Joe Berardi Utah Hikes

Friday, December 12, 2014

Utah Slot Canyon Hike - Escalante - Peek-A-Boo Gulch

Trip Report AprMay2014 - Peek-A-Boo Gulch

Peek-A-Boo Gulch

I return to Dry Fork (from Spooky) and head back onto the trail around the butte but going west this time looking for Peek-A-Boo Gulch entrance. I’m looking for a dry-fall entrance this time unlike Spooky which has a walk in entrance. It doesn’t take long and I’m at Peek-A-Boo at 10:39 am AZ time. The entrance to Peek-A-Boo is more a jagged crack in the canyon wall about 15 feet above the streambed. The waterhole below the crack was dry on my visit and there are five rocks stacked onto each other at the bottom making a rather high step for scrambling up the steep slickrock. I noticed a few shallow holes in the slickrock obviously man-made handholds for aiding the climb up. I’m a big old man hiking solo and this approach did not look very appealing so I started to look for alternatives.

I study the topographical map in the atlas "Escalante River 2014 Canyon Atlas" and look at the sandy dirt hill to the west of the entrance and start planning a route around the entrance to a spot about 500 feet upstream where the map shows an opening in the canyon. I didn’t see a path so I just start walking straight up the hill making a zigzag to lessen the elevation change. As I get higher up the hill the terrain changes to slickrock. I notice what looks like a trail way to the left which is the opposite direction I’m heading but try to figure out where it went to the right. I continue north looking for the break to the east and come across a rock-pile on the slickrock. I see another rock-pile in the direction I was hiking and started to follow them since they seem to be going where I wanted to go. It doesn’t take long to come to an obvious rugged narrow slot opening looking down to the right and a fairly wide sandy wash to the left. As I approached, a young couple had just scrambled out of the crack and I inquired about where they came from finding it was indeed the lower slot to Peek-A-Boo but it was fairly tough going. They warned me it may be difficult for me to go downstream.

It was 11:03 am AZ time and the sun was high in the sky and it was feeling warm although the temps were only in the sixties. I had plenty of time but only brought 2 fluids containers along. I was game and started hiking upstream in the sandy wash with sloping slickrock walls not knowing what to expect. The wash is about 15 to 20 feet wide but as I hike upstream I notice the sloping walls are becoming more vertical and are getting closer together. The sun is splitting the canyon with one wall in the sun while the opposite wall is in the shade making it a photographer’s nightmare. I take a few photographs along the way anyways. The canyon walls become more jagged and the narrow sandy streambed is now making short left and right bends. I eventually come to a section where I need to remove the backpack and walk sideways to continue. I’m in a real slot canyon now and am thrilled by it.

I decide to drop the backpack so I can mover quicker through the canyon not realizing the tight slot goes on and on. I’m getting pretty far from the backpack but keep going anyways until the tight slot opens up into a wide wash again. I’m greeted by a party of about 15 people taking a break and half of them are sitting down on the slickrock. It is now 11:24 am AZ time and I don’t have any water with me. I talked to the group leader, a woman outfitter that had brought the group up through Peek-A-Boo and they were going cross-country over to Spooky and down through it. I followed a few of the rock-piles marking this shortcut but since I had left the backpack behind didn’t go very far and headed back down Peek-A-Boo. I return to the backpack and find a good spot to set up the tripod for some DSLR shots of me in the canyon. I setup for a second location but the high contrast is killing my photo opportunities. It is about 12:13 pm AZ time by the time I make it back to Dry Fork and spend only about ten minutes checking out the West Narrows since I will be taking a different route back to the trailhead and not knowing what to expect.

I pack the DSLR away in the backpack at 12:24 pm AZ time to make the climb up and out of Dry Fork and arrive at the pickup truck at 1:15 pm AZ time. I had no problem following the rock-piles up and came to the sideways sloping slickrock ledge that prompted me to take an alternative route. I watched two skinny female hikers cautiously make the 25 foot walk along the ledge and they stopped near me so we talked for a minute or two before they continued on the way. They told me it wasn’t that bad making the crossing but I figured I had a hundred pounds on them and was wondering how well my shoes would grip with the extra weight. I paused for about 5 minutes before working up the courage to go and didn’t waste any time walking the 25 feet along the ledge to a two knee step that still need to be scrambled. I heard a cheer in the distance from the two ladies after making the crossing. I was relieved but huffing and puffing, caught my breath and made the knee climb over the hump and after a few hundred feet was on my waypoints back to the trailhead.

