Grand Gulch backpack trip

[ilanarama]

This past weekend Britt and I went on our first backpack trip of the season, to Grand Gulch, which is a canyon system in southern Utah which was a major population center back in the 11th century. Lots of ruins and rock art to look at, in addition to the natural beauty of the redrock canyon country; lots of wildflowers and a little wildlife (a big gopher snake, and I didn't put his picture inline here but be warned there is one in the linked photoset, if you are a snake-o-phobe).


We went in on the Government Trail and hiked up Grand Gulch to Dripping Canyon to camp, looking at Cool Stuff as we went; then we returned to Polly's Canyon which is next to the Government Trail but has no formal trail. We camped in Polly's Canyon for the second night, and in the morning bushwhacked and climbed our way out. It has been a dry winter and spring here in the desert southwest, and there was no water at some of the intermittent springs. We were a bit nervous heading up Dripping Canyon but happy to find water there, but we did not find water at the marked spring in Polly's Canyon and were contemplating having to hike out that afternoon when we found a bunch of pools farther upcanyon, phew.

Ruin in an abandoned meander of the main Grand Gulch canyon:


Oasis in Cow Tank canyon:


Handprint pictographs:


Set of 24 photos at Flickr

Comments

[ainsley]

I'm glad it went well, and it's very cool to see photos of the ruins.

[ilanarama]

Thank you! It was really a ruin-ous trip! :-)

(and *facepalm* at my reply from Other Account, sorry.)

[canetoad]

Great photos!

It's amazing to me that the ruins aren't ... I don't know, more protected? They're beautiful.

[ilanarama]

Well, they are protected by obscurity, I guess. You have to hike in to get to them, and many of them are not in the guidebooks (deliberately). But they have fallen down over the years, and been raided by pothunters before laws were put in place, and been affected by people before mandatory hiking permits with education were required. (You have to watch a video with proper ruin etiquette before you get a permit. Of course, there's little enforcement of having a permit...)

[blnchflr]

That ruin is indeed so neat, and the wall to the right looks purposefully constructed, though surely it isn't?

[ilanarama]

Yeah, the 'wall' to the right is actually rockfall. Old rockfall, because there are pictographs (you can see the white handprints; there are some red ones too, out of frame), so it formed a natural cave that the people used as shelter.

[blnchflr]

It just fell so neatly :)