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ilanaramaWe were going to go backpacking in the mountains above Silverton, but the forecast was pretty awful - 80% chance of rain on Saturday, 60% on Sunday - so instead we went to Utah, to do the Fish Creek/Owl Creek loop we did back in August 2010. We figured that now that the rains had begun, it should be okay to do a desert hike in the summer.
Except that it wasn't. We (me, Britt, and our friend Shan) drove out to the trailhead and paid our permit fee, hiked and scrambled down the steep, rocky canyon wall, and found that the rains didn't do diddly-squat. The springs were still running, but the dry winter had failed to fill the pools, and the places we'd swum two years ago had only a few inches of scummy water.
This is 2010:
And this is 2012. The water level in the previous picture is just below the close horizontal lines on the back wall, just above the shadow line.
We did not take a corresponding photo in 2010 - this is looking in the other direction at the same pool - but in 2010 the water was overflowing across the low spot on the rock bridge across the middle of the picture.
When we saw this, we decided it would be too risky to continue on the loop, as there was a good chance we would not have enough water further downcanyon. Instead we backtracked to the spring, where there was a decent pool we could swim in, as well as enough running water from the spring for filtering, and set up camp. The next morning we explored upcanyon a bit, and then hiked back out. Phooey.
Except that it wasn't. We (me, Britt, and our friend Shan) drove out to the trailhead and paid our permit fee, hiked and scrambled down the steep, rocky canyon wall, and found that the rains didn't do diddly-squat. The springs were still running, but the dry winter had failed to fill the pools, and the places we'd swum two years ago had only a few inches of scummy water.
This is 2010:
And this is 2012. The water level in the previous picture is just below the close horizontal lines on the back wall, just above the shadow line.
We did not take a corresponding photo in 2010 - this is looking in the other direction at the same pool - but in 2010 the water was overflowing across the low spot on the rock bridge across the middle of the picture.
When we saw this, we decided it would be too risky to continue on the loop, as there was a good chance we would not have enough water further downcanyon. Instead we backtracked to the spring, where there was a decent pool we could swim in, as well as enough running water from the spring for filtering, and set up camp. The next morning we explored upcanyon a bit, and then hiked back out. Phooey.