Five Days in Moab

I’ve got bunches of stuff to write up.  The past month or so has been one my busiest in years in terms of outdoor adventure.   I’ve not exactly been slacking before the last month either.  So I’m going to have to be brief in the hopes of getting all of this out on paper without driving myself nuts.

My wife and I had our first wedding anniversary on April 13^th.  Each spring, the past few years, we’ve taken a trip up to Southern Utah, visiting Page, Zion, Bryce, and Capitol Reef, among other places.  This year, we wanted to keep the streak going, and the natural choice was Moab.  I’d been there twice before, but briefly, and for my wife it was the one place in Southern Utah she had yet to lay eyes on.  So we planned a 5-day trip.

On the Friday before, we drove up out of Phoenix after work.  A quick dinner in Flagstaff and we continued up to Navajo National Monument.  This is quickly becoming a favorite transit point.  There aren’t many places to camp on the rez (legally), but Navajo National Monument has free campsites.  It’s pretty, and has great starlight views as well.  Its about 4 hours from Phoenix, so it’s a good spot to stop for the first night, and cut a long drive the next day in half.

In the morning, we headed on to Moab.  Shortly out of Navajo National Monument, we headed through Monument Valley.  We drove into the View hotel and paid the entrance fee.  The lady at the entrance station said we were free to drive the road through the valley.  The last time I visited (in 2011), I was left with the impression that in order to enter the valley, you had to go with a guide.  Whether I was wrong, or the rules had changed, we were excited to learn this.  We had breakfast at the Lodge and then drove into Monument Valley.

The setting is striking.  I’ve been all over the Southwest, and Monument Valley is on equal footing with any national park I’ve been to. 

 Like all of these places, seeing pictures doesn’t really prepare you for the real experience of being there.  We drove the full loop, shooting video and pictures.

On the way to Moab, we took a brief detour over to Goosenecks State Park.  This is WELL worth a detour in the area.  It overlooks a stretch of the San Juan River with deeply entrenched meanders.  Its like Horseshoe Bend (near Page) on steroids.

The next morning, we got up early to squeeze in a visit to Canyonlands National Park.  We did the car tourist thing at the Island in the Sky district, driving around to all the overlooks, and hiking out on the Upheaval Dome trail.  

 This is the third time I’ve visited the Island in the Sky, and each time, its just been a quick overview and dayhike.  It’s obvious from the views that this park features a massive backcountry, and I saw some of it on a 10-mile dayhike in the Needles district in 2013, but I want to do more.  Its time for a big backpacking trip in Canyonlands.  Given the layout, I think this would be a phenomenal location for a combination backpacking/packrafting type trip. 

We were back in Moab by 11 to hop on a bus for a guided whitewater trip down the Colorado River.  At my wife’s behest, I had chosen the easy Fisher Towers section.  The upside of it being an easy section is that they allowed us to run it in duckies (inflatable kayaks).  My wife and I ran the first half of the river in a ducky, before giving it up to some kids who asked.  

 This was a fun and scenic trip, if a little mellow by my tastes.  It seems like this section of the Colorado – known as the “Moab Daily” among river runners – would be an EXCELLENT one to run in a packraft, as its easily accessible, hitchable, and none of the rapids are higher than class II.  Once I get my packraft (planning to buy an Alpacka this year), this may be a good one to come up and try.

At the end of the day, Sarah and I drove out along the Potash Road, past all the rock climbers, to hike out to Bowtie and Corona Arch.  This was a really excellent hike.    

Even though it’s not part of Arches park, I would say that Corona Arch is one of the finest arches in the area.   The setting, in a massive slickrock bowl, is first-rate as well.  The setting sun lit up the arch and made for a great end to the day.

The next day, we drove into Arches National Park.  I’ve visited a few times before, but this was the first time for my wife.  So we visited all the major roadside attractions, like Wall Street, Balanced Rock, the Windows and Turret Arch, Double Arch, and Sand Dune Arch.  The mass profusion of arches at Arches is what makes the park great.  Pulling up to a single roadside arch, the initial reaction can be a bit ho-hum.  They’re a point of interest, but most of the time, they're not a sight that can blow you away like a spectacular overlook or waterfall.  Arches National Park counters this by piling on arch after arch after arch, overwhelming the senses until you give in to wonder.  

At mid-day, we hopped onto the Devil’s Garden trail.  We hiked past all the tourists at Landscape Arch to visit Navajo and Partition Arches.

From there, we climbed up a rock fin to get to Double O Arch.  This was a section of trail I remembered fondly from my previous visit, and it was just as fun this time hiking in over the fin.  Snow on the La Sals made the scenery even more dramatic.

At Double O, we got onto the primitive return trail.  While I had hiked out here before, I had not taken the primitive return.  It lived up to the advertising, weaving a complex path through the rock fins.  Several stretches of fun slickrock scrambling ensued.  

Near the end, the trail turns into a trudge-fest through deep sand, before delivering you back to Landscape Arch. 