Utah Slot Canyon Hike - Escalante - Spooky Gulch

Trip Report AprMay2014 - Spooky Gulch

Day 1 – 4/28/14 - Monday

I drove to the town of Escalante. I paid for a tent site at Canyons of Escalante RV Park for several days. I have a mini-camper on the back of the Ford Ranger and never actually set a tent. I paid for a tent site so I had the use of the facilities and a safe place to sleep at night.

Day 2

Spooky Gulch

I drove 6 miles to Hole-in-the-Rock Road. I drove 26 miles down the very washboard HITR road to the Dry Fork Trailhead spur road. I turned onto CR-252 and drove 0.8 miles and stop in amazement since this junction was completely different from the previous year. Now there is a stick sign pointing left for the Dry Fork Trailhead and the obvious jeep two-track trail continues straight. It looked like a large area had been scraped by a bulldozer to allow cars to park there. From this point on requires a High Clearance Vehicle (HCV) in either direction. I turned left and continued about another 0.8 miles to the end of the road. This last segment definitely requires high clearance and had some deep tire ruts in the dirt. The end of the road has another cleared off area for parking. It also has an official trail register in a metal box. I arrived at 8:18 am AZ time.

The rock-piles are within site of the trailhead and a worn dirt path can be clearly seen going north-east heading down the hill. As I started the hike I ran into another hiker, male probably late twenties, we started hiking down together but I warned him that I was a slow hiker and not to wait on me. As we approached the slickrock where the rock-piles changed direction turning north-west I stopped to survey the grade of the slope going down while my hiking buddy continued and made short work of the narrow bench with a steep sideways slope to it. I’m a big guy and thought maybe there was an easier way down so instead of following the rock-piles to the left I continue on this lower ledge to the right along the top of the Dry Fork drainage. It didn’t take long for me to come across another set of rock-piles continuing east along the edge of Dry Fork which probably could be described as a bench with the streambed several hundred feet below. Although I had an atlas in my backpack I hadn’t pulled it out yet and kept hiking along the edge of Dry Fork looking for an easy entry. I had consulted the "Escalante River 2014 Canyon Atlas" before starting the hike. I marked my GPS waypoints along the way. I finally came to where the rock-piles were leading down the moderately steep canyon wall and I started going down but decided it wasn’t for me and returned back up top.

After continuing a ways I picked up the rock-pile trail again, remember most of what I’m hiking on is slickrock with dirt occasionally so there is no worn path to follow. Now I came upon a second possible entry marked by rock-piles and hiked down the side of the canyon and stopped within twenty feet of the streambed. At this point I was on mostly loose dirt with boulders here and there. The final transition was steep, maybe 20 feet but I figured I could slide down on the dirt. I wasn’t sure if I could scramble up this slippery slope of loose dirt for returning this way but I had a good idea about what it would be like returning at the very first entry near the trailhead. So I slid down the loose dirt landing in the streambed. This is when I pulled the atlas out and got my GPS coordinates and studied the map to get my bearings. After a minute, I realize I was at the butte in front of Spooky Gulch entrance.

I followed a sandy trail that went around the west side turning north-east into a clearly defined wash. I hiked north walking in the wash for several hundred feet when the slickrock canyon wall opens up into a slot canyon. It only takes walking a few hundred feet into Spooky to realize this is a top notch slot canyon. This is one of the best for character and colors. I’m frantically shooting away with the DSLR and enjoying every possible composition. There is a fairly large boulder wedged into the slot but there is no problem walking under it. There is no direct sunlight entering most of the slot canyon because the canyon walls are tall and narrow despite the sun being high in the sky. I leave Spooky at 10:21 am and had arrived at 9:52 am AZ time.

Utah Anasazi Canyon Hike - Road Canyon / Fallen Roof Ruins

Utah Trip April 2014-1

Day 4

McCloyd Canyon / Road Canyon / Fallen Roof Ruins

I started the day heading for Mccloyd Canyon. From UT-261 I headed east on Snow Flat Rd. It didn’t take long to come to a fork on this dirt road which transitions into a 2-track. I headed right and found myself at the entrance to a ranch within a mile or so. The fork and the ranch road don’t show up on the map so I returned to the fork and headed down the other direction. By the time I made it 3.4 mile down the road it had deteriorated into 4WD trail or just driving cross country. I turned around and headed back to the highway.

