Back in March, I was trying to think of fun places to go when I realized that I hadn't hiked Little Death Hollow in Escalante since 1991. I looked into it and found that there is a nice (but long) loop hike down Little Death Hollow and back up Wolverine Canyon. I had never been in Wolverine Canyon and it sounded fun, plus I discovered that there is a Wolverine Petrified Wood Natural Area near the Wolverine trailhead that we could check out on the day after the big hike. I put the trip on the WMC calendar for May 11-12.

Getting down to Escalante on Friday May 10th was quite an adventure. I picked up Hong in SLC, and we drove I-15 south to Scipio. The weather had been threatening on our way there, and the skies opened up just as we reached the freeway exit. Sleet came down so hard and fast that my wipers had a hard time keeping up at full speed. The streets were covered in inches of slush. I put my 4Runner in 4WD.

The sleet and rain gradually petered out as we continued south to the Sevier Valley, but we hit it again as we went up into the mountains. We had showers from Koosharem Reservoir up to the Fish Lake area, and it was apparent that we'd just missed a big hail or sleet storm. (Christa and Leslie got caught in that event.) There was also moderate snow when we drove over Boulder Mountain. Altogether it was a very stormy day.

None of this was very encouraging for our trip, but the skies cleared as we headed out of Boulder on the Burr Trail, and when we met the other participants at the Wolverine trailhead, conditions were dry and we could see some blue sky. I hoped fervently that a storm had not sent a flash flood through Little Death Hollow or Wolverine earlier, but there was nothing I could do about it.

I had worked out that we could save a bit of distance on the loop hike by shuttling from the Wolverine trailhead to the Little Death Hollow trailhead. The route is still 16.5 mi, so I told folks that we needed to leave camp at 7 AM to do the shuttle. The morning was cool and pleasant, with sun and some scattered clouds — very good conditions for a long day hike. We managed to fit everyone and their gear into my 4Runner and Stanley's big pickup, and we were soon on the trail in Little Death Hollow.

The cow trails that I vaguely remembered have been improved by human traffic, but we still managed to get off track somehow; we almost missed the petroglyph panel that various guidebooks had mentioned. The panel is pecked into the side of a huge boulder, and it's somewhat buried in sediment — easy to miss. It's a good landmark if you spot it, because that's when the walls start closing in.

The Wingate Sandstone walls are distinctively and consistently orange, with elegant patterns of staining. The canyon makes bold twists and turns, almost doubling back at times. The cliffrose was in bloom, and I couldn't get enough of its spicy aroma. The next landmark is a large arch, and it was much further downstream than I expected, on the south side.

Below the arch, the canyon very gradually gets narrower. The walls are pockmarked with tafoni. There are chunks of petrified wood in the streambed. Eventually the canyon becomes a true slot. We had to wade through some puddles in the slot; none were more than knee deep, and it was possible to stem across some of them. One awkward spot involved squeezing between the wall and a big chockstone, then wading across an opaque pool on slippery mud.

The narrows at this point were really fine, but I was a bit worried that we would reach deeper water and be forced to swim or turn around. Somewhat magically, though, the most difficult section was dry. I had remembered a huge chockstone that was best passed by wriggling underneath it. The hole under it was pretty much exactly as small as I remembered it from 1991. This time I made a mistake, though — I decided to go through the hole feet first and I found that I couldn't push off hard enough with my hands to make progress. Stanley had to grab my feet and haul me the rest of the way through. I was jealous of Hong and Leslie!

We took a break for lunch at a wide spot. Both Greg and I had Gore-Tex / waterproof footwear; we found that this feature isn't great for wading, because your shoes / boots fill up with water and stay filled up for quite a while. I wrung out my socks, and found that the foam lining in my shoes needed wringing too. I hoped that my wet feet wouldn't lead to blisters (they didn't).

There was flowing water at the junction with Horse Canyon, but fortunately I didn't see any poison ivy. (I've had some interesting experiences with PI in other parts of the Escalante.) We could see faint evidence of a road in the canyon bottom as we headed upstream to the old cabin; at the cabin, we could see recent use of the road, and a bit further up we passed a vehicle on its way down. I was a bit surprised that folks would (or could) drive that far.

The junction with Wolverine Canyon was pretty obvious. The canyon is quite lovely, and the afternoon light really made the orange walls glow. There was lots of tafoni and lots of staining. The canyon is shorter than Little Death Hollow and not as narrow, but the scenery is striking. I was especially taken with some huge alcoves that appeared just before the canyon opened up.

There was even more petrified wood in Wolverine than in Little Death Hollow. We saw some really nice examples as we got closer to the Wolverine trailhead. We spotted a big log off to the south of the trail and strolled over to check it out. Not only was the fossil wood gorgeous, with black and red patterns, but we also saw some beautiful golden mariposa lilies scattered around the site. Further up the trail we saw some great hedgehog cactus in bloom too.

We got back to the trailhead a little bit after 4, so we made excellent time. After fetching the shuttle vehicles, we kicked back and relaxed in the shade of a juniper tree.

go to the Little Death Hollow photo gallery

On Sunday, everyone was game for a short hike to check out the petrified wood. I'd read about the fine petrified wood on the north side of Wolverine Canyon just below the trailhead; a little investigation with Google satellite view turned up some obvious big logs in the next drainage to the north. I realized that we could make a loop out of it, going down Wolverine and coming back up the other drainage, circling a craggy butte.

We walked down the Wolverine trail and then down the main drainage. We could see chunks of petrified wood on the slope to the north, and we went over to check them out. There were some huge logs here. I took a photo of one, but then I realized that you wouldn't really be able to tell how big it was in a photo, so I had Greg and Leslie stand next to it for scale. I was intrigued by the pockets of crystals inside some of the logs — had they formed in actual hollows of the original tree?

As we went around the west end of the butte, the landscape was especially bizarre. There were several sandstone blocks balanced on top of pillars, looking like toadstools. We walked into a draw where multiple logs crossed the wash, including one that bridged the wash. It was pretty solid — three of us stood on it and it didn't shake. Some of the logs were quite long, well over 50 ft.

The loop around the east end of the butte was pretty straightforward; we picked up a fenceline that took us right back to the trailhead. We continued to see lots of wood chunks and cool hoodoos.

Thanks to Greg, Leslie, Jim, Christa, Hong and Stanley for making it a great trip!

go to the Wolverine Petrified Wood photo gallery

I had fun last year hiking in the San Rafael Swell. I realized when re-reading Steve Allen's original Canyoneering book for ideas that I had never done any hikes in the Moroni Slopes area. A number of the hikes looked pretty technical, but I spotted one that didn't sound too bad — Horse Heaven Canyon. It was “only” class 4; I actually hiked once with Allen and I had managed to do some routes that he deemed to be class 4.

I put the trip on the calendar for April 20-21. The weather was stormy on the way down, but it was fine when I reached the campsite and met Greg. We got to see a very fine sunset over the Wasatch Plateau and Thousand Lake Mountain.

The first hour and 20 minutes or so of the hike are in a relatively wide, open draw, with grass and sagebrush and cow pies.

This scenery ends quite abruptly at a massive pour-off. We stopped there and enjoyed the view down into the gorge. Allen's book describes a tortuous route around the right side of the pour-off to get down into the canyon. I had scouted the route using Google satellite view and luckily I had gotten most of it right. We climbed the loose slope to the right of the pour-off up to a cliff band, then walked a precarious desert bighorn trail along the edge of a cliff to reach an open area that drains to a notch. There were a few cairns, but they weren't particularly obvious, and we still had to do a fair amount of route finding.

After dropping through the notch, we cut right above a pile of huge boulders, then cut left to cross a draw. This section was annoying because of piles of ball-bearing-like concretions that were scattered over the slabs. After crossing the draw, we continued left on a cliff band until we found a way down through it on loose, slidy crap. We then followed a faint use trail (with cairns) that descended steeply to the right, which took us down to the bottom of the draw.

I wanted to hike back up to the pour-off. This turned out to be fun and pretty straightforward. There were stretches of narrows with minor obstacles, and lots of lovely peach-colored slickrock. The pour-off is pretty impressive from the bottom, and it looked to me like a lot of water comes over the top in big storms. That waterfall would make a great video, but I wouldn't want to be down there to shoot it.

