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ilanaramaPart 1
Part 2
Part 3
Our purpose in coming to the Spencer Flats Road was to hike to the Cosmic Ashtray, which is a terrible name but certainly an intriguing one; Britt had found it marked on the maps and had looked it up, but I knew nothing about it other than its name. (It is also called the Volcano, though I'm not sure that's a better name, since it's not actually volcanic.) According to our information, the approach was more of a route than a trail; our map showed it continuing along the old access road (now closed to vehicles on the other side of a small parking area, which we could see filling up as we ate our breakfast burritos) and then contouring along the base of the sandstone domes to the south. We headed off cross-country at an angle to intercept the old road, which by now had several groups on it, some ahead of us and some behind.
Shortly after we turned to follow the old and very sandy dirt road, we saw a cairn, and figured that was the route. We wandered around a lot, got lost a few times, chatted with other hikers, saw lots of footprints going random places, and got lost a few more times. But it was a nice place to get lost in, with the usual spectacular sandstone scenery.
One cool thing we noticed were iron concretions like the moqui marbles we saw at the White Pocket, except instead of being round they were curved flattish plates. We guessed that maybe they formed in a similar way, except in crevices in the rock where they spread out. (We did see "ordinary" moqui marbles here as well, see below.)
Eventually Britt spotted a silhouette in the rock that made him go, "Aha! That's it!" (I still wasn't completely sure what we were looking for!) We abandoned our latest incorrect approach and headed straight for it.
The Cosmic Ashtray/Volcano is a very large sort of dry plunge pool in the rock, only it's not in a canyon where water action could have carved it out. It's filled with sand, with one large rock island in the not-quite-middle.
The walls are fairly steep though where we hiked up not overhanging, and someone had carved footholds into the rock allowing a (tenuous) descent to the sand. We heard from others there that a rope was recommended, so after lunch we hiked around the formation to see it from other angles, and saw that one of the hikers who came behind us...had a rope! He'd set it up and several of the other people we'd chatted with were using it to descend to the sand. We hustled around back to that spot and begged him to let us use it before he packed it up.
It turned out to be fairly easy to navigate the steps, which had been made with a power tool, but it was nice to have a rope hand-hold. I made a "sand angel" and we tromped around a bit, then climbed back up and thanked Rope Guy. He and his wife were from Fernie BC, and had been to the area many times before but not to this particular spot; they do a little easy canyoneering on their trips, and had seen in the information about this site that a rope was recommended, so they'd brought it along. It certainly made them a lot of friends among the hikers that day!
We decided to return by swinging wide and checking out the other side of the basin, where Britt had seen plunge pools on Google Earth. The good news is, we found some! The bad news is, they were pretty trampled by cows. But we took pictures and played around with some of the impressively deep dry holes that had been carved into the rock. Made for a long day but a nice one.
We'd set up our sunshower bladder to heat in the morning so when we came back after 11.2 miles we were able to take showers! It felt nice on our weary dusty bodies. When it got dark, Britt noticed the skies were clear (it had clouded up a little in the afternoon, but had got sunny again for our showers, hooray) and decided to set up our telescope, which we'd brought with us. I fired up my planetarium program and found interesting things for us to look at, and he found them in the telescope database: M102, M103, M3, Owl Nebula, Cat-Eye Cluster, Spindle Nebula. A nice moonless night for stargazing!
Next day we drove back to main road between Escalante and Boulder (Hwy 12) which is fabulously scenic, on a high white sandstone ridge. We stopped at a lot of overlooks!
We'd hiked the trail to Lower Calf Creek Falls several times before, but this time we went to the trailhead to Upper Calf Creek Falls, which is on one of these high ridges. The trail descends steeply on slickrock into the gorge, just 1 mile but 600 eet down! It was extremely windy and so it was nice to descend into the deep canyon where the wind was a bit lighter. The small trailhead parking area was full, and there were a surprising number of others, including a lot of small children whose parents probably regretted it, as on the way back up there were a lot of cranky kids who had been happy to go down but not so excited about climbing back up.
