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Day 5 (Feb 13)
I scouted out Maidenwater Canyon and decided it would be too
much for this trip and looked for alternatives. I found a mini-slot canyon
which is a tributary to Trachyte Creek and titled it West Fork 2 and spent
maybe an hour hiking it. Entry was fairly easy going down a sloping Slickrock
canyon wall almost immediately into the mini-slot. I continued downstream
(east) for awhile seeing the tributary open up into a typical wash for the
area. The only unusual part of the hike was finding a 50 foot long pipe about 4
or 5 feet in diameter with a tree jammed into it. This pipe had obviously washed
downstream from the highway and had been replaced by a larger pipe and secured
better with concrete. On my return I walked through the drain pipe under the
highway and explored upstream before exiting out of the streambed and returning
to the truck. This was a nice but a short adventure. I scouted around a little
more but decided to head for Trail Canyon. It has a tributary that has a slot.
I had already scouted Trail Canyon and knew exactly where to park and the entry
point into the canyon.
During this hike I found more different animal tracks than
probably ever before on a slot canyon hike. The animal tracks were from cows,
deer, rabbits and either coyotes or bobcats and others.
I started the hike near the highway where three drainages
merge. The plan was to hike the northern tributary to Trail Canyon. Like my previous hike the drainages were loaded with
small smooth grey rocks from 1 inch to 10 or 11 inches. I headed across the
drainage toward the northern most with GPS, cameras and atlas in hand. After
hiking a few minutes, my right shoe caught on a rock and I attempted to lift my
left shoe to recover and it also caught on another rock and I felt myself falling
forward. Normally I use my hands and arms to break a fall but my hands were
loaded with stuff, two cameras, a handheld GPS unit and an atlas. I felt my
forehead hitting the ground first, followed by my nose smashing into the ground
and then I got a mouth full. I had abruptly fallen with my gear crashing to the
ground. I was stunned and spit the sand out of my mouth as I slowly got up. I
looked around and realized how lucky I was. I probably should have headed for
the casino. I had fallen on a soft sandy area that was about fifty percent
covered with randomly placed rocks of random sizes. I could have easily hit a
10 inch rock with my forehead, nose or jaw and broken it. I could be laying
here unconscious but as I look around stunned I’m saying to myself I’m still
within sight of my vehicle and this is not the way to start a hike. It took me
a few minutes to get my composure and I decided to continue the hike. My DLSR
had slammed into the sand but it looked like it had survived. Since my hands
were so full of stuff and I didn’t have an opportunity to swing them in the air
to help recover my balance.
I am a schizoid because I can’t decide if I’m a
photographer, book author or map maker. I had two cameras in hands, along with
an atlas and handheld GPS unit, I call doing this, being an idiot. I decided to keep less clutter in my hands.
When I got home from the trip my wife asked me how I got the
cut on my leg and I told her I got along the way somewhere. These are not the
stories to tell my wife since she once forced me to take a companion with me on
a road trip when I was recovering from a medical procedure.
It doesn’t take me long to come to a dry-fall and I have to
back track slightly to bypass it. I’m grumbling to myself all this trouble to
get into the correct tributary and now I have to get out of it for the bypass.
I headed upstream It doesn’t take me
long to come to another obstacle, a down-fall with a water hole below which
actually had water in it. This down-fall was at a point where the canyon wall
had grown on both side to maybe fifty feet high. The right side was mostly
solid rock while the left had a lot more dirt. I study the map for awhile
trying to decide how to bypass on the left or right. The hill on the right
would be more of a sloping bench made out of slick rock and the hill on the
left past the slick rock look more like a dirt hill with some vegetation
growing on it. From the topographical map the elevation grade looks about the
same for both sides but I opt for the dirt hill. As I approach it I immediately
notice a deer trail and decide to follow it up the first hill. I walk down into
drainage to gain access to a second hill and again find another deer trail
going up over the hill and follow it. I follow the animal tracks down the hill and
determine they were pretty much doing the same thing I wanted to do. I break
off the trail to make my way back to the obstacle but on the other side. I snap
a few more photos and then continue going upstream.
The canyon at this point
has about a 15 to 20 foot wide sandy streambed with hardly any rocks scattered
amongst the sand. It is easier footing now and I pick up the pace toward the
sloping canyon walls. There are several different bushes that announce entry
into an abruptly narrower slick rock canyon with sloping walls. As I continue
upstream the sand fade away and now I’m hiking a slot canyon with sloping slick
rock walls and the bottom is only a foot or two in places. The sand had been replaced by small water
holes only a foot or two in sizes with only a few with any water in it. Since
this is an east-west canyon the sun is shining from the south making the south
wall shaded while the north wall is in direct sunlight. The light colored
sandstone makes this a photographer’s contrast nightmare. I snap a few shots
anyways.
I continue hiking this sloping slot canyon and finally approach a
large deep water hole about 10 feet long and maybe 5 or 6 feet wide making an
oval shape opening but about 10 feet deep with a foot or more of water in it.
This obstacle would require scrambling over slick rock across the opening of
the hole. It looked doable for a skinny flexible hiker especially one with a
partner but for this big old man hiking solo the risk was too great for falling
into the water hole and not being able to climb out. I had already had one incident and I wasn’t
going to push it. This was my turn around point. I returned back to the truck
and wrote notes for awhile and kept noticing how beautiful the mountain ranges
in the background were and decided this has to be one of the most beautiful
trailheads in the world.
I decided to start heading for Cedar Mesa, the next place on
my agenda and find a camping place along the way. The small homemade camper on
the pickup pretty much allows me to spend the night anywhere on BLM land. I
head east and drive to Natural Bridges National Monument which not only has a
campground with vault toilets, picnic table and a tent box for each site but
the visitor center has a heated restroom with flush toilets. You might say so
what but at 7,000 feet there is snow everywhere and I know the night time
temperatures are going to be a lot colder than at the Hite Ranger Station at
Lake Powell. I make it there before the
visitor center closes and talk to the ranger about the roads through Cedar
Mesa. I also find out camping in the nice campground is free during the winter
and I have the campground to myself.
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