I now started heading for Road Canyon and turned onto Cigarette Springs Rd going east. Since I had scouted this trailhead on a previous trip I knew exactly where to go and made a beeline to it. From the parking area is a worn path heading northeast for entry into a ravine feeding into Road Canyon. There was no getting lost between the worn path and rock piles marking the way down the switchbacks. At the bottom I continued northeast until the junction with Road Canyon and headed right or mostly east from there. I’m all business heading east looking for the Fallen Roof Ruins and did not stop to take any photographs. I really didn’t know if I could see the ruins from the dry streambed or not. I was looking for any evidence of hikers breaking to the left (footprints) or a rock pile marking the way. I did know there a rock pinnacle nearby which I easily spotted before seeing a rock pile in the streambed. It turns out you cannot see the ruins from the streambed and you have hike up the Slickrock canyon wall quite a ways before locating the alcove.

I arrived at the Fallen Roof Ruins which I recognized from photographs, took GPS coordinates with the Garmin and snapped shots with the Olympus TG-830 which tags the GPS coordinates. Climbing up to the ruins was a little bit of a challenge for me but not really that difficult. I dropped everything (backpack, tripod) and unpack the Canon T4i and start snapping away freehand at first and then with the tripod. One thing I have learned the hard way is to take photographs of the prize before anything happens. Sometimes it’s the sun or clouds or rain or snow or a crowd of people. You just never know what is going to happen. I just got to the point where I could catch my breath when I noticed an old man in uniform with a walking stick was making his way toward the ruins. This was a volunteer ranger who had maybe five or ten years on me. We chatted for awhile and it turns out that this type of ranger regularly hikes to the ruins to do a status check on them. I got some great shots even with the point & shoot camera.

We parted ways as I headed down hill. The Slickrock had only a few rock piles and there was a lot of tight Switch-backing involved so trying to follow the waypoints back down got confusing but eventually I made it back to the streambed. The canyon had a fair amount of short trees and other vegetation. It was also littered with boulders and other minor obstacles. I snapped some canyon shots on the way back. I wasn’t in a hurry to get back to the entry switch-backs which only three years ago would have taken me half a day to get up. I found the rock arrow I had made with seven rocks pointing to the ravine and the way up. I took my time and spent maybe an hour going up to the top.

Summary

This was a great hike and the Fallen Roof Ruins is very photogenic.

Utah Anasazi Canyon Hike - Target Ruins

Utah Trip April 2014-1

Day 3

Sheiks Canyon / Target Ruins

Sheiks Canyon is the next canyon north of Bullet Canyon and I wanted to hike to the Yellow House Ruins and possibly to Green Mask Ruins at Grand Gulch. Again the information I found was sketchy but that is what an adventure is, not knowing what you’re going to find.

Driving to the trailhead was less straight foreword than some but I had no problems getting there with the pickup truck, although I parked on the side of the track not making it all the way to the trailhead. I parked about 0.2 mile from the trail register and probably could have made it with the pickup.

This ended up being a short hike when I came to a dry-fall that was only about 6 to 8 feet high but I didn’t have a rope or a hiking partner. I wasn’t worried about getting hurt just worried about getting stranded. I knew I wasn’t going to make it back up without a rope or boost. This was very disappointing. I returned back to the vehicle.

Whenever I plan a trip I make a backup plan for the trip and individual days. My backup hike was the Target Ruins in Butler Wash West Fork. I hurriedly headed for the trailhead since this would be a late start. This would not be a long hike but more of a route finding hike. The hike description I’ve seen were very vague but I had the GPS coordinates for the ruins. The "Cedar Mesa 2014 Canyon Atlas" has a topographical map with GPS coordinates. I already knew where the trailhead was so getting there was easy. I started hiking up Butler Wash and veered left into the West Fork. There was some running water but crossing the stream was easy.

Shortly, I come to a ravine and headed west as instructed. From here on I really didn’t have a route description but I did have the GPS coordinates. I head edup the ravine. Basically I followed this drainage until it turned into a box canyon. There were no ruins in sight and I needed to go further north. I back tracked a ways and then went up a mostly Slickrock hill. When I finally made it to the top there was a great distant view but no ruins. From my GPS coordinates I knew I was close and I walked north a ways where there was another ravine. I walked to the edge of the cliff and looked down and there it was, the Target Ruins in plain sight and not very far away. I could also see a trail going up this second ravine from the east.