That night, we camped at Devil’s Garden Campground.  If you are planning to camp here, first, reserve online, many months before you come.  It fills up fast, so advance planning is needed. Secondly, try to snap Campsite #1 if you can.  Its isolated from the other campsites entirely, so you’ll have no neighbors.

The final day, we left our tent set up at Devil’s Garden, and drove up out of the Moab Valley.  The plan was to check out the San Rafael Swell, an area that neither Sarah nor I had ever seen. 

Approaching the swell was just awesome.  It’s very scenic, and reminds me quite a bit of the view of the Waterpocket Fold as you descend from Highway 12 on Boulder Mountain.  It’s kind of shocking to me that an area this scenic is completely unprotected.  The scenery we’d see this day would be right at home in a National Park, or failing that, a wilderness area.  Its kind of baffling to me that it isn’t.

The plan for the day was a hike in Bell and Little Wild Horse Canyons.  These are two lovely slot canyons that cut right into the San Rafael Reef.  We hiked up Bell canyon through the narrows

From Bell, we hiked over the back of the Reef to get into Little Wild Horse to return to our car. We had awesome views of the reef on this transition.

Despite these being very well-known canyons with incredible scenery, we ran into very few people outside of the lower stretch of LWH.  The whole hike was excellent, but that lower stretch of LWH was first rate, with wiggly pink narrows that brought thoughts of pink frosting on a cake to mind.  We nicknamed it valentine’s cake canyon between the two of us.

Unfortunately, the wind was howling this day, with gusts up to 30-40 mph for much of the day.  We had hoped being in canyons would cut the wind down, and it did a little, but the wind was still bad.  And at points the canyon would act as a funnel for the wind, rather than blocking it.  My poor wife spent much of the day fussing with her contacts. 

After the hike, we took a brief detour to Goblin Valley State Park.  We didn’t linger long because of the wind, but stopped to take in the views.

On arriving back at Arches, we discovered the wind had destroyed our tent.  One of the poles had snapped, and everything in the tent was covered in sand.  We fixed it as best we could, but both of us were exhausted, and the tent pole was unfixable, so we just re-staked the tent and climbed in.  It flapped like crazy most of the night.  Despite the problems, both of us were giggling over the whole situation, and nicknamed the tent the Nylon Cyclone.

The last day was basically just a drive back to Phoenix.  We did make one detour.  In looking at various photographer’s groups on facebook, I had stumbled across a photo of a place called Coal Mine Canyon in northern Arizona, on the Navajo reservation.  I consider myself pretty damn well-informed about outdoor places in Arizona, but had somehow never heard of this one.  I did some research online and found it to be pretty off everyone’s radar.  My wife and I took a detour to the rim of the canyon from Tuba City, and discovered some incredible scenery that rivals anything I’ve seen in any national park in Utah or Arizona.  Coal Mine Canyon is a northern extension of the Painted Desert that features colorful cliff walls and hoodoos.  We stopped to snap a few pics, happy to have discovered this hidden gem.

Garden Creek Grand Canyon Spring 2015

This weekend a group of us went hiking down the Bright Angel trail in Grand Canyon National Park.

 We made it to Indian Gardens, then followed Garden Creek down through the Tapeats Sandstone. Soon, we stopped at trailside to change into wetsuits. We got some odd looks from passing rim-to-river hikers.

Garden Creek cuts a gorgeous slot canyon through the Vishnu Schist. Despite its proximity to one of the most popular trails in the world, the canyon remained largely unheralded until a few years ago, when the book "Grand Canyoneering" was published.

Following the beta in the book, we headed into the canyon, soon arriving to descend a massive 400-foot multi-stage waterfall rappel.

There are multiple rappels in the canyon, each of them down a spectacular waterfall. The pink granite twists and turns, and each drop brings a new grotto and water-carved rock.  Its a spectacular, first-class canyon. Kind of miraculous when you think about how many thousands of hikers trot past the canyon with no idea of what lies within. You can see part of the flow from Plateau point, but to really see the canyon, you have to rig up and descend into its depths. 

This is pay-to-play territory. Beside the technical requirements to descend the canyon, you've got haul all those pounds of wetsuits and wet rope up and down 5000 feet of elevation change. We camped at Indian Gardens, meaning we needed to haul overnight gear as well. Despite the difficulty, I'd do this trip again in a heartbeat. This was adventure on a grand scale.

Tonto Creek 2013

I'm in the middle of gearing up for another Grand Canyon technical canyoneering trip this weekend, but thought I'd take a few minutes to post up another older trip.  Tonto Creek is a major drainage flowing down from the Mollogon Rim near Payson.  It flows into a beautiful granite slot canyon in the Hellsgate Wilderness.  Most backpackers who visit this wilderness simply hike in along the Hellsgate trail to stay at the confluence of Haigler and Tonto Creeks.  However, with a bit of work, its possible to leave the backpackers behind and follow Tonto Creek into the heart of the wilderness- not on a trail, but directly down the streambed.