Going downcanyon, we passed through a pleasant section of narrows and came out into a wider gorge. We took a fairly long detour to the right to get around one pour-off. The next pour-off was not far below this one. We again went around on the right, coming up through a side crack with some steep friction climbing. The crux was a steeply inclined slab with a substantial drop below it. Greg and I decided that this was above our pay grade, and we turned around.

We had lunch in the narrow section below the first pour-off, then headed back out. The climb back up to the notch didn't seem too bad to me, since we'd already found the route, but I tripped once on the final exposed ledge and that gave me the willies. Both Greg and I admired the bighorn track on the opposite side of the gorge, which followed a long narrow ledge right over a big vertical drop.

The hike back to camp was a bit of a slog. The wind came up when we got back and we set up chairs and tables between our vehicles to shield ourselves from the blast.

go to the Horse Heaven Canyon photo gallery

The next morning, both of us had feet that were too sore to do a big hike. Instead, we drove over to the Segers Hole overlook, just a few miles away from camp. The overlook is a spectacular place to see the San Rafael Reef from one of the high points of the Moroni Slopes. The morning light was very nice too.

We also had good views down into Cable Canyon. We spotted a bighorn in the uppermost section. We could see Factory Butte and the Henry Mountains in the distance.

I stopped on the way back to I-70 to admire the volcanic intrusions at West Cedar Mountain, and the bizarre landscapes in the Mussentuchit badlands. I should have taken more photos — too bad.

go to the Segers Hole photo gallery

I thought that my feet might hold up for a short hike like the Rochester Indian Rock art site. I'd never been there before and I'd heard that it was pretty cool. The site is on Muddy Creek on the west side of the Swell, not far from the hamlet of Moore.

As it turns out, the Rochester panels are indeed really, really cool. They include many things that I don't see regularly depicted in rock art — dogs, bears, birds, spiders, dragon-like critters, trees and a big rainbow.

I ran into Steve and Teri on the trail. They'd signed up for the trip but bowed out after realizing that Teri's knees wouldn't handle the long hike. Utah is a small world.

go to the Rochester Panel photo gallery

Back in January, I'd started planning my WMC camping trips for the spring, and it looked like we were going to have a dry year, after a whopper of a wet year. I had long been interested in visiting Grand Canyon - Parashant National Monument, and this seemed like the perfect time. I wanted to go to the Grand Wash Cliffs and hike some amazing-looking canyons that punch deep, narrow gorges through the cliffs. My goal was to camp at the Grand Gulch Mine, 80 mi from the nearest pavement.

But then the rains came. Parashant is a long way from anywhere, and it would be really bad to get stuck out there if it rained or snowed and the roads turned into mush, or got blocked by flooding.

When people signed up for the trip, I warned them that I would take the group to Gold Butte National Monument next door in Nevada in the event of bad weather. I allocated 5 days for the trip, leaving Thursday March 28th and returning Monday April 1st. As the dates approached, the forecast didn't look very promising — rain would arrive some time on Saturday.

I decided that I'd head down a day early and check out the road to the Grand Gulch Mine. If the road looked drivable by (say) Subarus and it looked like it would be okay if it got wet, then I would meet people in St George on Thursday and lead them into Parashant. If not okay, then Gold Butte.

It took me 3 hours to drive from the end of the pavement at the Utah-Arizona line out to the mine. The road is bladed and maintained to within 3 mi of the mine, and when that section is dry, it's clearly just fine for Subarus and similar vehicles. Even the notorious road section in upper Pigeon Creek was in pretty good shape.

There were two bits of bad news, though. The less important bit was that the last 3 miles of the road to the mine are fairly rugged, and would probably destroy a Subaru. It was slow going in my stock 4Runner. If that were the only problem, then we could just camp a few miles short of the mine and shuttle to the mine to start hikes. (We wouldn't have this lovely new toilet at camp, though.)

But the worse news was that it was really obvious that the road turns to soup when it's wet. It had been wet recently, as attested by the deep ruts and wet potholes at the high points of the drive. On the drive back to St George, I convinced myself that Parashant just wasn't going to work out given the wet forecast. After 10 hours of driving, I stumbled into a motel room and crashed for the night.

go to the Grand Gulch Mine photo gallery

I met the group on Thursday at 1 PM at the interagency visitor center on Riverside Drive in St George. I let them know that I was giving up on Parashant, but since the group had little or no experience with Gold Butte, this turned out not to be a problem!

We camped at Whitney Pocket in the north end of the monument. The road to Whitney Pocket is (badly) paved, so if it rained, I figured that we'd stand a decent chance of getting out rather than getting stuck.

We arrived with plenty of time left in the day. I suggested that we could go see the Falling Man rock art site, just a few miles away. Somehow I always manage to see yet more rock art when I visit, and this time was no exception — Shawn found a straightforward route up a crag that put us right next to some of the best petroglyphs.

go to the Falling Man photo gallery

I had organized a trip to Gold Butte back in 2022, and I had made plans for a couple of hikes there that we didn't get to. I decided to do one of them on this trip — a hike down Garden Wash through two sets of narrows, then looping back via the narrows in the next major wash to the south.

Garden Wash was great. The road to the trailhead is fairly rough and brushy, but we had no trouble getting to the end. There are some old diggings at the top of the canyon, where I wondered how on earth the miners had managed to move heavy equipment to the precarious mine workings. Around the point where the canyon starts to get narrow, there are some slabs containing shells of belemnites, which are extinct cephalopods related to squids and octopi. The fossils were conveniently marked with blobs of white paint; I'm guessing that some geology class once visited this spot. We found a buffalo gourd plant along the edge of the wash, with fruits that look a bit like giant yellow ping-pong balls.

After we passed through the second narrows, my luck ran out. I pushed the group up into the foothills, thinking that we'd cut off a lot of distance on the way to the next gorge. This was a big mistake — instead of one drainage leading to the bottom of the gorge, we had to cross at least 3 washes. We had to go up and down steep, loose slopes; it was slow and unpleasant work, although the views were fairly nice. We took lunch within view of the mouth of the gorge.

I was full of optimism about the route, but a couple of turns into the gorge, we ran into a massive pour-off. Ouch.

On the way back, we once again cut through the foothills, but at a much lower elevation. There were handsome agave bushes and little yellow flowers, and the terrain was much more forgiving.

With a little time left after the hike, I decided to check out the Gold Butte town site, which I had never visited before. There's actually not that much to see; there is a small grave site and some broken down equipment. I was a bit surprised to see that the town site was in the granite country that I'd been introduced to in 2022.

go to the Garden Canyon photo gallery

The forecast for Saturday showed rain for the afternoon. I suggested that we could do the loop hike to the Kohta Circus rock art area. I've done this hike before, and it's a lot of fun, with some of the best rock art around. It was a short enough hike that we were able to get back to camp by lunchtime.

We got back out to I-15 at a good time. The rain started to fall just east of Mesquite, and after a break while I drove thorugh St George, it started roaring down on the climb to Cedar City. It came down so hard that I got worried about hydroplaning; I'm really glad that we didn't experience that downpour in Gold Butte.

go to the Kohta Circus photo gallery

More than 30 years ago, my friend Howard and I thrashed our way to the top of Granite Peak in the Mineral Mountains. The Minerals are just west of Beaver and east of Milford; they have striking granite crags and domes that attract rock climbers. The bad news is that they have few trails and the bushwhacking can be miserable. My memory of the bushwhacking from the first trip has dimmed, so I felt that it was time to brave it again.

I should point out that on that first trip, Howard and I spent several hours to go about 2 mi round trip. We faced grabby mountain-mahogany trees and scrub oaks, huge granite fins and domes that required elaborate circumventions, granite boulders in awkward places, loose dirt and slippery vegetation, plus tons of downhill-pointing deadfall. When we reached the summit ridge, we couldn't tell whether we were north or south of the summit, and we were ready to bag it. I went off into the bushes to the north to take a leak, and I discovered that the summit was just on the other side of the bushes. The summit register was a aluminum film can containing a label from a can of pineapple, on the back of which were the records of (I think) 4 groups spread over (I think) 12 years.

When I first scheduled the new trip for Memorial Day, I found multiple descriptions of alleged trails. With trails, we could be up and down in (say) 6 hours! Later on when I was researching the trip in detail, I realized that these trails were imaginary. Yes, there are a handful of new use trails lower down, created by climbers who tackle the Milford Needle and other crags, but no trails go to the top. Ouch.

On Friday, Keith, Roman and I scouted the climber trails near the Rock Corral picnic area. We found a route that would take us behind the first rank of cliffs, and I decided that it would do for Saturday's hike.

