trip was just over 28 miles.
For Tonto Trail planning check out the All Hikers Website.
Check out the pictures
October 3, 2008
The time finally came to go on a super long trip. This was one of my most complicated trips to plan, logistically speaking, but that's not saying much. Most of my trips are really simple to put together. The plan was to do 10 days on the Green River between the city of Green River, and the Confluence of the Green and Colorado River – traveling through Labyrinth and Stillwater Canyons. We setup a shuttle with Tag-a-Long to take us to our put-in and pick us up at the Confluence. I switched the put-in to be at Crystal Geyser instead of Green River State Park to avoid the hassle of dealing with a ranger. It also cut off a few mundane miles. If I could do it over, I would just put-in at Ruby Ranch and shave off a few more miles. There is some interesting stuff between Crystal Geyser and Ruby Ranch, but not enough to be worth it, in my opinion. The Labyrinth permit is free, and filled out in duplicate, and one is left at your put-in, the other taken with you. The Stillwater permit is $20 and there's no limit to how many groups are on the river, so if you request a permit, you get it. That's totally different than other permit systems I've come to know from our National Parks.
We took 3 kayaks and 1 canoe. Fortunately we had the canoe for carrying stuff like coolers, and a camp stove. It made things a lot nicer. We were at Crystal Geyser for a few hours getting our boats loaded up, and hoping that the geyser would go off. The wait paid off, and the geyser went off for about 10 minutes, shooting in short and tall bursts. Our shuttle driver waited around to make sure we could carry all our gear, but we managed to get it all in. I didn't have the advantage of having the kayak I was using to do a dry run with packing, so I'm glad that all of my stuff fit, and didn't weigh me down too much.
So we took off, and started down our long journey through the canyons. The current was slow at 1.5-3 mph depending on the section, so we paddled, a lot. We went through some class toddler rapids almost from the start, then everything was smooth. I knew we should expect some wind to deal with, but what we got the first 3 days, was over the top. The wind would make 12” waves that we'd be powering through, trying not to come to a standstill, or even worse, blown backwards. After the first 3 days though, the winds weren't bad at all.
I didn't recharge my GPS after my tests with the solar panel and battery pack, but I did try to let the battery pack recharge some. The GPS only lasted 4 hours, and I found out that I can't run the solar panel and expect it to charge the GPS at the same time. I turned the battery pack off so it couldn't try to charge the GPS and let the battery pack recharge during the day, then switched the battery pack on so it could recharge the GPS at night while it was off. That worked a lot better, but wasn't enough to keep the GPS alive the whole time I was on the river like I had hoped since one battery was always charging while the other was draining.
We had to carry all of our water, so at 1 gallon per person per day, it was a lot of water. I was cooking my lunch with river water that I filtered through a bandanna to get rid of the larger sand particles. The remaining silt was unnoticeable in the cooked food. Notwithstanding, we had a collapsible water bucket that we used to let river water settle out overnight, then we ran that through a water filter for dinner the next night. If we had two buckets we probably could've gotten away with not carrying all our drinking water – but filtering is such a pain.
We didn't encounter any other people until we made it to the Trin Alcove, then we saw them taking off before we got there. We didn't see them again until we were at the Bowknot Bend. They had camped at the site where the trail is that leads up to the divide. They were only doing Labyrinth, and had a large raft, and a ton of kayaks.
That night (night 3) we slept on a big sand bar, on our own island. The sunset was incredible, and someone had sculpted mud into a frog, a mouse, a little man, and something else. It was fun to be on our own little island.
When we got to Mineral Bottom, where there is a take-out, we didn't see anybody there. I was expecting to see a ranger, maybe a backcountry office, or something since some people mention talking to rangers there in their trip reports, but there were only a few signs, a few registries, and two pit toilets. So we had lunch there, and kept on going through Labyrinth.
When we officially entered Canyonlands the landscape opened up and we were out of Labyrinth. Stillwater wasn't as scenic as Labyrinth, but the far-reaching vistas of Canyonlands were cool. The cliff walls were fairly short until we got closer to the Confluence. It was here that we first started seeing people again. The first were on a sandbar spying on us with some binoculars. We later found out that they were looking for Tag-a-Long branding on our boats to see if we were the group they were taking out with. We didn't rent our boats, so they didn't know till we met in person that we were. We kept on until we got to a site further down the river where there are some ruins and an old cabin. We shared the beach with a man and 5 women in one group, and two guys in another group who read the bible out loud non-stop.