First we went along the contour trail to the top of the falls. The water streams across a sandstone slab, creating interesting pools and feeding little moss gardens, before gathering itself into a narrow stream to plunge over the edge. There was a beautiful shallow pool on the rock there, and then a little ways back some interesting deeper pools in the shallow stream, and then even farther was a big and fairly deep pool where a lot of people were gathered. This group included what was apparently a Boy Scout troop, and some brave souls who didn't mind cold water on a cold day were "swimming," that is, jumping into the water, screaming with shock and glee, and scrambling out again. We went back along the tiny feeder creek but it was choked with thorny bushes, not much fun, and we quickly returned to the main rocky bench.
Then we hiked back to the trail junction and descended to the bottom of the canyon, where the waterfall fell into a lovely grotto surrounded by mosses and hanging plants and a little poison ivy. The pool was greener and less clear but still Edenically beautiful. The slime-covered rocks were less slippery than they looked and we went down all the way to the water.
On the hike back up we had the wind at our backs, keeping us cool. We drove to another overlook, this one looking out over the town of Boulder, to have lunch, then drove north out of town - we'd always gone east on the Burr Trail before - over the mountain pass to Torrey. It was quite cold and cloudy and windy up there, and it rained (maybe even snowed!) a few drops.
We got a few maps at the visitor's center at the intersection and then drove through Torrey, which was bigger and nicer than we expected (though still tiny) so I could buy some beer at the "Chuckwagon General Store". According to Google Maps it was open and sold beer, but it being a Sunday and it being Utah I was half-expecting to be stymied. But yay, not only did they have beer, they had local-ish craft-ish beer, so I got a 6-pack of Silver Reef (out of St. George) Little Foot Amber, and one of Wasatch Polygamy Porter (which I'd had before), plus some leftover morning pastries (we had the chocolate muffin as dessert).
Then we drove through the main highway through Capitol Reef National Park to camp on the other side, on the Notom Road. We'd been in the south part of the park before but not up here (though I think I might have come through here ages ago?). It was still very windy which made it cold and rocked the van but it was a nice, quiet spot on a dirt road and we slept well. (No internet though, darn.) Next up, Capitol Reef!
Part 2
Part 3
Our purpose in coming to the Spencer Flats Road was to hike to the Cosmic Ashtray, which is a terrible name but certainly an intriguing one; Britt had found it marked on the maps and had looked it up, but I knew nothing about it other than its name. (It is also called the Volcano, though I'm not sure that's a better name, since it's not actually volcanic.) According to our information, the approach was more of a route than a trail; our map showed it continuing along the old access road (now closed to vehicles on the other side of a small parking area, which we could see filling up as we ate our breakfast burritos) and then contouring along the base of the sandstone domes to the south. We headed off cross-country at an angle to intercept the old road, which by now had several groups on it, some ahead of us and some behind.
Shortly after we turned to follow the old and very sandy dirt road, we saw a cairn, and figured that was the route. We wandered around a lot, got lost a few times, chatted with other hikers, saw lots of footprints going random places, and got lost a few more times. But it was a nice place to get lost in, with the usual spectacular sandstone scenery.
One cool thing we noticed were iron concretions like the moqui marbles we saw at the White Pocket, except instead of being round they were curved flattish plates. We guessed that maybe they formed in a similar way, except in crevices in the rock where they spread out. (We did see "ordinary" moqui marbles here as well, see below.)
Eventually Britt spotted a silhouette in the rock that made him go, "Aha! That's it!" (I still wasn't completely sure what we were looking for!) We abandoned our latest incorrect approach and headed straight for it.
The Cosmic Ashtray/Volcano is a very large sort of dry plunge pool in the rock, only it's not in a canyon where water action could have carved it out. It's filled with sand, with one large rock island in the not-quite-middle.
The walls are fairly steep though where we hiked up not overhanging, and someone had carved footholds into the rock allowing a (tenuous) descent to the sand. We heard from others there that a rope was recommended, so after lunch we hiked around the formation to see it from other angles, and saw that one of the hikers who came behind us...had a rope! He'd set it up and several of the other people we'd chatted with were using it to descend to the sand. We hustled around back to that spot and begged him to let us use it before he packed it up.
