Confusion Range 2020

For my first and (so far) only car camp of the pandemic, I went with Stanley and Paul to a remote area: the Confusion Range of west-central Utah. We achieved success with social distancing — we didn't meet another soul on any of the hikes.

We did 5 smaller hikes rather than the usual monster hike, mostly because I'm out of shape from staying at home. It worked out pretty well, since we got to see a number of different areas.

On Friday afternoon, we met at a turn-off about a mile and a half west of the summit of US 6 / 50 in Kings Canyon in the Confusion Range. After setting up camp, we hiked up to the knoll that overlooks the road. The ledgy terrain makes you work to find routes that succeed. We lucked out, and managed to reach the top by following alternating ramps on the back side. It's pretty spot, with plenty of cactus just going into bloom, elaborately twisted juniper trees and a broad view over to Wheeler Peak to the west.

go to the Confusion Range knoll gallery

On Saturday morning, we hiked up Cat Canyon to the end of the narrows, about 4 mi round trip. Cat Canyon is a long drainage that runs south from Kings Canyon toward King Top, the high point of the range. Most of Cat Canyon is undulating and grassy, but the first couple of miles are cliffy and scenic.

The old road in the canyon can still be followed on foot, but you have to search for it in several places. We saw tire marks from ATVs that came down the canyon part way from above the narrows. That's too bad, because the road is officially closed, as part of the King Top WSA.

I didn't realize that stink bugs lived in burrows until this hike. None of us were brave or stupid enough to pick one up.

go to the Cat Canyon gallery

Crystal Peak is a landmark of the West Desert. It was roughly 30 mi from our Friday campsite, going south on well-maintained county roads on the west side of the Confusion Range. Crystal Peak is nominally the northern tip of the Wah Wah Range, but it sits just across a valley from the southern end of the Confusion Range.

I was able to spot the big X that marks the route to the top. If you follow the left side of the X and cut over to the right above the X, you can keep the challenge down to hard class 2 or low class 3. The major difficulty is the loose crap that lies on top of the bright white tuff; you really don't want to slip on it.

The tuff contains chunks of country rock sprinkled through it like chocolate chips. Paul found a cool piece of Kanosh Shale that had brachiopods and echinoderms (starfish).

Crystal Peak is a very pleasant place to camp because it has a PJ forest with good shade. There are also a handful of ponderosa pines, still hanging in there after the climate dried out along with Lake Bonneville.

go to the Crystal Peak gallery

On Sunday morning, we visited the mother lode of the Kanosh Shale: Fossil Mountain. This area is on the west side of the Confusion Range at its south end. A bumpy spur road heads west from the main Blind Valley road into a draw. As we walked up the draw, we found slabs of shale that were solid brachiopod fossils (this kind of rock is called a coquina). Brachiopods are two-shelled creatures that look a bit like clams but are not actually molluscs; most of the brachiopods at Fossil Mountain are fairly small ribbed shells, 5mm to 15mm. We also found the occasional trilobite fragment, a few gastropods (snails), bryozoans, crinoids and very sporadic echinoderms. Apparently different spots in this general area have different concentrations of fossils; one spot to the south is supposed to have very nice ammonites (cephalopods).

Further up the canyon is a huge pinkish-gray sand dune. The sand has been eroded out of the Needles Range tuff that forms the south rim of the upper canyon. It looks like the wind blows the sand over the rim of the canyon and it piles up in the less-windy valley. Certain plants, such as lupines, thrive in the sand. We slogged up the dune to get the view of the Eureka Quartzite crags on the north rim.

go to the Fossil Mountain gallery

I had never been to Ibex, Jack Watson's abandoned ranch site just a mile east of Fossil Mountain, so I led us over there to check it out. The Ibex area is known to climbers for its outcrops of the Eureka Quartzite. Close up, the rock is bizarre: white to red-orange, mottled and intensely ledgy. It actually reminded me of red-rock country around Moab. It's a blast to scramble on, and we took the invitation to climb up to an overlook with three big, dark limestone boulders perched on an overhanging ledge. We descended to the north into the Horse Pasture, a canyon that has a slickrock floor in the quartzite before emerging into a broad, grassy limestone basin. Heading back down canyon, we ran into a minor pour-off and slot that Jack Watson had dammed to collect water for stock. It surprised me to see that there was still some water in the streambed below the waterworks, given our extremely dry April.

go to the Ibex gallery