When we stopped for lunch the next day, a raven descended on our boats. It grabbed an empty trail mix bag and took off before I got down to them and tried to take off with it. It had a hard time doing that since the bag was half its size. Another raven came, and opened a zipper and tore into a small ziplock full of trail mix, and took off. I don't like ravens. They still haven't gotten into anything of mine, but I know they want to, and I don't want to give them the chance.
We hit a class 1 that day. I thought there was only flatwater, but it was really nice to see a small amount of action on the water. We had a massive campsite with tons of cottonwoods perfect for hammocks, and lots of shade, but it was a long walk from the boats through a tunnel of tamarisk. So we camped on the beach where it was cooler, and hung the hammocks up in the cottonwoods. The bible boys camped on a sand bar close by, and the group of women were further upstream. The bible boys kept on reading and talking away into the night.
The next day was really short as we were only going as far as the Turks Head so we could hike to the ruins. There was a great rock for jumping into the river there with 6' deep water, and a sandbar beyond that. The tamarisk didn't have a chance to encroach on this campsite. We camped on a 15' cliff. The next morning when we went up to the ruins, the trail was faint, and due to the ground cover of tiny rocks, was going to stay faint. I did some serious cairning to help future guys find their way. There were around 5 ruins of grainaries there, mostly intact overlooking a broad desert landscape with the river flowing around the bend beyond that.
We met the guys with the binoculars the next day and camped just downstream from them. The cliffs were starting to get tall again, and we were less than 10 miles from the Confluence. We had a fat squirrel in this campsite. I threw rocks to drive him away, and when he came back I chased him out of camp and threw rocks until he was a good ways away. It still came back and was rummaging around a tent out of view. After it was chased away twice from there it didn't come back.
The Confluence is an interesting area for the water. The blending of two waters with different levels of silt, and temperature produced bursts of water that would break the surface and push out the water that was on top. The water wasn't much faster, there was just more of it. We floated through another class 1 and then made camp at Upper Spanish Bottom with our neighbors from the previous night. We paddled down to Lower Spanish Bottom to check it out and hiked down around the bend to where the first whitewater in Cataract Canyon is located. It looked fun. I don't think it would be much fun in a raft, but in a kayak – definitely. Paddling back upstream, only half a mile, was exhausting, and gave me my first real workout since battling the winds at the beginning of the trip. At least the current wasn't so swift that we couldn't make progress against it. As much as I want to kayak through Brown Betty Rapids, and the rest of Cataract someday, I want to build some skills before I tackle those rapids.
Shortly before our jetboat came to pick us up a group of two couples came up and landed just upstream from us and annoyed everyone within a mile with their bickering. I guess 4-5 days of non-stop contact with each other is too much for some people. It made me really, really glad that my group was very chill. We were hoping that they wouldn't be on our jetboat....we were wrong. Thankfully the jetboat was super loud. We zipped on up to Potash in about an hour and a half. The jetboats can get up to 40 mph on the water. Maybe faster. The jetboat from there was towed back into town by our bus – where we found that a hotel was being built next to Tag-a-Long, and when we left there was only an empty lot. Nothing like seeing an entire first floor of a hotel being all framed out on a foundation that didn't exist when we left to remind us how long we were gone.
It was an awesome experience. I can't believe how fast it went by. I'm really glad I did it.
Click here for the Labyrinth & Stillwater Canyon trip pics
We took 3 kayaks and 1 canoe. Fortunately we had the canoe for carrying stuff like coolers, and a camp stove. It made things a lot nicer. We were at Crystal Geyser for a few hours getting our boats loaded up, and hoping that the geyser would go off. The wait paid off, and the geyser went off for about 10 minutes, shooting in short and tall bursts. Our shuttle driver waited around to make sure we could carry all our gear, but we managed to get it all in. I didn't have the advantage of having the kayak I was using to do a dry run with packing, so I'm glad that all of my stuff fit, and didn't weigh me down too much.
So we took off, and started down our long journey through the canyons. The current was slow at 1.5-3 mph depending on the section, so we paddled, a lot. We went through some class toddler rapids almost from the start, then everything was smooth. I knew we should expect some wind to deal with, but what we got the first 3 days, was over the top. The wind would make 12” waves that we'd be powering through, trying not to come to a standstill, or even worse, blown backwards. After the first 3 days though, the winds weren't bad at all.
I didn't recharge my GPS after my tests with the solar panel and battery pack, but I did try to let the battery pack recharge some. The GPS only lasted 4 hours, and I found out that I can't run the solar panel and expect it to charge the GPS at the same time. I turned the battery pack off so it couldn't try to charge the GPS and let the battery pack recharge during the day, then switched the battery pack on so it could recharge the GPS at night while it was off. That worked a lot better, but wasn't enough to keep the GPS alive the whole time I was on the river like I had hoped since one battery was always charging while the other was draining.