It turned out to be fairly easy to navigate the steps, which had been made with a power tool, but it was nice to have a rope hand-hold. I made a "sand angel" and we tromped around a bit, then climbed back up and thanked Rope Guy. He and his wife were from Fernie BC, and had been to the area many times before but not to this particular spot; they do a little easy canyoneering on their trips, and had seen in the information about this site that a rope was recommended, so they'd brought it along. It certainly made them a lot of friends among the hikers that day!
We decided to return by swinging wide and checking out the other side of the basin, where Britt had seen plunge pools on Google Earth. The good news is, we found some! The bad news is, they were pretty trampled by cows. But we took pictures and played around with some of the impressively deep dry holes that had been carved into the rock. Made for a long day but a nice one.
We'd set up our sunshower bladder to heat in the morning so when we came back after 11.2 miles we were able to take showers! It felt nice on our weary dusty bodies. When it got dark, Britt noticed the skies were clear (it had clouded up a little in the afternoon, but had got sunny again for our showers, hooray) and decided to set up our telescope, which we'd brought with us. I fired up my planetarium program and found interesting things for us to look at, and he found them in the telescope database: M102, M103, M3, Owl Nebula, Cat-Eye Cluster, Spindle Nebula. A nice moonless night for stargazing!
Next day we drove back to main road between Escalante and Boulder (Hwy 12) which is fabulously scenic, on a high white sandstone ridge. We stopped at a lot of overlooks!
We'd hiked the trail to Lower Calf Creek Falls several times before, but this time we went to the trailhead to Upper Calf Creek Falls, which is on one of these high ridges. The trail descends steeply on slickrock into the gorge, just 1 mile but 600 eet down! It was extremely windy and so it was nice to descend into the deep canyon where the wind was a bit lighter. The small trailhead parking area was full, and there were a surprising number of others, including a lot of small children whose parents probably regretted it, as on the way back up there were a lot of cranky kids who had been happy to go down but not so excited about climbing back up.
First we went along the contour trail to the top of the falls. The water streams across a sandstone slab, creating interesting pools and feeding little moss gardens, before gathering itself into a narrow stream to plunge over the edge. There was a beautiful shallow pool on the rock there, and then a little ways back some interesting deeper pools in the shallow stream, and then even farther was a big and fairly deep pool where a lot of people were gathered. This group included what was apparently a Boy Scout troop, and some brave souls who didn't mind cold water on a cold day were "swimming," that is, jumping into the water, screaming with shock and glee, and scrambling out again. We went back along the tiny feeder creek but it was choked with thorny bushes, not much fun, and we quickly returned to the main rocky bench.
Then we hiked back to the trail junction and descended to the bottom of the canyon, where the waterfall fell into a lovely grotto surrounded by mosses and hanging plants and a little poison ivy. The pool was greener and less clear but still Edenically beautiful. The slime-covered rocks were less slippery than they looked and we went down all the way to the water.
On the hike back up we had the wind at our backs, keeping us cool. We drove to another overlook, this one looking out over the town of Boulder, to have lunch, then drove north out of town - we'd always gone east on the Burr Trail before - over the mountain pass to Torrey. It was quite cold and cloudy and windy up there, and it rained (maybe even snowed!) a few drops.
We got a few maps at the visitor's center at the intersection and then drove through Torrey, which was bigger and nicer than we expected (though still tiny) so I could buy some beer at the "Chuckwagon General Store". According to Google Maps it was open and sold beer, but it being a Sunday and it being Utah I was half-expecting to be stymied. But yay, not only did they have beer, they had local-ish craft-ish beer, so I got a 6-pack of Silver Reef (out of St. George) Little Foot Amber, and one of Wasatch Polygamy Porter (which I'd had before), plus some leftover morning pastries (we had the chocolate muffin as dessert).
Then we drove through the main highway through Capitol Reef National Park to camp on the other side, on the Notom Road. We'd been in the south part of the park before but not up here (though I think I might have come through here ages ago?). It was still very windy which made it cold and rocked the van but it was a nice, quiet spot on a dirt road and we slept well. (No internet though, darn.) Next up, Capitol Reef!