I didn't have a lot of confidence that we'd be able to make it to the top of Granite Peak, but I figured it was worth a try, if only to demonstrate to everyone just how obnoxious the brush is.

Somewhat to my surprise, the group didn't immediately surrender when we got our first taste of the terrain. We squeezed through the oak brush, scrambled over boulders, broke off lots of dead mahogany branches and managed to make headway, with lots of advances and retreats.

Eventually we came to a spot where it looked like we would have to lose a lot of elevation and thrash through some really dense mahogany. There was a chute just above us that cut between two crags, and although it was very steep, it looked more attractive than the brush bashing below.

The chute was steep, narrow and fairly brushy. It was also full of loose duff and slippery sand and gravel. We kept going in spite of this, and eventually we came out to a fine view of the peak above us. Alas, this view also revealed a big cliff below us, and three more big crags between our position and the correct route. We declared victory and bashed our way back to the Rock Corral parking lot.

It took us about 4 hours to go maybe 1 mile round trip, with 1000 ft of elevation gain. My kingdom for a trail!

go to the Granite Peak photo gallery

Some of us still had a little energy, so I organized a visit to Granite Peak Reservoir. In spite of the name, this pond is not actually very close to Granite Peak; it's hidden near Soldier Pass to the south.

The route takes a couple of switchbacks up to the top of a granite outcrop, then descends somewhat steeply to a line of crags. Some clever person built a dam between a couple of crags to provide water for cattle. The location is very photogenic, not just for the water and the crags, which are very fine, but also for the profusion of spring flowers. We saw balsamroot, lupine, phlox, woodland star, daisies, paintbrush and violets — not bad!

go to the Granite Peak Reservoir photo gallery

On Sunday, we went up into Ranch Canyon, north of Granite Peak. Keith, Roman and I had scouted the road on Friday, and it turned out to be drivable to the parking area below South Twin Flat Mountain, with several minor fords. Some kind person had cleared the deadfall from the road and filled in the washouts from the spring runoff.

I figured that we'd have a great view of Granite Peak and the Milford Needle from the undrivable jeep track that climbs South Twin, and I was right. It was just amazingly gorgeous, with scads of flowers and bright green aspens. The track heads steeply up through mahogany to the flat top of the South Twin volcano. The footing is pretty bad, with lots of loose rocks and deep ruts. I guess the good part is that there are actual switchbacks, and the views are stunning.

After taking a snack break at the top of South Twin, we went down the track to a spur road to a location called the Park. The views in this nook were wonderful. You could believe that you were in a much higher and wetter mountain range, with the scrub oak and white firs filling the couloirs in the granite. The Milford Needle loomed to the south and the mighty wedge of Peak 8473 dominated the view to the west. We speculated about how we might be able to conquer Granite Peak from the northwest; maybe I'll return in the fall and give it a shot.

go to the South Twin Flat Mountain photo gallery

I had long wanted to visit the Wildhorse Canyon obsidian mine in the north part of the Mineral Mountains. After descending Ranch Canyon, we headed up a well-graded road. The spur to Wildhorse was in much less wonderful shape, and Simon decided that he didn't want to risk his vehicle on the pointy boulders and stumps that littered the track. I decided to brave it, and Katherine and Rick and I got a chance to wander through the huge pile of volcanic glass at the end of the track. Obsidian tools from this location have been found in many areas of the West, and it really is pretty stuff. I sucked it up and went home without any glass in my pocket, but it was damn tough.

go to the Wildhorse Canyon obsidian mine photo gallery

Most people left on Monday morning. Rick and Roman and I went for a jaunt in the canyon behind our campsite. Even in the foothills of the Minerals, the crags and pinnacles are still formidably attractive.

go to the Rock Corral photo gallery

Since it was still well before noon, I offered to take Rick, Sheila and Roman over to Pahvant Butte, in the desert east of SR 257 and south of the village of Deseret.

There are really two locations to visit — the rugged summit of the cinder cone, and the weird rock formations on the north called the Lace Curtain. I'd read about the Lace Curtain in a geology book and I'd visited it in 2017. It's quite out-of-the-way; imagine my surprise to discover that the BLM or the county has put in plaques and signage to direct you there. They've also graded an impressive new gravel road almost all of the way to Pahvant Butte. I say “almost” because just before reaching Pahvant Butte, the new road gives way abruptly to the old crappy, bumpy track that was there back in 2017. I'm not sure whether they ran into problems with money or with permitting; it was very surprising.

The Lace Curtain is still odd and unique. The cliff swallows love it; the new plaques mention that golden eagles nest higher up in the holes.

go to the Lace Curtain photo gallery

For my first camping trip of 2023, I decided to go back to the section of the San Rafael Reef north of the San Rafael River. On a previous trip, I had hiked up the slanted slab that forms the north wall of Archtower Canyon, and had visited Cottonwood Canyon. On this trip, I was thinking that it would be fun to do Archtower Canyon itself and see the arch, which is invisible from above.

On Friday, the group met at a campsite in Tidwell Draw just north of the Smith Cabin. Our trip happened to coincide with a convention of the Rocky Mountain Mule Association. The first indication was a sign for the RMMA on the road to the cabin. Paula stopped and gave a ride to one mule rider who was waiting for his companion and his mule to show up. There were several horse trailers with mules and horses taking up the campsites in the immediate vicinity of the cabin. We drove a few hundred yards north on the Tidwell Draw road and camped next to a little stream flowing from a spring further up, within view of the RMMA sites.

One mule was especially picturesque on the skyline from our camp. Also photogenic was a fingernail crescent moon with earthshine, accompanied by Venus, setting over the San Rafael Reef. We were serenaded by frogs all night, procreating in the stream next to us.

go to the Tidwell Draw photo gallery

The Archtower loop hike was a bit harder than I had expected given the description in the Steve Allen guidebook, but our group was up to the effort.

We drove south on a fairly bad section of the Tidwell Draw road and parked at a camping pull-out before the road reached the sandy bottom of the draw. The weather was windy and chilly, with alternating sun and clouds. We hiked south, taking note of the return route via Archtower Canyon, and turned west up Sheep Cave Canyon.

The potholes in the lower section of Sheep Cave Canyon were very cool, and full of water from our wet spring this year. Soon after passing the Sheep Cave (a deep alcove high on the north wall of the canyon), we hit our first significant obstacle. We were able to work around the first drop in a multi-level pour-off by traversing up the north slope, but the only way to pass the top level pour-off is to climb it. The pour-off isn't very high (maybe 5 feet?) but the handholds are terrible and the lip is undercut, with no good footholds either. The best way to attack it was to mantle up the crack on the left, get a boot up on the right lip (braced by the next climber), then get a knee down and crawl. Kevin, the tallest member of the group, was willing to go last so that everyone else could get a boost.

It took us a minute to figure out that we needed to drop into the canyon to the left — it was not super obvious that we'd just climbed up the right side of a double pour-off. Once we were on the right track, it was a pretty stroll over occasional rockfall and some very fun tilted slickrock floors. There's a spot where it looks like you might want to go up and left to follow the canyon, but the canyon actually digs a trench and curves sharply right.

It seemed to take a long time to get to Ednah Natural Bridge, but it was pleasant going, and the bridge really is a nice spot to stop. The bridge is strikingly flat, like a road bridge; at least a couple folks walked across it. The shade was welcome, until the clouds got thicker and began spitting raindrops.

The threatening weather never got any worse, fortunately. We traipsed over hill and dale to a low spot on the rim above the San Rafael River. The view is just as staggering as I remembered it from my previous visit. For some reason, I always think that Mexican Mountain is smaller than it really is, but the view from the saddle showed its actual bulk. The river was a tiny thread of gray-green far below. I tried to make out landmarks along the Black Box, but I didn't find any that I recognized.

After this break, it was more hill and dale across the tilted plateau to reach Archtower Canyon. Because the north wall of the canyon is so big, it was hard for me to appreciate the size of the Archtower until we were underneath it. The immense arch revealed itself slowly; the best view is from a little ways downstream.

The next section of canyon had several rockfalls. These were pretty slow to navigate, with many twists and turns through car-size boulders. Eventually the going became a bit smoother, and the canyon grew narrower, until...

