Vermillion Castle 2021

In 2021, I decided to celebrate Memorial Day by organizing a trip for the WMC to the Vermillion Castle area near Brian Head. Now that my friends and I are vaccinated, it seemed like a good time to celebrate by heading back into the woods for a long weekend.

I was last in the area in 2014. The scenery has changed after the Brian Head fire. The Castle area wasn't burned, but the east and south ends of the Yankee Meadow area were torched. The official Forest Service campground was burned over; one tree was left standing. Fortunately, there were still some sites at the “dispersed camping” area that didn't burn, and our group managed to grab the last two available sites on Thursday afternoon.

I had planned a mix of familiar and exploratory hiking for the weekend. Some of the hikes worked out and some didn't, but the weather was pleasant and the scenery was grand.

Those of us who had arrived early went to Brian Head and Cedar Breaks on Friday morning. To my amazement, Cedar Breaks was mostly open, with rangers on duty and the visitor center gift shop open. Only a few scattered traces of snow were still holding out. The drought and the heat this year have been impressive. We took a short hike on the Sunset Trail so that folks who hadn't been to Cedar Breaks before could get a taste of the scenery — Bryce-ish pink and red hoodoos clinging to cliffs at 10,000 ft.

We went back to camp and found that more people had arrived. I was impressed at the big shade canopies (three of them) and the giant tents; no slumming in backpacking tents for us! I thought that it was a fine afternoon to hike the Noah's Ark trail, which I had done once back in 2014, so we piled into our vehicles and carpooled down to the Five Mile picnic area. The Forest Service has made improvements here — the washed out crossing over Bowery Creek has been repaired, and the trail has been brushed out and the tread improved. We hiked up to the overlook through the colorful conglomerate cliff bands. There is lots of scenery there, with a fine view over to the Grand Castle, my destination for Saturday.

Happy hour back at camp was pretty swanky. I think Michele and Simon won the contest with cheese and champagne, but everyone did well. Shasta the dog got to chase lots of sticks.

go to the Noah's Ark gallery

My goal for Saturday was to hike into Dry Canyon, the “zeroth” left-hand fork of Parowan Canyon, and then cross back south into First Left Hand Fork Canyon while taking in the Grand Castle, the high point of the Vermillion Castle complex. All exploratory and mostly off trail, of course — the best way. I optimistically parked my 4Runner as a shuttle vehicle on the First Left Hand Fork road at the foot of the Grand Castle.

We navigated our way up an old logging road to a dry lake, then bushwhacked westward to drop into the head of Dry Canyon. The brush and deadfall on the slope actually weren't very difficult, and we found big chunks of agate on our way down into the canyon bottom.

The deadfall got a bit more obnoxious as we headed downstream, but the scenery was very nice. We were in a beautiful, park-like forest of ponderosas and aspen and white firs, with red and pink spires of rock poking up everywhere. We took a break at a scenic side canyon, and some of us walked up to see the triple towers about a half mile up.

Then came bad news and worse news. Not far below the side canyon, the main canyon was blocked by a pour-off. I had scrutinized the Google satellite photos for obstacles like this, but I missed it. I didn't see an obviously safe way around the pour-off for our large group, and I didn't want to waste a lot of time searching for a route, so I sent our group up the ridge to the south. It was a slow, steep slog up a pile of loose crap.

That's we had the worse news. Someone dislodged a rock high on the slope, and it bounced down and hit Cheryl's right knee. Cheryl managed to get above the worst section using sheer willpower. Her knee was bruised and swollen, and it didn't feel stable to her, so we brainstormed ways to wrap it. As it happens, there was a simple solution — Susan had a knee brace in the bottom of her pack (!). We had to take off Cheryl's ankle brace to get the knee brace on, but with Cheryl directing, we got everything in place. Cheryl was then able to put weight on the knee, and we bushwhacked back to the cars.

It was too bad that we had to skip the Grand Castle — it will still be there next time. I was also a bit bummed that we didn't get to see the middle section of Dry Canyon, which looked spectacular from a distance. I drove up the Dry Canyon road on Monday on my way out, and reached a KEEP OUT sign just as the scenery was getting good. Apparently there is a sand mine on a state township section that has exclusive access to the middle part of Dry Canyon. It's typical that one of the most striking parts of the Vermillion Castle area is off limits due to state-subsidized resource extraction.

go to the Dry Canyon gallery

I had another semi-insane cross-country exploratory hike on tap for Sunday. We started at Yankee Meadow Reservoir with the goal of dropping into Second Left Hand Fork Canyon and coming out in First Left Hand Fork Canyon. Remarkably, this hike actually worked out.

We had some trouble at the start. I wanted us to climb a low hill through burned aspen southwest of the reservoir, then drop down a steep slope to the dirt road, which I had heard was closed due to damage from fires. I had bad luck on two counts — the burned slope is saturated with water and is glacially slipping into Second Left Hand Fork, and the road had been reopened to traffic.

I had wanted to investigate a side canyon off of the Second Left Hand Fork road that seemed to hold a big red amphitheater of hoodoos. That part worked out spectacularly. The canyon is pristine, barely touched by the fire and untouched by roads or trails, and it's walkable for long distances. We had lunch in one of the deep recesses, under red pinnacles. It's another bit of Utah scenery that would be protected in a park in any other state.

Then it was back to the road and downstream to the next substantial side canyon. I wanted to take this canyon up to a saddle on the east side of Henderson Hill, where we would meet the official Henderson Canyon trail and hike down to the shuttle vehicle. The area was gorgeous, but the route was dicey. There was a fair amount of deadfall along the dry stream bed. After a while, the stream entered a red rock gorge and got narrow. It was very pretty but it made me concerned that we might get blocked by a pour-off.

And indeed, there was an overhung pour-off at the point where the stream zig-zagged out of the red rock into a wider canyon. We plugged along in the red rock gorge, and we lucked out by finding a relatively easy route over the divide and back down into the main fork. When we got to the saddle, the view south toward Brian Head was very cool. We picked up a use trail below the saddle and followed it over the top, where it led to Henderson Spring and turned into the official Henderson Canyon trail. The rest of the way down was a piece of cake, on generally good trail through forest that was mostly green and had patches that appeared to have burned before the Brian Head fire.

We had another great happy-hour and postprandial discussion, then went to bed. We all got up early to head home before the holiday traffic became brutal.

go to the Second Left Hand Fork gallery