Moonshine Wash 2018

On my first camping trip with the WMC this spring, we went to Moonshine Wash and Colonnade Arch. Moonshine Wash is a pretty little canyon that empties into the San Rafael River just before the latter empties into the Green River. It's about 20 mi south of the town of Green River.

On Friday afternoon, we did a hike up the central part of Moonshine, a fine canyon in the Navajo Sandstone. This section isn't a slot, but it's a pleasant hike with steep walls and pretty colors. The hard part was finding access from the east side; we had to go fairly far downstream to get into the canyon, but we were able to find an exit that was closer to the nicest part of the canyon. The central canyon has sections that are carved out in a tunnel-like shape reminiscent of the Subway in Zion (but much wider). We found lots of chert, which is a hard silica rock that forms through chemical action in beds of limestone. The colors and shapes were striking — pale translucent, blood red, golden yellow, vivid green (!) and delicate pink, with sculptured or knobby forms.

We hiked the classic slot section of Moonshine on Saturday. We took our time and enjoyed the hike, which has several non-technical scrambles. We took in the view of the so-called 'sheep bridge' from below, which was amazing. After passing through the slot section, we hiked down into the central section and connected with the end of our hike on Friday. The walls in this section are extravagantly painted, with cavities that contain bird nests — we were surprised and amused at one point when a raven flew out of a deep hole above our heads. We scrambled out of the canyon on a steep route to the west, then followed GPS directions to an overlook of the actual cement tanks where people had made moonshine. The tanks were in a side canyon with steep walls, and we didn't see an obvious way down. We then hiked upstream along the rim, cross-country over Carmel Formation badlands and Entrada Sandstone slickrock, until we reached the sheep bridge again. The sheep bridge from above looks well-aged and not very sturdy, and naturally it's placed over a very intimidating drop. I don't think we would have found the bridge without GPS coordinates, and the crossing back to the east side was also helped by GPS coordinates.

Colonnade Arch was the main event on Sunday. We drove 10 or so miles south on good bladed roads to a spur road that heads east toward the Green River. I had been led to believe that this road was in bad shape, but in fact it is bladed almost all of the way to the end, with one slickrock section that isn't too bad. (The last third of a mile or so is quite rough, however.) The arch is also called 5 Hole Arch — whatever the name, it's a spectacular cluster of arches in an awesome location above a big drop to the Green River. We admired the holes / rooms and the ceilings; we peeked skeptically over the insane vertical drops; and we all took zillions of photos, me included. It's really a special place, and we speculated about how cool it would be to shoot the arches at dawn, or dusk, or even at night.

go to the Moonshine Wash gallery