![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ilanaramaPart 1
Part 2
After leaving Catstair Canyon we drove west on 89, then turned north on Johnson Canyon Road not far from Kanab, a new road for us that took us into the Grand Staircase - Escalante NM, turned right (east) at the unpaved Skutumpah Rd. After eating lunch under a tree, we continued to the trailhead for Lick Wash, the first of three slot canyons on this road that we had information on from our guidebooks and the internet.
If you're thinking 127 Hours, I can assure you, Lick Wash is a nice, easy stroll through a beautiful canyon with several stretches of narrows. The canyon walls rise up around you as you walk down the sandy wash bed:
Eventually the canyon widened, and it became more of a standard wash hike, but still pretty, so we decided to continue all the way to its confluence with Park Wash, an 8-mile round-trip by the map and 9 miles by my GPS which was probably fooled by the narrow canyon walls. Unfortunately, the actual confluence came some distance after the two washes paralleled each other, both separated by tall dirt hills, so after a short sandy plod we decided to call it good and turn around.
There were quite a few tall ponderosas in the wash, which seemed unusual to us, as canyons tend to get flooded periodically. I guess they have strong roots - as evidenced by one gnarled set that thrust down a crevice between the rocks and made its way to the actual ground. They need them, because the sun angle on our hike back up the canyon was such that the waterline from the last flood was visible on the trees, and it was pretty darn high!
We saw a few other hikers, but not many; there were four other vehicles at the trailhead when we parked, but when we got back to the trailhead they had all left and one more had come, another camper. We had thought about camping there, but since we weren't alone we drove to the next dirt road and found a nice place in the trees, which was good because it had become quite windy.
In the morning we drove to Bull Valley Gorge, which, spoiler alert: this was my very favorite hike of the trip, and if you get out to this area, DO IT it is INCREDIBLE, 11/10! (Ahem.) The road was marked "high clearance 4wd only" but it wasn't bad at all, though there were some steep hills. There was no parking lot, just a few cars parked along the road near the bridge, so we squeezed in. Then we hiked up the trail about half a mile to where the canyon fell away from the river bed, and we could climb in; there was a bit of a drop, but somebody had propped a bunch of forked tree limbs in the cleft of the slot, making a nice natural ladder.
Subsequent drops were all passable with the aid of logs, sticks, rocks, etc - it was amazing how nicely it was connected with a little easy scrambling. The canyon walls rose high above us, and we saw logjams and chockstones far overhead. It was magnificent and beautiful!
When we reached the bridge again we could see a car wreck from the 1950s improbably wedged in nearly vertically, high above.
We continued downcanyon, carefully downclimbing the drops, though mostly it was easy walking. The GPS was very deceptive in that deep gorge, telling us we were hiking at 15-minute pace...while we were standing still! But after about an hour 15 minutes we encountered a tricky drop we decided not to do - the canyon was a jumble of rocks at that point, and even though the walls were high it was not quite as interesting as it had been above, so we ate a snack and turned back upcanyon. It was just as spectacular on the way back up!
(Yes, I posted a lot of photos! But - these are not all the pictures I uploaded to Flickr, which are still not all the pictures we took! I encourage you to wander through the Flickr album as there are more photos there. Probably way too many photos there!)
Incidentally, although my friends on Strava were doubtless impressed by our hiking distances, which were recorded with my Garmin GPS wristwatch, the GPS track was hilariously off. It claimed we had hiked over 7 miles - I estimated the real distance at closer to 4! For your amusement, the GPS track map overlay:
We drove almost to the Willis Creek narrows parking area, which was much bigger and much busier, and had lunch, then drove to the trailhead and hiked into that canyon. It was a very nice slot canyon with interestingly layered sandstone, but nothing like Bull Valley Gorge. Then again, one could easily walk on the sandy wash bottom the whole way (with one side trail diversion to go around a pourover), and the trailhead was large and well-marked, so needless to say there were many more people, and even some dogs. We followed the canyon to the junction with Averett Canyon, then hiked back. Again, my GPS was quite off although not as much as in the deeper Bull Valley Gorge.
Also, this is a good place to show some of the wildflowers we saw in and on the approaches to these canyons!
Sand Lily (Leucocrinum montanum):
Fringed Puccoon (Lithospermum incisum) (I think, my best guess):
Freckled Milkvetch (Astragalus lentiginosus):
After this, we continued on the Skutumpah road, which was still pretty good though steep, to its junction with Cottonwood Canyon near Cannonville, and then into the small town of Escalante where we fueled up and got water and a few groceries. We then drove to Spencer Flats Road, where there were quite a few people camping in the various pullouts. At the very end of the road - the trailhead for our next hike - a small road took off to the left, and we followed it to the end and set up our camp there. Astonishingly (considering how far we were from the nearest tiny town), we had internet connect via cell, and we happily caught up on our email and news, drank a few beers, and went to sleep - we had a long hike ahead of us the next day...