We had to carry all of our water, so at 1 gallon per person per day, it was a lot of water. I was cooking my lunch with river water that I filtered through a bandanna to get rid of the larger sand particles. The remaining silt was unnoticeable in the cooked food. Notwithstanding, we had a collapsible water bucket that we used to let river water settle out overnight, then we ran that through a water filter for dinner the next night. If we had two buckets we probably could've gotten away with not carrying all our drinking water – but filtering is such a pain.
We didn't encounter any other people until we made it to the Trin Alcove, then we saw them taking off before we got there. We didn't see them again until we were at the Bowknot Bend. They had camped at the site where the trail is that leads up to the divide. They were only doing Labyrinth, and had a large raft, and a ton of kayaks.
That night (night 3) we slept on a big sand bar, on our own island. The sunset was incredible, and someone had sculpted mud into a frog, a mouse, a little man, and something else. It was fun to be on our own little island.
When we got to Mineral Bottom, where there is a take-out, we didn't see anybody there. I was expecting to see a ranger, maybe a backcountry office, or something since some people mention talking to rangers there in their trip reports, but there were only a few signs, a few registries, and two pit toilets. So we had lunch there, and kept on going through Labyrinth.
When we officially entered Canyonlands the landscape opened up and we were out of Labyrinth. Stillwater wasn't as scenic as Labyrinth, but the far-reaching vistas of Canyonlands were cool. The cliff walls were fairly short until we got closer to the Confluence. It was here that we first started seeing people again. The first were on a sandbar spying on us with some binoculars. We later found out that they were looking for Tag-a-Long branding on our boats to see if we were the group they were taking out with. We didn't rent our boats, so they didn't know till we met in person that we were. We kept on until we got to a site further down the river where there are some ruins and an old cabin. We shared the beach with a man and 5 women in one group, and two guys in another group who read the bible out loud non-stop.
When we stopped for lunch the next day, a raven descended on our boats. It grabbed an empty trail mix bag and took off before I got down to them and tried to take off with it. It had a hard time doing that since the bag was half its size. Another raven came, and opened a zipper and tore into a small ziplock full of trail mix, and took off. I don't like ravens. They still haven't gotten into anything of mine, but I know they want to, and I don't want to give them the chance.
We hit a class 1 that day. I thought there was only flatwater, but it was really nice to see a small amount of action on the water. We had a massive campsite with tons of cottonwoods perfect for hammocks, and lots of shade, but it was a long walk from the boats through a tunnel of tamarisk. So we camped on the beach where it was cooler, and hung the hammocks up in the cottonwoods. The bible boys camped on a sand bar close by, and the group of women were further upstream. The bible boys kept on reading and talking away into the night.
The next day was really short as we were only going as far as the Turks Head so we could hike to the ruins. There was a great rock for jumping into the river there with 6' deep water, and a sandbar beyond that. The tamarisk didn't have a chance to encroach on this campsite. We camped on a 15' cliff. The next morning when we went up to the ruins, the trail was faint, and due to the ground cover of tiny rocks, was going to stay faint. I did some serious cairning to help future guys find their way. There were around 5 ruins of grainaries there, mostly intact overlooking a broad desert landscape with the river flowing around the bend beyond that.
We met the guys with the binoculars the next day and camped just downstream from them. The cliffs were starting to get tall again, and we were less than 10 miles from the Confluence. We had a fat squirrel in this campsite. I threw rocks to drive him away, and when he came back I chased him out of camp and threw rocks until he was a good ways away. It still came back and was rummaging around a tent out of view. After it was chased away twice from there it didn't come back.
The Confluence is an interesting area for the water. The blending of two waters with different levels of silt, and temperature produced bursts of water that would break the surface and push out the water that was on top. The water wasn't much faster, there was just more of it. We floated through another class 1 and then made camp at Upper Spanish Bottom with our neighbors from the previous night. We paddled down to Lower Spanish Bottom to check it out and hiked down around the bend to where the first whitewater in Cataract Canyon is located. It looked fun. I don't think it would be much fun in a raft, but in a kayak – definitely. Paddling back upstream, only half a mile, was exhausting, and gave me my first real workout since battling the winds at the beginning of the trip. At least the current wasn't so swift that we couldn't make progress against it. As much as I want to kayak through Brown Betty Rapids, and the rest of Cataract someday, I want to build some skills before I tackle those rapids.