The only problem was there was no chance of me making it down to the ruins because of the steepness of the cliff and the type of terrain. I snapped away with the camera for quite awhile. Then I started thinking if only I could get a more level view instead of looking down so much. I surveyed the rim and all along the rim edge and noticed a bench about half way down. If only I could find the way down to the bench. I eventually made my way down to the bench, some scrambling required, some loose dirt and small rocks. I very pleased with the less downward looking view and took a lot more shots. Then I realized this is an extremely well preserved ruins and one of the best I’ve seen.

I had really no reason to try to get into the ruins but I was curious about where the trail led to the east. So when I returned to the West Fork I headed north. This time I was looking for entry into the second ravine. It turns out you can’t see the second ravine from the streambed but I found a path going up the steep sandy dirt hill right at the same latitude as the ruins so I now knew how people were getting into the second ravine. I went further north to find some other ruins in the West Fork and then returned back to my vehicle. I returned to the campground and made an early dinner and worked on planning the next day better.

Utah Anasazi Canyon Hike - Cedar Mesa - Todie Canyon

Utah Trip April 2014-1 Todie Canyon

Day 2

Todie Canyon

I planned on hiking Todie Canyon from the eastern trailhead to Grand Gulch. This hikes difficulty rating ranged from easy to strenuous from researching books and the internet information. The problem with books written by elite hikers is everything is easy. I’m an old man hiking solo, so I take the cautious approach on hikes. I went to the Kane Ranger Station to get a permit and after talking to the ranger I thought this probably was going to be a no-go hike. I needed the trailhead information (mileage/GPS) for my book anyways so off I went heading for the trailhead.

The ranger described the entry into the canyon of scrambling down into the canyon through a boulder field. I told her about my hiking experience and she just came out saying “you’re not built for it” and probably wouldn’t make it. This was a subtle way of saying you are too big and heavy for this hike. I had no problem finding the trailhead or picking up the trail. After about a half mile I came to the entry point which was marked with several rock piles. I gave it a good look snooping around looking for the easiest way down and concluded the ranger was right. If I had a hiking partner, it may have been a different story but I opted out.

I decided Plan B would be to rim walk the canyon and many times the ruins are in an alcove high up so sometimes the better view is looking down into the alcove. Like many hikes, people don’t turn when they should so I continued on west and picked up a path. The first question was does it go anywhere or is it just going to dead-end when people realize they are going the wrong way and turned around.

I noticed a few things; Todie Canyon is really large and deep. Second, the trail wasn’t exactly running close to the rim edge. I wanted to rim walk it and peer into the canyon as I hiked. I ended up getting off the trail and walking along the rim which is more difficult because of the terrain. Occasionally I returned to the trail running parallel to the canyon. I had spotted ruins across the canyon down in an alcove and was shooting with an 18-250 mm lens so I could zoom-in pretty well from this view. The sun position was making for high contrast shots and I did my best. Although I’m not using a tripod, I bracketed the exposures anyways. This is a classic situation for using HDR. Although the Canon T4i does have a built-in HDR mode for JPEG files, I stuck with the RAW files and needed a tripod to do it right. As I walked along the rim I got a slightly different view and realized this was the 25 structure ruins. I didn’t count all of the individual decayed structures but this was it. There is a ravine coming in from the south that had to be walked around near this point.

I continued hiking and came across another ruin, actually two, one down near the canyon floor while the other was much higher. I’m thrilled that I found some more Anasazi Ruins. I’m marking GPS point and ended rim walking almost to the Grand Gulch. From what I could see it looked rough going and I wasn’t going to make it to the ruins in Grand Gulch. I turned around and headed back to the trailhead. On the way back I spot another ruins before the scramble entry that I had missed coming in. I returned to the campground for an early dinner and planned the next day’s hike.

Summary

Just rim walking Todie Canyon is a great hike where you will see several Anasazi Ruins.

Utah Anasazi Canyon Hike - Mule Canyon Seven Towers Ruins

Utah Trip April 2014-1 Mule Canyon Seven Towers Ruins

I ended up making two road trips to Utah during April 2014 and this is the trip report for the first trip.

Cedar Mesa – Anasazi Ruins

The goal for this trip was to find, explore and photograph Anasazi Ruins in the Cedar Mesa area. On my previous March trip to the area I concentrated on exploring the Comb Ridge ruins and also taking in a few hikes outside the Comb Ridge area too.