Part 2
After leaving Catstair Canyon we drove west on 89, then turned north on Johnson Canyon Road not far from Kanab, a new road for us that took us into the Grand Staircase - Escalante NM, turned right (east) at the unpaved Skutumpah Rd. After eating lunch under a tree, we continued to the trailhead for Lick Wash, the first of three slot canyons on this road that we had information on from our guidebooks and the internet.
If you're thinking 127 Hours, I can assure you, Lick Wash is a nice, easy stroll through a beautiful canyon with several stretches of narrows. The canyon walls rise up around you as you walk down the sandy wash bed:
Eventually the canyon widened, and it became more of a standard wash hike, but still pretty, so we decided to continue all the way to its confluence with Park Wash, an 8-mile round-trip by the map and 9 miles by my GPS which was probably fooled by the narrow canyon walls. Unfortunately, the actual confluence came some distance after the two washes paralleled each other, both separated by tall dirt hills, so after a short sandy plod we decided to call it good and turn around.
There were quite a few tall ponderosas in the wash, which seemed unusual to us, as canyons tend to get flooded periodically. I guess they have strong roots - as evidenced by one gnarled set that thrust down a crevice between the rocks and made its way to the actual ground. They need them, because the sun angle on our hike back up the canyon was such that the waterline from the last flood was visible on the trees, and it was pretty darn high!
We saw a few other hikers, but not many; there were four other vehicles at the trailhead when we parked, but when we got back to the trailhead they had all left and one more had come, another camper. We had thought about camping there, but since we weren't alone we drove to the next dirt road and found a nice place in the trees, which was good because it had become quite windy.
In the morning we drove to Bull Valley Gorge, which, spoiler alert: this was my very favorite hike of the trip, and if you get out to this area, DO IT it is INCREDIBLE, 11/10! (Ahem.) The road was marked "high clearance 4wd only" but it wasn't bad at all, though there were some steep hills. There was no parking lot, just a few cars parked along the road near the bridge, so we squeezed in. Then we hiked up the trail about half a mile to where the canyon fell away from the river bed, and we could climb in; there was a bit of a drop, but somebody had propped a bunch of forked tree limbs in the cleft of the slot, making a nice natural ladder.
Subsequent drops were all passable with the aid of logs, sticks, rocks, etc - it was amazing how nicely it was connected with a little easy scrambling. The canyon walls rose high above us, and we saw logjams and chockstones far overhead. It was magnificent and beautiful!
When we reached the bridge again we could see a car wreck from the 1950s improbably wedged in nearly vertically, high above.
We continued downcanyon, carefully downclimbing the drops, though mostly it was easy walking. The GPS was very deceptive in that deep gorge, telling us we were hiking at 15-minute pace...while we were standing still! But after about an hour 15 minutes we encountered a tricky drop we decided not to do - the canyon was a jumble of rocks at that point, and even though the walls were high it was not quite as interesting as it had been above, so we ate a snack and turned back upcanyon. It was just as spectacular on the way back up!
(Yes, I posted a lot of photos! But - these are not all the pictures I uploaded to Flickr, which are still not all the pictures we took! I encourage you to wander through the Flickr album as there are more photos there. Probably way too many photos there!)
Incidentally, although my friends on Strava were doubtless impressed by our hiking distances, which were recorded with my Garmin GPS wristwatch, the GPS track was hilariously off. It claimed we had hiked over 7 miles - I estimated the real distance at closer to 4! For your amusement, the GPS track map overlay:
We drove almost to the Willis Creek narrows parking area, which was much bigger and much busier, and had lunch, then drove to the trailhead and hiked into that canyon. It was a very nice slot canyon with interestingly layered sandstone, but nothing like Bull Valley Gorge. Then again, one could easily walk on the sandy wash bottom the whole way (with one side trail diversion to go around a pourover), and the trailhead was large and well-marked, so needless to say there were many more people, and even some dogs. We followed the canyon to the junction with Averett Canyon, then hiked back. Again, my GPS was quite off although not as much as in the deeper Bull Valley Gorge.
Also, this is a good place to show some of the wildflowers we saw in and on the approaches to these canyons!
Sand Lily (Leucocrinum montanum):
Fringed Puccoon (Lithospermum incisum) (I think, my best guess):
Freckled Milkvetch (Astragalus lentiginosus):
After this, we continued on the Skutumpah road, which was still pretty good though steep, to its junction with Cottonwood Canyon near Cannonville, and then into the small town of Escalante where we fueled up and got water and a few groceries. We then drove to Spencer Flats Road, where there were quite a few people camping in the various pullouts. At the very end of the road - the trailhead for our next hike - a small road took off to the left, and we followed it to the end and set up our camp there. Astonishingly (considering how far we were from the nearest tiny town), we had internet connect via cell, and we happily caught up on our email and news, drank a few beers, and went to sleep - we had a long hike ahead of us the next day...
(no subject)
Date: 2022-05-13 07:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-05-13 09:38 pm (UTC)