This is semi-technical canyoneering.  Unlike a trail, where you can cruise for miles sometimes mindlessly, here you are constantly engaged, trying to figure out which rocks are most stable, where the footing is wet, where the handholds are, and whether to bushwhack and climb along the side of the creek, or wade and swim right down the middle.  This is grueling work, but its also my favorite type of hike.  The fun factor is way higher than a typical on-trail hike.  Its basically the adult equivalent of visiting a waterpark like Sunsplash or Big Surf.  But with no crowds, and a spectacular wilderness setting instead :)

There are multiple options for trips in this area.  You can head down Tonto Creek from Bear Flat to Hellsgate (which we did on this trip), or you can follow Haigler down to Hellsgate as well.  Its also possible to continue along the merged Tonto Creek downstream from Hellsgate.  This is a minimum 3-4 day trip of constant canyon scenery.  I did that hike years ago (2004/5 time frame), and in 2011 I did the Tonto - Hellsgate section as a solo overnight.  This time around, I posted the trip on meetup.  One person showed, which was ideal.  Campsites in the canyon are small, and a group of two moves fast.

In the last year, I've moved into technical canyoneering.  But this type of trip in some ways is more appealing.  You get the same scenery, with less risk, allowing you to focus more on the wilderness setting without the distraction of all the tech details of anchors, rigging, rappeling, and other stuff. 

More importantly, I've sometimes been stymied with how brief many of the most popular technical canyoneering trips are. I've done some incredibly scenic canyons like Salome Jug and been frustrated with how fast the trip flies by.  Its like a little blip of awesomeness, then back to reality.  We blasted through Sundance Canyon in less than 3 hours.  For me, more time is needed in a wilderness setting to really reset.  3 hours, even in an incredibly beautiful place, is too short a window of time to shed your "civilized" thinking patterns and move into a more natural way of operating.  So the prospect of an overnight or longer canyon is incredibly appealing, providing the opportunity to really immerse yourself in the setting.

This is probably also the reason canyoneering in the Grand Canyon has got its hooks in me.  I relish the opportunity to travel through these kinds of settings for days at a time.  So for me, Tonto Creek is one of the finest hikes in the state.  Its just mile after mile of incredible beauty.  Any of the spots along the creek would be worthy of an all-day hike, just to reach that one spot, as so many do with the hellsgate trail.  To get to travel through it hour after hour, is a privilege.

Big Canyon

Last fall, I scheduled a trip to Big Canyon, a tributary of the Little Colorado River on the Navajo reservation.  A bunch of people showed for this trip, and on the first day, we entered the wrong drainage to connect down into Big Canyon.  We ended up wasting too much daylight farting around in that drainage, and aborted the trip before it even got started.  It was a huge disappointment.  Naturally, I wanted to fix this blot on my record, so I put the trip on the calendar again for this spring.  There was some last minute scrambling to figure out who was coming and who wasn't, but a team of five canyoneers from Phoenix, Flagstaff and St. George Utah eventually coalesced and we headed up Friday night to camp on the rim.

After a long shuttle on dusty Navajo roads, we dropped down through a break in the Coconino sandstone. This involved rock-hopping and butt-sliding down a massive talus slope.

Once safely at the bottom, we followed obscure washes further into the canyon. The going at this point was mostly easy, with firm sand, little rock-hopping, and easy route-finding.

Eventually, the canyon starts to drop into the Redwall.  Huge walls rear up from both sides of the canyon, and the scenery starts to get spectacular.

The first technical drop in the canyon is an 80 foot rappel that leads into a stunning, spring-fed chamber. Waterfalls with heavy mineral content make for turquoise blue-green water. 

Just around the corner, the canyon makes a 100 foot drop down a shushing waterfall. You rappel right down the middle of the waterslide.

Goes without saying, but this is incredibly fun. And given the price of admission in terms of physical and technical difficulty, you're all but guaranteed to have it all to yourself.

Below the second drop, the canyon opens up. While the canyon is no longer a narrow slot, the mineral content of the water makes for huge travertine waterfalls. We followed a series of rappels right down the middle of these formations.

At the bottom, the canyon drops into the Little Colorado River. Most of the year, this river would also be flowing turquoise, but recent rains had muddied the waters. All the same, its a spectacular area. We waded and floated right down the river to our campsite.

The exit the next day follows the Salt trail back out the rim. This is the trail that the Hopis use to travel to the confluence of the Little Colorado and Colorado rivers, to visit the sipapu - the place where they believe their ancestors emerged from the earth. Despite the trail being older than the park itself, it was not easy, climbing 3000 feet straight up. While easy to follow, it degenerates at times into a free climb straight up the rocks. 

Between this trip, and Shinumo Wash last fall, the bug has bitten me hard.  I've been backpacking for many years, and these kinds of trips are everything I love about backpacking.  Its seriously remote wilderness, incredible beauty in both the big vistas and intimate slots, and tons of fun and variety in the swimming, rappelling and rafting.  All in one of the keystone national parks on the entire planet.  Grand Canyoneering is the next level of outdoor adventure, and I'm already planning my next trips.  Giddy up!