The canyon made a sudden 10-foot drop into a deep, wall-to-wall pothole, shaded by a bus-sized boulder wedged just above it. Stupidly, I failed to take a picture! I'll have to use someone else's photo for the WMC Rambler write-up. Kevin explored the south rim and Paula and Stanley scrambled up on the north rim. The situation didn't look good — I was getting worried that we were going to have to swim the frigid pothole. Stanley was getting ready to come back down, but at the last moment he decided to go higher and see whether it might work out. Amazingly, he spotted a steep class 3 route down from the ledge to the canyon bottom below the pothole. We gathered the group and followed. The rock was a bit rotten and sandy, but everyone made it down without complaint. I was rather surprised that this obstacle didn't rate a mention in the trip description in Allen's book; maybe the pothole was dry when Allen went through?

Soon we emerged at the northern Reef's fault zone and found a charming series of potholes running down a tilted slab. The last pothole was pretty big, and we worked around it on the south side. After crossing the fault, the canyon goes over an enormous vertical pour-off. The guidebook description said that you could descend a class-4 drop to the right of center, or go up and over to the left. I decided to scout the route to the left and ended up climbing a steep class-3 chute that left me stranded on a promontory above the pour-off. By the time that I got there, the others had descended the pour-off — it turns out that there's a shelf that runs under the right side of the pour-off, and dropping down to it isn't actually that hard. Happily, it all ended well.

That evening, the wind at the campsite made it difficult to start and run stoves. We moved vehicles and tables around so that we could cook in a wind break. It was amusing to me to see all of the camp chairs lined up in the lee of my 4Runner and Rick's big van.

go to the Archtower photo gallery

It took us 7 and a half hours on Saturday to do the ~8-mile Archtower loop. I reconsidered my original plan to visit Grotto Canyon; our pace would have made that loop as long as Saturday's loop, or longer.

Instead we walked over to the Smith Cabin and hiked up south fork of the draw that goes up from the cabin. This route was very pretty and it had some fun routefinding challenges. At the fault zone, the draw was very park-like, with hoodoos and towers surrounding a basin with grass and junipers. We went north and west into a random canyon and had lunch among the domes.

When we got back to the bottom (following a mule trail down the south side of the canyon), we ran into a couple who were just getting ready to load their mules into their trailer and head out. It turns out that the wife was a descendant of the Smith family that built the cabin and owned the grazing allotment. Although the spring stopped flowing in the 1940s and the buildings have mostly collapsed, these folks still come out regularly from Green River to visit the property, and this year they had hosted the RMMA. It was fun to meet them.

go to the Smith Cabin Canyon photo gallery

I had scheduled a WMC trip to Notch Peak for October 22nd, but the weather gods intervened. After two weeks of gorgeous, mild, sunny days, the 22nd was ferociously windy and wet.

Cassie asked whether I would reschedule the trip for the following Saturday. I asked the wmc-hike mailing list about the idea, to gauge the interest. Somewhat to my surprise, I got several responses. We met at 6:30 AM at the Bluffdale Park-and-Ride and took off.

I was a bit concerned about the potential for snow after the previous week's storms. There were a few inches of snow in the shaded parts of Sawtooth Canyon, and otherwise there wasn't much snow at all on the route. The bad news was that there was snow on the scrambly sections in the upper narrows, which made them pretty slippery and awkward.

Several folks on the hike had never seen the Notch before from the top. It's always fun to see Notch novices agog over the amazing view. Cassie camped out at the Notch overlook while the rest of us struggled up the last 400 ft to the summit. The view as as awesome as ever. Da couldn't stop taking pictures; Hong crawled out to the edge to get the view straight down to the Notch. Bruce and Lily had big cameras, and Lily also had a small camera which she attached to a selfie stick and extended over the abyss. I expect lots of great photos!

go to the Notch Peak photo gallery

I have been to the eastern end of (what is now) Grand Staircase / Escalante National Monument many times, but I had never done any hikes in the western end, the Paria-Hackberry basin. I scheduled a trip there for Memorial Day in 2020, but guess what happened.

I decided to put the trip on the schedule for 2022. The backcountry group size limit is 12 (per the original GSENM resource management plan, which is being restored after the Trump administration whacked it); I put a limit of limit of 11 on the number of participants. Naturally, the trip was immediately oversubscribed...

As the date approached and the number of queries increased, I realized that we could split into two groups for hikes and accommodate up to twice as many people. As it turns out, that was unnecessary; by that point, people had been making other plans, and in the end we had a group of 11 — a perfect size.

My other anxiety about the trip was the possibility that we might have trouble finding a campsite. The only official campground in the area is at Kodachrome Basin State Park, and all of the sites there had been reserved for quite a while. The national monument has only unreservable, undeveloped camping turn-outs along the main roads. My experience last year in Parowan Canyon made me wary — camping sites there had filled up early. I decided to drive down on Thursday 5/26 so that I would be more likely to get a site. A few other folks with flexible schedules joined me.

As it happens, we had nothing to worry about. Very few of the undeveloped sites were occupied. I wasn't really prepared for that; our people had to wait while Bob and I drove around looking at the campsites and deciding on the best one. We chose one that was reasonably close to the road, where people coming in later could see vehicles and the WMC signage, and there were plenty of juniper trees for shade.

(There was lots of sand, though. If you plan to camp in this part of GSENM, be prepared to get sand in your tent, your clothes, your car... Also, be prepared for loose, sandy stretches on the roads.)

Friday was warm and windy. There were 5 of us, so we could all fit into my 4Runner; I decided to drive us over to Booker Canyon.

Booker is the next major tributary on the east side of Hackberry Canyon south of the (much) more famous Round Valley Draw. We drove the bumpy road out to an unmarked parking spot and set off westward through the piñon-juniper forest. There were scattered tracks in the brush, but nothing resembling a trail.

Following some suggestions that I'd found on the net, we worked our way down the slickrock ridge that divides the upper part of the north fork. Bob found a workable way down into the eastern lobe, descending a very steep, long section of checkerboard slabs. Going downstream, we had to work around pour-offs; the left side seemed best until it wasn't, and then it was again. There are no cairns or signs or tracks, so you mostly just have to see what works.

One of the pour-offs had a nice little slot below it. We worked around it on the left, then when we could re-enter at the bottom, we walked back up to the pour-off and enjoyed a snack in the shade.

We went downstream to the junction with the south fork. This wasn't actually intentional — I didn't realize that it was the south fork until we'd already decided to turn back, and I walked up the slabs on the east side to have a look around. The views were really nice, with big slickrock basins both upstream and down.

When we got back to the parking spot, I asked Gretchen about a chalcedony (?) flake that I'd found, and she said that she had noticed lots of stone flakes and a core. Of course we had to go poking around through the trees looking for more. It was fun to think that folks in the past had spent some time here making arrowheads and spearpoints.

go to the Booker Canyon gallery

We then returned to camp and found that other folks had arrived. After helping people to set some gear up, we organized a trip down to the Cottonwood Canyon narrows.

Cottonwood Canyon runs along the foot of the huge monocline that bounds the east side of the Paria-Hackberry area. The monocline forms a long, straight valley that is paralleled on the east by a line of crags called the Coxcomb. Cottonwood Creek runs in a gorge in the sandstone on the west side of the road before coming out into the valley. At one point, the gorge comes close to the valley but doesn't connect to it; that makes for an upper trailhead. We left my 4Runner as a shuttle vehicle at the lower trailhead where the Cottonwood Creek comes out into the valley, and then we entered the gorge from the upper trailhead.

The canyon is a very easy walk with great scenery. It's worth walking a ways upstream from the upper trailhead, since there is a short section of nice narrows. Downstream, the gorge is pleasantly narrow for a while, before it eventually opens up a bit into a section with high white walls. It closes down somewhat just before coming out at the lower trailhead.

It was a very nice way to start the trip and for people to get acquainted with the scenery.

go to the Cottonwood Canyon Narrows gallery

Saturday was warm and windy too. Both Sue and I had a goal to get to the top of Yellow Rock, a prominence just south of the Hackberry gorge. I figured that we could do Yellow Rock in the morning, then go up Hackberry Canyon in the afternoon.

We parked at the Hackberry Canyon trailhead, then wandered downstream through the cottonwoods and willows to the next minor canyon. We followed a fairly well-established footpath up the canyon toward an enormous pour-off. Before reaching the wall, the path veered off to the right and climbed steeply up a slope to a saddle. After we all caught our breath, we followed the track back into the wash above the pour-off. The enormous bare mound of Yellow Rock loomed ahead.

