Ashdown Gorge

The trail starts west across a meadow, parallel to the fenceline that marks the boundary with the national monument. It enters an open high-elevation (10,000+ ft) forest. Look for white Utah columbines and other flowers.

There are a couple of somewhat confusing junctions where trails take off to the south (left) to go to overlooks into Cedar Breaks. By all means check out the overlooks — this photo shows some of what you'll see. The main trail bears to the right, however.

The trail drops down through mixed aspen and conifer forest. It comes out onto a meadowy slope with a nice view, and cuts a few switchbacks before heading back into the forest.

The pale ridgeline in the near distance in the photo is Snow Ridge. The trail runs below it in fairly thick forest with lots of deadfall on the trail (when we did it). It looks like you might get a fine view into Cedar Breaks if you bushwhack up the slope to the top of the ridge, but I haven't done it.

The trail picks up a west-trending ridge and eventually emerges from the forest into a wide meadow named Stud Flat. The views are impressive in this stretch. Look for sego lilies (in season).

At the bottom of Stud Flat, the trail switchbacks down a fairly steep slope through heavy forest into Rattlesnake Creek. When we did this section (2014), there was a fair amount of obnoxious deadfall on the trail, and there were soggy spots near springs.

The trail eventually runs above and parallel to the creek. It takes its time descending to the creek, and eventually crosses it. There are some very pretty agates in the streambed.

The trail stays on the north bank of the stream for the next mile and a half or so. It's pleasant going in a ponderosa / pinyon forest. Eventually the trail crosses the stream at a small waterfall and heads diagonally southwest up a slope to a low saddle.

At this point, the trail cuts back to the east. Grand views open up into the Cedar Breaks amphitheater. The trail descends toward Ashdown Creek, and it ends up on top of a cliff band above the start of the gorge. The view whets your appetite for more.

When the trail finally reaches the stream, there are some convenient slabs near the water where you can change into your wading gear. If the weather looks really dismal or the water is already high, you should be able to abort the trip here and hike out of the canyon to the south on the Potato Hollow trail. You'll have to hitch back to one of your cars, but that's better than drowning.

As you head west (right) down the creek, the walls of the gorge rise fairly quickly. It's a fun change from many other classic southern Utah hikes to see the green forest draped over the cliff bands above you.

After a mile or so, a substantial tower on the north (right) side of the gorge marks the entrance of Rattlesnake Creek. It looks like it would be fun to hike up the side canyon, but when I hiked the gorge (July 2014), the weather started to get threatening here, so we continued on down. The gorge opens up briefly just below the junction and the walls get significantly taller.

At this point, you spend a lot of time wading in the stream because the canyon is fairly narrow and because it's just too slow to try to stay dry up on the banks. The canyon makes some big zigs and zags.

In one spot, the walls almost touch far above you. It's a dramatic scene.

There isn't as much agate in the stream bed as there is in Rattlesnake Creek, but there are other interesting rocks. Here is a shot of a slab of limestone that's just packed with shells. This kind of formation is called coquina.

Not far below the coquina slabs, you can see Flanigan Arch up above you on the north side of the stream. If you want to see the arch, you should stay on the south side of the stream as much as possible, because the arch is perched above a 150-ft wall that blocks your view from the very bottom. The arch is quite large, but it's fairly far away from the stream, so it doesn't look quite as big as it really is.

In less than half a mile from the arch, the gorge begins to open up. You have to work your way through debris that has piled up from floods, but it's not very difficult. You can hear traffic on SR-14 well before you reach the junction with Crow Creek, where the stream bends to the northwest.

The last section is somewhat disagreeable. The stream has been altered by the construction of the huge berm that takes SR-14 through the landslide area. The streamside becomes quite brushy, and the stream alternates between wide and muddy, and narrow and eroded. If you want, you can carefully work your way up the very steep and very loose slope of the berm to the highway. The alternative is to bash through the brush downstream until the slope gets a little less obnoxious or until you meet up with a dirt road that comes down to the stream. It's a very slow half mile to the dirt road, and you have to scramble past an old irrigation diversion which the stream now flows over in a waterfall. Pick your poison.

Once you're up on the berm, the area is quite scenic and you can forget about your scratches. Find your shuttle vehicle and head back up SR-14 to Cedar Breaks.

The Ashdown Gorge Wilderness actually doesn't contain much of Ashdown Gorge. A good chunk of the gorge, including Flanigan Arch, is outside of the national forest. On the national forest, there is a cherry-stem up the gorge to a private inholding in upper Ashdown Creek. Only the north side of the gorge is in the wilderness in this section. I didn't wander upstream here, although it was tempting — if you do it, look out for private property signs and avoid getting into trouble.