Utah Trip April 2014-1 Todie Canyon
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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.
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