Day 1

Travel / Mule Canyon Seven Towers Ruins

I drove to Blanding, Utah and immediately headed for the campground at Natural Bridges National Monument. I stopped at the visitor center and was told there were only three openings about an hour earlier with the check-in at the campground.

This was one of those “I just made it moments”, I found campsite #10 open and paid for five nights. I had stayed in that spot before and was very happy to get it again. It was about 4:00 PM local time and getting kind of late for finding a place to stay for the night.

I normally don’t like hiking much on a travel day but wanted to squeeze in this low priority hike. I headed out for Mule Canyon Seven Towers. I never been there before but was expecting a short drive down a dirt road and a short hike. I arrived at the gate near MP102 and proceeded through it and found a rough road but managed to make it to the drill-hole site and camping spot. With my Cedar Mesa 2014 Canyon Atlas in hand and a few loose updates I headed for the trailhead. Like many places there were no signs, register or toilets but I used the GPS to guide my way. I walked the 4WD jeep trail to the end and picked up a pedestrian trail at the end. It didn’t take long to find the remains of several towers with only one having any significant amount of the wall still standing. When the rock walls collapse it creates a pile of rocks along the original structure and sometimes the pile is only a foot or two high other times several feet or more of the original wall remains standing with rocks piled on both sides of the wall.

I snapped photos and decided this was a morning shoot and the long late afternoon shadows were killing the photo opportunities. I snooped around looking for more ruins and knew there were some in the canyon not just the towers on top of the rim. I located some other towers across the canyon and decided to go around the ravine. Again most of the ruins were mere rock piles but there was one significant structure wall (15 feet) still standing with a nice opening in the wall at the bottom. Again the backside with the chaotic rock pile was lit by the sun with a dark shadow splitting the tower into two. I recorded the GPS points for each ruins so some of them will end up in the Cedar Mesa /Comb Ridge 2014 Canyon Atlas.

I ended up setting up the tripod for some self portrait shots. I was running out of daylight and was rushing the photo-shoot. I started this trip report two months ago and only now finishing it so I had to look at the photos taken and my trip notes to refresh my memory. From the photographer’s point of view it was poor lighting and I didn’t want to stay for sunset since I had big plans for the next day. Looking back across the canyon (east) I could see several alcoves with ruins. I start thinking about if there was an easy way down to them and then I continued shooting because I was running out of daylight. I make back to the pickup about 7:00 PM local time and headed back to the campground.

Utah Anasazi Canyon Hike - Cedar Mesa - Mule Canyon North Fork

Utah Trip Report 2014 March

Cedar Mesa / Comb Ridge, Utah

Day 6

Mule Canyon North Fork

I wanted a simple and low risk hike before heading home. I had hiked the south fork a few years back so today it would be the north fork of Mule Canyon. I drove to CR-263 and down to the bridge that crosses the north fork and parked near the bridge. There was a large BLM information board at the trailhead. There was a fair amount of long water puddles at the start of this hike with a mixture of dirt, Slickrock, small boulders and vegetation. Everything is dormant but there is melting snow here that is feeding the puddles.

This is one of those places where you look at an alcove trying to figure out if it is a manmade structure or nature’s building blocks. The first site I came to I had a hard time deciding if it was a granary or just the way the rocks stacked. I decided it was remnant of a granary.

The next sight was obvious with walls 4 or 5 feet tall and cement filling in the cracks. I don’t know how they made the cement but most of the cracks had material filling in the holes. One of the walls had a tension crack splitting it from top to bottom. This wasn’t really an alcove but rather a overhang protecting these structures. This was a red sandstone structure. The cracked wall also had a tilt to it which was more evidence of physical stress on it. Actually it may be what is holding up the roof, the canyon wall is cracked horizontally about a foot above the walls looking like it is ready to break away.

I’ve come across a third site with very little left of the walls and nearby is remnants of a small granary jammed into a small horizontal alcove or maybe its nature’s building blocks.

The streambed had sand with water in it in many places. I stepped across a puddle and my left foot sank into about six inches of mud. There were a number of Slickrock puddles here too. I really enjoyed this hike because of the variety of terrain and couldn’t decide which one I liked more, north or south. It was definitely wintry with a lot of snow when I hiked the south fork several years ago.

I returned to the vehicle and headed home.

I put the photos on my web site. http://www.slotcanyonsutah.com