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Canyon Country vacation part 1: Navajo Bridge and the White Pocket
We are back from a vacation in northern Arizona and south-central Utah. It was fabulous! Lots of great hikes and beautiful sandstone scenery.
We left Durango around 11:45 on Sunday, driving via Kayenta and Page, AZ. We stopped to walk over the old Navajo Bridge over the Colorado River, basically the entrance to the Grand Canyon. From there, we could look at both Marble Canyon below and the new auto bridge - and we saw condors! A few sat on the beams of the new bridge, and some flew above and below us. These huge birds (they may have up to nine foot wingspans!) were re-introduced to this area in 1996 as part of the conservation effort to save this endangered species.
We turned off the highway to go north on House Rock Road, past the official condor viewing site, and camped on the right just past the private land fence. We could see condors on the cliffs with binoculars, and occasionally caught one in flight.
In the morning we drove to the 4WD road that leads to South Coyote Buttes and White Pocket, in the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument; we had visited the former in 2008 but never been to latter. (This is near the famous "Wave" that is incredibly popular and has visitation by limited permit only.) The road is deep sand with occasional rocky ridges, and we ground along in 4WD-low at about 10mph navigating by waypoints Britt had set and transferred - sort of scary!
We continued past the ranch airstrip where we had turned for South Coyote Buttes, and continued through more deep sand to parking area. Saw a beautiful light-colored red-tailed hawk in flight above! There were quite a few vehicles at parking area, and even some tent campers near the trailhead, but perhaps this was because the White Pocket area doesn't require permits.
We walked through the sand for about half a mile before emerging onto weird quilted-looking white sandstone breaking into layered red and white swirls that resembled nothing so much as melting strawberry-vanilla ice cream.
The rock formations were amazing, and the patterns were beautiful.
We saw many small arches and hoodoos:
An outfitter who was guiding a family from the midwest told us about a cave with petroglyphs on the wall outside, so we had to go check it out. In the cave was various detritus from the ancient inhabitants: corn cobs, bones, sharpened rocks. Outside was a very nice petroglyph panel.
By the time we returned to our van, most of the other vehicles had left. We drove to a side road and found a pullout to park and camp. Britt hiked up to another butte and found more petroglyphs, as well as old cowboy inscriptions and carvings in the rock.
In the morning I made pancakes for breakfast, and then we drove out from our campsite a short distance to near some rocks where the map was marked White Slab. And that's what it was! A big white dance-floor of rock set into the ground, lots of "moqui marbles" (concretions of sand and iron oxide) in the sandy low spots between slabs of sandstone, echoing the similar piles of juniper berries under the trees nearby.
Then we drove up the very sandy hill we'd descended on the way to White Pocket and stopped at the ridge, to investigate some white rock towers we'd seen from the road. We dubbed the formation White Castle because it looked like a castle with onion domes, or maybe a decorated cake with whipped-cream turrets. Lots of interesting mini-amphitheaters and passages to explore.
We headed out the way we came, though I navigated on some alternate dirt roads to get around a long line of jeeps that had stopped near the old ranch equipment at the place where the South Coyote Gulch road takes off to the north. We ate lunch at the junction with House Rock Rd and then turned north for Utah, and just past the UT/AZ state line we picked up a hitchhiker who had just finished the Arizona Trail! His pack was remarkably tiny considering he had been out for a month. We dropped him at the intersection with Highway 89, since he was going west to Las Vegas; then we headed east on Highway 89 and then took the Cottonwood Canyon road north toward our next hikes.
The photos from this whole trip are slowly being added to the Flickr album Canyon Country Spring 2022 if you don't want the accompanying narrative.
We left Durango around 11:45 on Sunday, driving via Kayenta and Page, AZ. We stopped to walk over the old Navajo Bridge over the Colorado River, basically the entrance to the Grand Canyon. From there, we could look at both Marble Canyon below and the new auto bridge - and we saw condors! A few sat on the beams of the new bridge, and some flew above and below us. These huge birds (they may have up to nine foot wingspans!) were re-introduced to this area in 1996 as part of the conservation effort to save this endangered species.
We turned off the highway to go north on House Rock Road, past the official condor viewing site, and camped on the right just past the private land fence. We could see condors on the cliffs with binoculars, and occasionally caught one in flight.
In the morning we drove to the 4WD road that leads to South Coyote Buttes and White Pocket, in the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument; we had visited the former in 2008 but never been to latter. (This is near the famous "Wave" that is incredibly popular and has visitation by limited permit only.) The road is deep sand with occasional rocky ridges, and we ground along in 4WD-low at about 10mph navigating by waypoints Britt had set and transferred - sort of scary!
We continued past the ranch airstrip where we had turned for South Coyote Buttes, and continued through more deep sand to parking area. Saw a beautiful light-colored red-tailed hawk in flight above! There were quite a few vehicles at parking area, and even some tent campers near the trailhead, but perhaps this was because the White Pocket area doesn't require permits.
We walked through the sand for about half a mile before emerging onto weird quilted-looking white sandstone breaking into layered red and white swirls that resembled nothing so much as melting strawberry-vanilla ice cream.
The rock formations were amazing, and the patterns were beautiful.
We saw many small arches and hoodoos:
An outfitter who was guiding a family from the midwest told us about a cave with petroglyphs on the wall outside, so we had to go check it out. In the cave was various detritus from the ancient inhabitants: corn cobs, bones, sharpened rocks. Outside was a very nice petroglyph panel.
By the time we returned to our van, most of the other vehicles had left. We drove to a side road and found a pullout to park and camp. Britt hiked up to another butte and found more petroglyphs, as well as old cowboy inscriptions and carvings in the rock.
In the morning I made pancakes for breakfast, and then we drove out from our campsite a short distance to near some rocks where the map was marked White Slab. And that's what it was! A big white dance-floor of rock set into the ground, lots of "moqui marbles" (concretions of sand and iron oxide) in the sandy low spots between slabs of sandstone, echoing the similar piles of juniper berries under the trees nearby.
Then we drove up the very sandy hill we'd descended on the way to White Pocket and stopped at the ridge, to investigate some white rock towers we'd seen from the road. We dubbed the formation White Castle because it looked like a castle with onion domes, or maybe a decorated cake with whipped-cream turrets. Lots of interesting mini-amphitheaters and passages to explore.
We headed out the way we came, though I navigated on some alternate dirt roads to get around a long line of jeeps that had stopped near the old ranch equipment at the place where the South Coyote Gulch road takes off to the north. We ate lunch at the junction with House Rock Rd and then turned north for Utah, and just past the UT/AZ state line we picked up a hitchhiker who had just finished the Arizona Trail! His pack was remarkably tiny considering he had been out for a month. We dropped him at the intersection with Highway 89, since he was going west to Las Vegas; then we headed east on Highway 89 and then took the Cottonwood Canyon road north toward our next hikes.
The photos from this whole trip are slowly being added to the Flickr album Canyon Country Spring 2022 if you don't want the accompanying narrative.