Sue and Bruce crossed the wash and attacked the southern high point directly, while the rest of us took a northern route. As we picked up elevation, the wind became stronger and stronger. I had to cinch my cap down multiple times to keep it from sailing away in the blast.

The view from the top is fantastic. Castle Rock and its turrets stand out to the north above the Hackberry gorge. To the west, the top of the Grand Staircase is very impressive, from the pink cliffs at Bryce descending through the Gray Cliffs to the White Cliffs of Navajo sandstone, where we stood. The stairs descend to the south to the Colorado River. In the foreground, the sandstone is stained yellow and red and pink; it looks very colorful all the way to the Paria River gorge.

People were huddled together facing north in an effort to avoid the wind. It was hard to have conversations. Even as we descended the slabs, the wind kept blowing and whipping sand in our faces. The yellow-stained stone was really fun, though, and the scenery made up for the conditions (I thought).

go to the Yellow Rock gallery

After a stop at the cars, we entered the Hackberry gorge. All of the descriptions that I had read on-line said that Hackberry Creek has running water, but the creekbed was dry for at least the first mile. Even then, it was barely running. The ongoing drought is very evident.

After a stop for lunch in the shade, we headed up the wet section of the canyon. Some of us put on water shoes or sandals and splashed our way up the creek. It was a nice way to cool off on a hot day. After a while, the canyon opens up and becomes very red.

There are indeed hackberry trees in Hackberry Canyon. The vegetation didn't appear to be suffering from the lack of water (yet).

go to the Hackberry Canyon gallery

Gretchen had spotted a “cave” on the west side of the Cottonwood Canyon Road on an earlier trip. We stopped to investigate it. It's a pretty spot, shady with cottonwood trees. The cave is an alcove in a steep draw; Bruce and a couple others braved the exposed ledges to go up a level and get a view into the alcove. The approach to the upper cave entrance is blocked by a straggly tree, and no one wanted to force their way through it.

We stopped to take photos of the weird pinnacles and slopes of Carmel and Entrada sandstone around the upper Cottonwood Canyon trailhead. I had never been to Grosvenor Arch (apparently pronounced “Grove-ner”), so we made a quick side trip there too.

go to the Cottonwood Canyon Road gallery

On her previous trip, Gretchen hadn't made it to Lick Wash on the west side of the Paria-Hackberry area, so on Sunday morning we decided to give it a shot. It's a fairly long drive along the unpaved Skutumpah Road, which has many steep ups and downs. We stopped on the way at Bull Valley Gorge, where I was surprised to learn that the crushed pick-up that's stuck in the narrows is visible from the bridge above.

Lick Wash has somewhat lusher vegetation than the east-side canyons, probably because it's a little bit higher and is fed by run-off from the Paunsaugunt Plateau (Bryce Canyon). The narrows are walkable and pretty, although they're a bit short.

go to the Lick Wash gallery

We went back north on the Skutumpah Road to do Willis Creek. Willis Creek has fine, walkable narrows with dry, sandy floors. We saw lots of families, plenty of dogs, and a pet goat (!). Horse poop in the bottom shows that horse-riding tours also get down into the gorge. Parking was extremely crowded, but we were extremely creative and got all 3 vehicles squeezed into the overflow area.

I'd read that there were petroglyphs where Willis joins with Sheep Creek. I sent us on a bit of a goose chase heading upstream from the junction; when that didn't pan out, we came back down and discovered a Forest Service sign on the downstream side, showing where to go. The petroglyphs are not in the greatest shape, but they have some interesting patterns. There are (unfortunately) plenty of cowboyglyphs and tourist-glyphs too.

go to the Willis Creek gallery

On Monday, some folks were anxious to start on the drive home before the traffic got awful. However, 6 of us were still interested in doing the well-known Round Valley Draw slot canyon hike. We piled into two vehicles and headed to the inauspicious-looking trailhead. (Diana and Yi went for a hike in Kodachrome Basin.)

We walked down the open, sandy wash for about 2/3 of a mile, following a fairly well-established track that cuts off some of the bends. The narrows start abruptly. The 7-foot drop that I'd read about turned out to be pretty straightforward for our group, but there was some hesitation at the 17-foot drop, which comes shortly after. I pulled my rope out of my pack, and Christine knotted it so that it would make better handholds. I then went down the drop unaided and collected packs tossed down from above. The rest of the group followed, with Simon acting as the anchor at the top. Everybody was happy at the bottom to realize that the worst scramble was past.

The next mile or so went through really pretty narrows. There was beautiful light in many places; other places were dark, and made my camera confused (sigh). We all stopped repeatedly to take pictures. There were a few more downclimbs, mostly at rockfall, but nothing as challenging as the initial downclimb. The walls were curved and striated and seem to go on forever.

A small cairn marked the exit canyon. The trail was steep and loose, but we made it to the top without incident. As predicted by a webpage, there was a road that led away from the end of the trail across the plateau (Slickrock Bench). At this point, I should have re-read the directions that I'd printed and carried with me — instead, I just started walking down the road, keeping an eye out for cairns or an obvious trail.

By the time that we reached a dry stock pond, it was clear that I was off track. I re-read the directions, and they said to follow the road for just “a few minutes” before picking up a “hikers trail” on the south side. None of us had seen any obvious trail leading away from the road.

To make a long story somewhat shorter... We first tried to descend the draw to our south, but it was steep and loose and had lots of awkward brush. After some debate, I insisted that we should return along the road and look for the trail, rather than hike 4 miles or so back to the main road and then down the Round Valley Draw road. We didn't find anything resembling a trail leading away from the road, not even a use trail. We found footprints, but they seemed to be from people who were lost like us, and they faded away in the brush. Eventually we just struck out south toward the rim, and we picked up a use trail near the edge. That trail improved gradually as we got closer to the southern draw that we'd checked out before, and eventually the trail dropped fairly steeply into the bowl and took us back to Round Valley Draw just above the narrows.

When we got back to camp, Diana and Yi had been waiting for us for at least a couple of hours, and they were preparing to bail. The rest of us showed up in the nick of time, and we were able to get everything stowed and get people on their way home. Phew.

Many thanks to the participants for their company on a truly enjoyable weekend: Christine, Diana, Susan, Bob, Michele, Simon, Gretchen, Yi, Sue and Bruce.

go to the Round Valley Draw gallery

Starting in 2009, I made four annual trips, exploring the Behind-the-Rocks area just south and west of Moab. This area is full of fins and joints in Navajo sandstone, and navigating through it is really tough. It's also spectacular, with big walls and deep canyons, full of unusual topography. On each visit I worked out a new route, and it became apparent that in spite of the insanely difficult terrain, there might actually be a class 3 route through the maze from one side to the other that hit the highlights of all of my trips. I spent hours poring over maps and satellite photos and came up with a possible overall route. In 2012 I finally tried to put it all together, and we did succeed in crossing from Hidden Valley to Pritchett Canyon, but we ran out of time for the wonderful lower section and had to come out through an escape route in the middle of Pritchett.

Ten years later, I decided to try again. I figured that if I didn't need to spend as much time on routefinding, we could do the whole route in a day.

But first we had to battle the weather. The forecast for Friday kept getting wetter as the week wore on, going from a 20% chance of rain to a 40% chance and then to a 60% chance. On the drive down US 6 from Price, the rain and wind were brutal. My passengers, Hong and Bob, weren't excited about setting up tents in a muddy campground, and Hong used her phone to make motel reservations in Moab for the night.

When we arrived in Moab, there were heaps of hail in the gutters. After unloading Hong's and Bob's baggage at the motel, we drove to the reserved group campground in Kane Creek. I had warned some folks about the wet conditions by text, and a few of them had declined to come on the trip. Others showed up at the campground and set up tents in the mud. The campground had a couple of picnic tables under a shelter, and when the rain squalls passed through, we shivered under the roof. I managed to cook dinner in spite of all of this, and afterwards I drove Hong and Bob back to Moab. When I returned, there was another squall, and at the end of the squall the sun came out briefly and made a gorgeous rainbow.

go to the Kane Creek gallery

Saturday morning was cool but dry. I decided that we should prepare to do the long traverse hike, but be ready to bag it if the conditions at the start of the hike showed that it would be muddy and unpleasant. I let the starting time slide a bit, hoping that the landscape would dry out.

After leaving a shuttle vehicle and picking up Hong and Bob, we drove to the Hidden Valley trailhead. We hit the trail a bit after 9 AM. The Hidden Valley trail has been improved in the last 10 years, and it's much easier to follow now. We had fantastic views of the white-cloaked La Sals as we gradually climbed up to the Moab Rim. The trail was in fine condition, so after checking out some petroglyphs, we stepped off the trail and into the fins.