Shortly before our jetboat came to pick us up a group of two couples came up and landed just upstream from us and annoyed everyone within a mile with their bickering. I guess 4-5 days of non-stop contact with each other is too much for some people. It made me really, really glad that my group was very chill. We were hoping that they wouldn't be on our jetboat....we were wrong. Thankfully the jetboat was super loud. We zipped on up to Potash in about an hour and a half. The jetboats can get up to 40 mph on the water. Maybe faster. The jetboat from there was towed back into town by our bus – where we found that a hotel was being built next to Tag-a-Long, and when we left there was only an empty lot. Nothing like seeing an entire first floor of a hotel being all framed out on a foundation that didn't exist when we left to remind us how long we were gone.
It was an awesome experience. I can't believe how fast it went by. I'm really glad I did it.
Click here for the Labyrinth & Stillwater Canyon trip pics
September 15, 2008
With a float trip down 120 miles of the Green River, I thought, wouldn't it be nice to be able to recharge my GPS on the fly? I have the eXplorist 600 from Magellan, and for some reason, they did what I consider to be a design flaw - used a rechargeable battery in a backcountry GPS. I mean, where are you supposed to recharge it when you're on a multi-day backpacking trip?I started looking at solar chargers - they are a total ripoff at over $100 for tiny ones. Harbor Freight had some at more reasonable prices online, so I went into my local store, but they didn't have any in stock. They did however have a solar powered flood light. So I figured, why not take advantage of a larger solar panel, and an internal set of rechargeable batteries to extend the charging time and modify it all?
I had to cut out the motion detector, rewire the battery, and disassemble my GPS's car charger so it would fit in the battery case from the flood light, then tie it all together. The car charger takes the power source and converts it into the right stuff for the GPS.
I'm unsure how long the GPS will last on the fully charged battery pack, and it's own (seriously degraded) battery, but I imagine it will be more than enough to make it through 10 hours on the batteries alone - and who knows how long into the night the GPS would last if the solar panel is inline recharging everything throughout the day.
It's not terribly heavy, and will definitely be worth it on extended backpacking trips.
*Update* I ran it overnight, and it lasted for 13 hours and still had enough for another hour or so. I left it on and reattached the solar panel and put it in a window to recharge today. If I come home and it's still on then I'll know if there's enough current from the solar to keep it going and even charge it. Hopefully it's charging while it is on.
August 18, 2008
Finally, the trip to do a stretch of Death Hollow came. We stopped at the Hells Backbone Cafe in Boulder for a few minutes. Just long enough to sit down, look at the menu, order water, and realize that was about all we'd ever be willing to pay for there. So we had burgers for dinner, and headed to the trailhead to camp. On the way we drove across the Old Boulder Airport dirt strip, and found a plane there! That was cool. I didn't think anybody used it anymore.
The next morning the owners of the plane came to fly it off, and we headed out. Sand Hollow came and went pretty quick this time around. I thought we had gone down Sand Hollow too far before the trail exited, based on the trail outline on the map, so we headed up one of the drainages that the trail would cross and started climbing out the West side of it only to hit the trail from the wrong side, meaning we didn't go nearly far enough. Oh well. At least we got that out of the way.
We hit Death Hollow within 3.5 hours. We dropped our bags, had lunch, and decided to head upstream a bit to find Squirting Spring. The actual source is sourrounded by soil, so there's a narrow opening to get water from the actual source. The water from there travels down a flat surface where it's difficult to collect. The water has iron oxidizing bacteria which causes the rust colored surface on the rock. Pretty sweet. From there we went for a swim in one of the pools and headed back down to where our packs were. The initial plan was to sleep in the campsite where the Boulder Mail Trail hits Death Hollow but we both wanted to move on.
The vegetation was pretty deep, and the quicksand was plentiful. There was flooding all through here a week before from heavy rains and that deposited a lot of new sand where there was solid rock in the creek before. The poison ivy was very heavy in some areas. Dragonflys were flying around all over the place, and there were no mosquitoes or biting flies. It was nice....except for the poison ivy. With the temperatures being on the warmer side, however, staying in the water to avoid the ivy was most welcome.
After we passed the point where I had never been before (where the Boulder Mail Trail climbs out of Death Hollow) things started to really open up – like a massive valley inside what was otherwise a fairly narrow canyon. We went cross country through the desert like areas to shave off some distance through the creek. Eventually, after 3-4 hours, we made it to the canyon where Mamie Creek comes into Death Hollow. There was actually a small flow of water. We camped just downstream of there on a new sand bar that was perfectly flat in an area which otherwise would have no good places to camp. I set the hammock up with a crack in a boulder, and a small rock, and a tree. Hammocks are the best when backpacking!