My memory of the route was actually pretty good, given that 10 years had passed. The scenery is still insanely gorgeous. We got to visit many beautiful overlooks and to admire the artistically stained Navajo sandstone walls. There was plenty of scrambling, and some of it was a bit challenging for class 3. The soil wasn't particularly muddy, although there were pools of water in places. I had managed to erase a lot of the bushwhacking from my memory, though, and we ended up in a few thrashes. It was chilly when passing clouds blocked the sun, but warm when the sun was out, so it was hard to decide what layers to wear.

The group did a great job of sticking together and helping everyone get through the tough spots. I was amused and a bit concerned at the notorious “5-foot drop” pour-off, though. As on every previous trip through here, everyone looked at the overhung drop and decided that it was too hard. I kept saying that it was just 5 feet, and that became a running joke for the rest of the trip. Eventually Hong volunteered to be lowered over the edge, and by standing next to the lip, she demonstrated that the drop was almost exactly 5 feet. After that, some people just jumped it, while we lowered others using muscle power.

I made my one major routefinding mistake shortly after. I managed to walk past the ramp that goes up to the final notch, and we ended bushwhacking down a narrow joint. Eventually I told people to wait while Gabe and I scouted the lower end, where I was forced to conclude that we were off track. We backtracked and quickly found the ramp. I got some fun photos of Connie and Hong in the notch, and we then descended the (much longer) ramp on the other side.

There were motorheads in Pritchett Canyon when finally reached the jeep track. We saw a couple of Jeeps with lift kits, which surprised me a bit, since the Pritchett track is in terrible condition — even dirt bikes have trouble on some parts of it. The BLM rates it a 9 out of 10 on its difficulty scale.

We made it back to the Kane Creek road at Pritchett in about 9 hours. That's really good time for this gnarly route. Everyone deserves a medal!

go to the Behind-the-Rocks gallery

Sunday morning was so lovely that we just had to do one more hike before leaving. I suggested Hunter Canyon, so we piled into shuttle vehicles and drove the short distance to the trailhead. It turned out that no one else on the trip had been there, which I found a little surprising since the canyon is close to Moab and it's absolutely wonderful. The trail is reasonably easy to follow, and it takes you past multiple arches and alcoves. A small stream runs through the canyon, and in the slickrock sections, it flows through curving water pockets and splashes over sandstone shelves. The cottonwoods were a glorious green, backlit by the morning sun. It was a fine send-off for a fine weekend.

go to the Hunter Canyon gallery

Last Thanksgiving, I left some chips on the table. (Hey, it's Nevada!) We ran out of time to do full justice to a really wonderful hike in the southwestern part of Gold Butte National Monument. (To be fully truthful, the hike is in the adjacent part of Lake Mead National Recreation Area, but accessed through Gold Butte). I decided that I'd collaborate with my friend Deborah, who came on that first attempt, and put a trip on the WMC schedule that would go the full distance, and add more fun hikes in the same area.

On Thursday March 17th, Hong and I drove down to St George and met up with Jim at the Costco gas pumps. Jim and Deborah then did the right thing and checked traffic on their cell phone apps, while I blithely drove with Hong into a 1-hour traffic jam between exit 118 and exit 112 on I-15 west of Mesquite. Urk. We finally hooked up and drove past the Bundy Ranch and Pyramid Bob's pyramid into Gold Butte.

We camped at the Connoly Wash corral, close to the end of the good part of the Cottonwood Wash road. I was ecstatic to get such a nice spot, so close to the hikes.

On Friday, we got an early start on the hike that ran out of time over Thanksgiving. We breezed up the burro trail to the saddle into Indian Hills Wash, then took our time heading downstream into the upper narrows. The ground was literally carpeted with flowers — it seemed to alternate between Coulter's lupine and a tiny yellow composite flower. The Mojave yuccas were in bloom, with spectacular cream and purplish inflorescences. The birds were also wonderful; Deborah and Jim pointed out the antics of the phainopeplas, little black birds with crests and white stripes on their wings. They can sit on a branch, suddenly shoot up and grab a bug, then return, making a lightning-fast loop.

We made good time through the upper narrows, then after a break of a mile, we entered what I had previously considered the lower narrows. This is all incredible territory, but I was really curious to know what came after the pour-off where we stopped in November. I knew that there was an easy way around that pour-off, but would there be a showstopper pour-off around the next bend?

The answer is “no.” There is a third set of narrows, the true lower narrows. The obstacles in it are all class 3, just as in the other narrows, so the entirety of this amazing canyon can be done without ropes or serious exposure. The walls remain tall and spectacular down into the Lake Mead high stand, where huge piles of driftwood show up. In fact, we had to clamber over one long pile that filled the canyon from wall to wall, which was a bit disconcerting.

After a while, we came out onto the dried-up mudflats which are the bed of (the former) Lake Mead. We bashed our way through dead tamarisk in search of the Colorado River, but that quickly grew tiring. We stopped for lunch on a knob of rock overlooking the “lake.” It sure would be nice if a flood would wash all the debris out of the bottom of the canyon, but if the weather were to be that wet, then the lake might come up again and drown it.

Unlike in November, we did see a few boot prints this time, proving that the canyon is not completely undiscovered. It still felt cool to have it all to ourselves, though.

go to the Indian Hills Wash gallery

On Saturday, we did a completely exploratory loop. The hike started from our campsite and went 0.3 mi north on the road to a very faint jeep track on the east side that descends into New Spring Wash. I was a bit surprised to see a concrete tank with water at the spring; I had assumed that it would be dry.

We then followed the wash downstream through an increasingly deep gorge. There are a couple of class 4-ish obstacles that can be passed on the south side, but otherwise it's pretty straightforward. The gorge exits into a broad valley and becomes Million Hills Wash. Million Hills Wash in turn has a short gorge of its own with a fun double arch at the top.

We continued down into the wide lower valley of Million Hills Wash until we got a view of the bottom of the Connoly Canyon gorge, our return route. It's pretty outrageous and hard to miss; we had lunch and admired it, and also admired the view down to the Colorado River gorge. A flock of hawks or turkey buzzards that was circling in the distance began to approach us, and I wondered whether we were on the menu, but we left before we could find out.

Connoly Wash is dramatic. I was expecting good scenery here, and it delivered even more than I'd hoped. There are two sections of exceptionally deep gorge, where steeply dipping sedimentary beds produce big walls that the gorge punches through. The terrain is so gnarly that I had a bit of trouble navigating — just go left at the first big fork, and right at the second one.

Once out of the gorge, it's still a long way back to camp. I was pretty relieved when we hit the Cottonwood Wash road again. But I was happy to have another beautiful day in the desert.

go to the New Spring Wash / Connoly Wash gallery

For Sunday, we decided to go to the granite country at the top of Cottonwood Wash. I had planned a loop; we left my 4Runner at the top of the loop, so that we wouldn't have to walk the road at the end of the hike. Instead, we walked down the rough road, past the starting point for the Indian Hills Wash hike, then picked up the rocky canyon that would take us into the hills on the west side of the road.

“Rocky” turned out to be an understatement. The wash was a narrow gorge that twisted its way over pour-offs and through huge boulder piles. It was very pretty, but the route-finding was so tough that it took us well over an hour to go a mile up the canyon. The next section involved a steep series of consecutive pour-offs, so I decided to pass it by going up the slope on the south side of the wash. That route was better but it was still pretty slow. When we reached the top, we discovered that it didn't just drop into the upper basin, and we had to go up and down through more boulders before we could drop in.

We were now finally at the foot of the granite peaks that we'd been looking at all morning from a distance. To make the loop work, we needed to cross the ridge just north of the northernmost peak, so we battled our way up the slabs and through the cat-claw acacia. Every time I thought that we were in range, another boulder-choked gully opened up and we had to work around it or through it. Eventually I spotted a relatively clear area below a knob at our level, and we scrambled our way there. We took a break for lunch and considered our options.

It was already 1 PM, and we had covered maybe 2.5 miles. At that rate, we'd be back to camp well after dark. I decided that we should give up on the loop and hunt for the jeep road in the basin to the north, then follow that back to the main Cottonwood Wash road. Although the terrain to the north wasn't quite as rocky and rugged as what we'd just come through, it still had challenges. Each little drainage leading to the basin was choked with brush and boulders. We kept contouring to the north, looking for an easier way down, when Deborah finally ran across an old bulldozer track.

The hike down the jeep road was much less stressful than the slog through the lovely but difficult granite slabs. There were huge tracts of gorgeous desert goldenpoppies, and grand views down to the puddle that was now Lake Mead. The bad news was that we had to hike a mile and a half back up the road to the vehicle, but I was grateful that we'd avoided getting stuck among the boulders.

go to the Cottonwood Wash gallery

My company forced all employees to take the entire week of Thanksgiving off this year. I was in the mood for some adventure, so I booked a WMC trip to southern Nevada, where I was hoping that the climate would be more agreeable than at home.

At one point I had 13 people signed up for the trip, but in the end, just 6 of us went. Only Bob and I went on all of the activities; other folks were present for different parts of the trip. It was fun to have a changing roster — new people and new conversation!

Hong and Gretchen wanted to follow me to the camp site, to avoid getting lost. I arranged for us to meet at the gas pumps at the Costco in St George. I was impressed to see a woman pumping gas while wearing a black down vest and beanie over her pastel green drop-waisted FLDS dress.

I had visited Mesquite in October and noted that there was construction on the I-15 bridge over the Virgin River just outside Beaver Dam AZ. On Saturday 11/20, we passed miles of northbound traffic backed up at the bridge; it made us very determined to avoid the bridge on Sunday 11/28 after Thanksgiving.

The road into Gold Butte National Monument between Bunkerville and Whitney Pocket is nominally paved, but the pavement so worn and full of potholes that dirt might have been better. The chip-seal is so eroded that the ancient pavement patches now protrude like traffic-calming bumps. It took us about an hour to drive the 21 miles into Whitney Pocket.

To my surprise, most of the camping loops around Whitney Pocket have now been furnished with port-a-potties. There were a fair number of people camped there; we found a loop that was occupied on one side of the port-a-potty, and we took the other side. The ground was mostly flat, with good dirt for tent stakes, and fantastic views of the sunrise and sunset. Around Thanksgiving, the sun rises at 6:15 AM PST and sets at 4:35 PM PST; we agreed to keep Utah time because dusk at 4:30 was just too hard to deal with. I brought my Coleman gas lantern and it was very useful for our evening get-togethers.

Speaking of evening get-togethers, the running joke of the trip was the bottle of Stella Rosa wine that Gretchen had bought on sale. Gretchen brought it out that evening, and to her dismay, she discovered that the wine was (a) only 5% ABV, (b) sparkling red, and (c) quite sweet. She shopped it around the table and no one could stand more than a taste. After that point, I kept expecting that Gretchen (or someone, anyone) would just pour it out on the sand and put it out of its misery, but instead it kept popping up at dinner times to surprise unwary newcomers. At one point I found the half-filled bottle in my own dining kit... Bob couldn't bear to dump the bottle, and it went home with him.

My 4Runner served as a 4WD bus on the trip. On Sunday morning, I hauled our group on a complicated route over rutted, sandy and rocky back roads to the upper end of the Nickel Creek gorge. Nickel Creek drains the scenic, cliffy basin on the north side of the Virgin Peak crest south of Bunkerville and Mesquite. It has a narrow gorge in its upper section that cuts through some pretty metamorphic rock.

I had visited the bottom end of the gorge back in January 2018 and found that it was too difficult for me to ascend, but it made me curious about the other end. This time, I navigated unsigned dirt tracks by GPS and ended up on a fairly terrible road into Nickel Creek just above the gorge.

The hike started out on a gravelly slope that funneled into the gorge, passing through clumps of narrowleaf cottonwoods, turning gold in the fall. When the streambed crossed onto the metamorphic rock, water came to the surface, first as a trickle and then as a chain of green pools in striped polished stone. Before long, the channel became steep, narrow and slippery, and we decided to turn around.

After returning to the 4Runner, I decided that it would be interesting to walk up the road into the upper basin. I wanted some good photos of the imposing limestone walls above us, but the low sun angle made it tough. The road here is very washed-out and rocky, but the scenery is pretty good.

The rocks in Nickel Creek were full of lovely patterns and crystals. Hong collected some great samples and loaded them into the 4Runner.

go to the Nickel Creek gallery

Our next stop on Sunday was the Falling Man petroglyph site. I had visited the site a couple of times before, but it's packed with rock art and I saw some new panels on this trip, along with many isolated glyphs. We had a blast just wandering around among the sandstone domes and exploring the nooks and crannies.

After spending more than an hour at Falling Man, we went over to the 21 Goats site, which has a fantastic panel with a chain of bighorn sheep [sic].

go to the Falling Man gallery

At dawn on Monday morning, we were roused by a crew who serviced the port-a-potty at our campsite. We were happy that the toilet was clean, a little less happy that we couldn't sleep in.

After breakfast, we went to the Kohta Circus petroglyph site. The trailhead is further down the same bumpy road as Falling Man and 21 Goats, but there is a steep hill and a washout before you reach the parking area. My recollection is that the hill used to have a nasty rut that restricted it to high clearance 4WD, but it appears to have been re-bladed and is now merely terrible rather than awful.

After starting up the sandy trail, it became clear that many people had driven around the signs and barriers that the BLM had erected to keep vehicles out. One set of tracks was so wide, they looked like Humvee tracks, trashing the vegetation on both sides of the former jeep road that we were walking on. Pretty stupid. The tracks stopped where the trail crossed a deep wash.

The trail follows the edge of an area of sandstone domes and canyons. Eventually it turns and drops into a canyon; the Circus panel is on a wall in a little side canyon. The Circus is an amazing, tightly packed assortment of all sorts of animals. Along with the usual bighorns, there are also people, deer, dogs, birds, snakes and tortoises.

Across the canyon from the Circus panel are more gorgeous panels, high up on a wall. We scrambled up as far as we could and got to see some very nice petroglyphs, but the best stuff requires some hairy exposure, so we admired it from a distance.

This is a fun area to explore. Hong and I went downstream through a mini-slot canyon, then went up a narrow joint that continued for a hundred yards or more. Bob and Gretchen checked out another joint system at the top of the draw that the Circus sits in. Using Google Maps, I had scoped out another joint system that looked like it might be an alternative route out of the Circus slickrock area, and we explored that area too, finding a somewhat circuitous route up to the top.

We walked back to the trail along the bases of cliffy sandstone domes, where Gretchen found plenty of agate / chalcedony flakes, discarded from the manufacture of stone tools. The flakes were quite pretty; we left them where we found them.

go to the Kohta Circus gallery

After a break at camp, we took off to visit Little Finland.

On the way there, we stopped at the Devil's Throat, a large sinkhole that formed in early 1900s. The site is a bit of an anticlimax — since the hole keeps getting wider and the edges are very unstable, the fence around the hole has been moved so far away from the edge that you can't actually see into the pit.

It was getting late in the day when we arrived at Little Finland. I had been there once before so I was in on the joke, but I think it didn't sink in for some people until we were on top of the cliff among the bizarre formations. The red light from the setting sun made the red blobs and holes look even stranger.

Cassie arrived that evening. She had originally planned to drive down on Saturday with the rest of us, but work stuff came up and she was delayed. She ended up flying from SLC to St George on Monday and renting a car, then driving the brutal road into Whitney Pocket. That takes real dedication!

go to the Little Finland gallery

I scheduled Tuesday for my big experimental hike to Indian Hills Wash.

Looking at Google satellite photos of Gold Butte, I had noticed a very interesting-looking canyon way down in the southeast corner, crossing into Lake Mead NRA. The canyon appeared to have some spectacular gorges cutting abruptly through tilted layers of rock. It also looked like it was in an area so remote that there was no human imprint on the landscape until you reached the lakeshore. A Google search didn't reveal any trip reports. I worked out an 11-mile round trip route from the nearest road. I was fascinated, and I had to check it out even if the route had obstacles that kept us from reaching the mouth of the canyon.

The hike was interesting enough to Deborah that she made the effort to join us at 6:40 AM Nevada time, leaving from St George and arriving at our camp just after sunrise. There's some more real dedication. Gretchen, on the other hand, left us for the day to hike on her own and then spend the night in Mesquite. (Hot showers!)