The next day, we went just a bit further downstream before we hit the only narrows section of the canyon South of the Boulder Mail Trail. Had it not been for the sand deposits making the unavoidable pools only waist deep, we would've had to swim them. I wouldn't have minded that, but keeping things dry for sure, instead of hoping they'd stay dry in the dry bags was better in my mind than having a quick swim. Not long after we were through the narrows, it seemed like we were really close to the Escalante based on the cliff patterns I remembered. Less than 2 hours after we left camp we were walking through the Escalante.
Death Hollow provided 90% of the water flowing in the Escalante. For some reason the Escalante was a trickle and Death Hollow had a good flow. We made our way downstream to the huge bend in the river where the cliffs overhang the entire river, and half of the beach and stayed there for a bit, seeing if we wanted to keep going, or stop there. We decided to stay.
Getting up in the middle of the night was a bit eery. I kept looking up and up and up for the sky and not seeing it, only weird shadow patterns instead. Finally I tilted my head back far enough to see the sky. That canyon wall is just massive.
The next day we explored the entrance to Sand Hollow. The quicksand was fast and deep at the first bend, so we didn't venture across the stagnant pool of water, but it looks like it would be a good springtime trip, before the brush gets too thick, and the mosquitoes come out.
We waited 15 minutes for someone to pick us up at the trailhead and give us a ride back to the trailhead. Which wasn't bad considering the small amount of traffic on Highway 12.
Click here for the pictures
The next morning the owners of the plane came to fly it off, and we headed out. Sand Hollow came and went pretty quick this time around. I thought we had gone down Sand Hollow too far before the trail exited, based on the trail outline on the map, so we headed up one of the drainages that the trail would cross and started climbing out the West side of it only to hit the trail from the wrong side, meaning we didn't go nearly far enough. Oh well. At least we got that out of the way.
We hit Death Hollow within 3.5 hours. We dropped our bags, had lunch, and decided to head upstream a bit to find Squirting Spring. The actual source is sourrounded by soil, so there's a narrow opening to get water from the actual source. The water from there travels down a flat surface where it's difficult to collect. The water has iron oxidizing bacteria which causes the rust colored surface on the rock. Pretty sweet. From there we went for a swim in one of the pools and headed back down to where our packs were. The initial plan was to sleep in the campsite where the Boulder Mail Trail hits Death Hollow but we both wanted to move on.
The vegetation was pretty deep, and the quicksand was plentiful. There was flooding all through here a week before from heavy rains and that deposited a lot of new sand where there was solid rock in the creek before. The poison ivy was very heavy in some areas. Dragonflys were flying around all over the place, and there were no mosquitoes or biting flies. It was nice....except for the poison ivy. With the temperatures being on the warmer side, however, staying in the water to avoid the ivy was most welcome.
After we passed the point where I had never been before (where the Boulder Mail Trail climbs out of Death Hollow) things started to really open up – like a massive valley inside what was otherwise a fairly narrow canyon. We went cross country through the desert like areas to shave off some distance through the creek. Eventually, after 3-4 hours, we made it to the canyon where Mamie Creek comes into Death Hollow. There was actually a small flow of water. We camped just downstream of there on a new sand bar that was perfectly flat in an area which otherwise would have no good places to camp. I set the hammock up with a crack in a boulder, and a small rock, and a tree. Hammocks are the best when backpacking!
The next day, we went just a bit further downstream before we hit the only narrows section of the canyon South of the Boulder Mail Trail. Had it not been for the sand deposits making the unavoidable pools only waist deep, we would've had to swim them. I wouldn't have minded that, but keeping things dry for sure, instead of hoping they'd stay dry in the dry bags was better in my mind than having a quick swim. Not long after we were through the narrows, it seemed like we were really close to the Escalante based on the cliff patterns I remembered. Less than 2 hours after we left camp we were walking through the Escalante.
Death Hollow provided 90% of the water flowing in the Escalante. For some reason the Escalante was a trickle and Death Hollow had a good flow. We made our way downstream to the huge bend in the river where the cliffs overhang the entire river, and half of the beach and stayed there for a bit, seeing if we wanted to keep going, or stop there. We decided to stay.
Getting up in the middle of the night was a bit eery. I kept looking up and up and up for the sky and not seeing it, only weird shadow patterns instead. Finally I tilted my head back far enough to see the sky. That canyon wall is just massive.
The next day we explored the entrance to Sand Hollow. The quicksand was fast and deep at the first bend, so we didn't venture across the stagnant pool of water, but it looks like it would be a good springtime trip, before the brush gets too thick, and the mosquitoes come out.
We waited 15 minutes for someone to pick us up at the trailhead and give us a ride back to the trailhead. Which wasn't bad considering the small amount of traffic on Highway 12.
Click here for the pictures