We drove from Whitney Pocket south to the Cottonwood Wash road. The road is reasonable inside Gold Butte NM — a bit rocky or sandy in a few places, but bladed and drivable by most vehicles. That changes abruptly when the road reaches the actual Cottonwood Wash and dips into Lake Mead NRA. The last ~3 miles to the trailhead are probably the worst that we drove on the entire trip. There are big boulders, steep hills, ruts and washouts; it's strictly for high clearance 4WD.

The start of the route is a draw that heads east off of Cottonwood Wash. It climbs moderately, then steeply, to the divide with Indian Hills Wash. There is lots of burro poop and many burro trails; the trails, when you can follow them, stay above the catclaw and boulders at the bottom of the draw.

On the other side of the divide, the slope is much gentler. We followed the drainage down through creosote and agave into a valley. The valley opens up again and flows toward a distinct dark wall. That's where the fun starts.

The limestone beds come out of the ground almost vertically here. The wash first punches through a brownish-orange wall, then appears to hit a dead end. At the last moment, it takes a hard swerve to the right and wriggles through impressive vertical beds in a narrows. There's a minor chokestone obstacle in the narrows, easy third class, which we passed without a problem. There are arches everywhere in this section. I think this is the spot where Deborah observed that the barrel cacti that fell from the cliffs and split open looked like durians.

After leaving this narrows, the streamcourse crosses another open area, then reaches a mountainous barrier. The stream runs north for almost a mile along this wall, then turns hard to the right again and enters a lower narrows. The lower narrows is deeper and longer than the upper narrows, and it has more obstacles. The obstacles once again turned out to be fairly straightforward class 3 scrambles.

Eventually we reached a pour-off. I decided that this was a fine place to have lunch and turn back, since I was worried that we could get back to the 4Runner after dark. I really didn't want to thrash through catclaw with headlamps, then drive the awful road in the dark. Deborah found a steep way to scramble around the pour-off and reported that the canyon just kept going. That motivated me to check for myself, and I found a class 2+ ramp on the left that completely avoided the hard part. At this point we were maybe 3/4 of a mile from the lakeshore in a spectacular gorge, and it was very tempting to push on, but I forced myself to turn the group around.

We actually made pretty good time on the way out, in spite of having to climb 2000+ feet, mostly on sand and loose gravel. We met a tarantula crossing the upper wash; Deborah got a fantastic photo. We got down to the 4Runner when there was still some sunlight on the mountain tops, and we made it back to camp while there was still a little light in the sky.

go to the Indian Hills Wash gallery

Deborah and Hong left us on Wednesday morning, so that they could be home for Thanksgiving. The rest of us packed up camp and headed into Mesquite to resupply. We met Gretchen there and convoyed over to the Buffington Pockets.

This area is about 50 miles west of Mesquite, in the northwestern part of the Muddy Mountains. Like Gold Butte, there are many exposures of red and buff Aztec sandstone (Navajo sandstone by another name), and lots of rock art. When we reached the area where I wanted to camp, the wind was brisk and chilly, so I hunted for a more sheltered spot and found one not too far away.

By the time we had set up camp, it was already late afternoon. (The sun went down around 4:30 PM Nevada time!) We still had enough time to walk into the Pockets from camp, however, so I organized a hike. We strolled up the awful road into the Pockets to an old concrete dam (which used to collect water for cattle?). Someone has creatively painted a huge image of an owl on the front of the dam, which makes it stand out. We went around the dam to look for the well-known petroglyph panel a short distance upstream. The panel turned out to be located next to a natural tank (with water!) in a short narrows. I'm not used to seeing petroglyphs in places like that, but I guess the artists had their own reasons for working there.

go to the Buffington Pockets gallery

Thanksgiving Day was dedicated to Valley of Fire State Park. We were camped off of the road to the western entrance to the park, so it was pretty straightforward to drive there.

The visitor center had Thanksgiving hours and didn't open until 10 AM, so we drove over to the Mouse's Tank trail. On the way we saw two bighorn sheep in the cliffs above the visitor center; what fun! I had misremembered the location of the best petroglyphs along the trail, but our detour didn't take long. By the time we returned to the trailhead, the parking lot had mostly filled up.

When we returned to the visitor center, not only had the parking lot mostly filled up, but there were two full busloads of tourists milling around. I tried to get a park brochure, but they were all out. By the time we left, the place was swarming with people; I was very impressed.

I had planned an exploratory hike into Fire Canyon, which is the central drainage of the southern section of the park. By some miracle we found a parking place at Silica Dome. From there, we walked east around the head of the basin on the Silica Dome trail, looking for cairns or other evidence that people had successfully descended through the cliffs. After a while we simply left the trail and wandered south onto the sandstone slabs on the east side of the draw. We contoured fairly high to stay above obvious pour-offs in the drainage, until Bob found a nice class 2+ crack that led down to a cairn in the bottom.

The soft sand in the bottom of the draw made hiking a bit of a slog, and there was plenty of catclaw. On the plus side, the canyon was narrow and colored a gorgeous shade of red. Like Indian Hills Wash, the obstacles were all fairly straightforward class 3. I think we could have easily made it down to where the wash leaves the domes, but we decided to turn around so that we'd have time to visit more of the park.

After returning to the 4Runner, we drove north to the White Domes area. The trailhead is at the end of the paved road, and it was very busy. We somehow managed to find a parking space, and we started hiking. Bob decided to do the class 4 scramble to the top of the dome on the east side of the parking lot, while the rest of us walked the loop around the west dome.

There was a bighorn traffic jam on the way back down to the park entrance. A ranger in a truck flashed his light rack at me, and I pulled to a sudden stop so that a herd of several bighorns could saunter across the road. Very cool — it's nice to see them bouncing back. On the drive back to camp, we passed an incredible number of cars that were still headed to the park, even though it was late in the afternoon. I had no idea that Valley of Fire was now so popular.

Back at camp, I made stovetop turkey tetrazzini as an experiment, using a smoked turkey breast that I had barbecued and frozen the previous week. It worked out very well, but I made so much that I ended up feeding myself, Bob and Cassie, and had enough leftovers for two more meals at home.

go to the Valley of Fire gallery

Cassie departed on Friday morning, leaving just me, Bob and Gretchen. I took our depleted group to two familiar places.

Hidden Valley is a huge bowl surrounded by the Muddy Mountains, with Aztec sandstone that forms walls and floors and domes and monoliths. We accessed it by walking up the outlet stream through a narrow limestone gorge, where monstrous fallen boulders occasionally block progress. The wide expanse of Hidden Valley is a bit of a surprise after the claustrophobic gorge.

In 2018, Nance and I had hiked up the gorge, then crossed the ridge to the north and descended through the Colorock Quarry, making a loop back to the car. This time, our little group spent hours exploring the maze of joints and cracks on the west side of the valley. We found flakes from the manufacturing of stone tools, as well as occasional rock art. The best panel was located in a little alcove along with the skull of a bighorn sheep.

It was very tempting to keep wandering, but we started to run out of water. We crossed the ridge to the Colorock area, where we found more rock art and flakes, not to mention fantastic rock staining reminiscent of wonderstone from Utah.

go to the Hidden Valley gallery

We had a bit of time left in the day, so I suggested that we drive the 30 miles to Arrow Canyon. Arrow Canyon is the defining feature of the Arrow Canyon Range, a rugged chain of peaks that parallels US 93 to the east as it heads north to Caliente and Ely. For some reason, the huge basin of Pahranagat Wash funnels through two narrow canyons in the Arrow Canyon Range to reach the Muddy River to the east. Arrow Canyon is the lower, eastern canyon.

In spite of the fact that I'd shot dozens of photos on an earlier visit, I couldn't resist taking more on this trip. We hiked past some really nice petroglyphs into the lower narrows, which was just as deep and slot-like as I'd remembered. Unlike my previous visit, this time we had plenty of company. The Southern Nevada Climbing Coalition has put up a sign at the trailhead, and the (small) parking area at the end of the (terrible) road was full. (Someone had managed to drive a Toyota Sienna minivan to the end of that road; I was (and am) amazed.)

We found climbers and bolted routes in the lower narrows. I remembered seeing climbers in the upper narrows on my previous visit; the lower narrows are taller and more intimidating, and I wasn't surprised that they are getting climbed. I still love the way that the barrel cacti on the walls defy gravity and stick out perpendicular to the slope.

We returned to camp after dark, sneaking past the “Trump 2020” encampment next to the Buffington Pockets road to reach our little camp. I made grilled ham and cheese sandwiches for dinner. The next morning we packed up and headed home, hoping to beat the traffic back to SLC.

go to the Arrow Canyon gallery