I haven’t had a whole lot of luck with my big trips, of the 4 I’d done up until now I have only been able to complete 50%. With the Kokopelli, weather and preparation conspired against us to turn us around about 2/3rds the way through. With The Maze…oh boy…with the maze both road conditions and electrical maladies cut out 2 days in the best parts of the maze.
This time around I was determined to make sure that we took our time, that we saw the sights, and had the time to feel out the land a little more. To that end, my normal “big trip” timeline had stretched from 3 days to 5 days (I know, right?) and the scope of the trip was narrowed down to be a better balance of touring and exploring the area.
Coming along for this trip were the usual suspects:
Also joining us midway into this trip, my uncle Dan who led the Kokopelli trip and would be a mere 3 hours from our Sunday night location on account of being at overland expo west.
And last but not least my father-in-law Joe would be on his first overland experience. Although he hasn’t done any overlanding hes a consumate outdoorsman and it turns out a great navigator
I wont spoil the rest of the trip for which bin it goes into; the finished 50, or the unfinished but I can tell you that it didn’t start well. I wont go into details, you can read all about it here if you want, but nearly $1300 later and by 1030 Friday afternoon I had my cruiser back, with strict instructions to take care breaking in the new gears. Ooof. The plan was originally for getting into Escalante by noon...well so much for that idea. Rolling into camp around 7 we get dinner going, and wire up my lightbar by headlamp. It’s not pretty but its safe and it works. It’s an okay site that we share with the cows and biting beetles (holy crap they hurt) and wind. First day was long, but we’re here.
Saturday held promise; Calf creek falls, Spooky and Peak-a-boo canyons as well as possibly devils garden and whatever else we had the strength for…which it turns out wasn’t much.
I’m glad we decided to do calf creek first thing, as the parking lot was chock full when we left and people were lined up out into the streets. After we parked and got kiosk and paying instructions 2-3 times from the eager if not hearing endowed camp host we were treated with a nice, pleasant 6 mile hike to the lower falls which, if you haven’t been, are really pretty great.
They fall some 150 feet over an alcove with flora clinging to the seep of water that is slowly filtered through the sandstone over a period of hundreds, even thousands of years into a gleaming emerald pond surrounded by the finest white beach sand that could put Cozumel to shame.
Oak trees line the creek as a family of ducks haplessly paddles along. The water, of course, isn’t Caribbean in temperature but that doesn’t stop the young teens who are all to easily goaded (by um…us) to get in, only to have his moment stolen by a girl scout who had broken away from her flock at the crest of the hike and ran straight in. Thunder – stolen.
Getting back to the trucks around lunch time means ice colt soda and sammies…I love having a fridge…and then back on the road headed to the start of the dirt. Aired down, cameras on…its go time.
About 20 miles into this bone shaker and we turn off the trail at a junction to see if we can get our bearings on the distance to the trailhead.
“hey, pat…your lightbar fell off.”
“Wait, what?”
MY LIGHTBAR! I totally forgot about that, about a month before the trip, ANNT lights sent me a lightbar to review and test and in my haste to leave Salt Lake I only had time to physically mount it to the bumper and go. However, the combination of the washboard road and likely the smooth bolts included with the kit meant that one of these bolts holding the bar to the bracket had worked itself look and my light was literally dangling by a thread. Yikes! Welp, can’t do anything about it, time to throw it in the truck and move on.
We eventually found the trailhead for spooky, chatted up the scout troop in their land cruisers/4runners and got after the trail. At the risk of sounding a little smug, I wasn’t really worried about this trail having it done it 2x before and as a consequence I did very little research on getting to the hike, and what challenges lie before us.
We descend the canyon and all looks right as we approach the exit for peak-a-boo canyon, the 2nd of 2 canyons in a combined loop hike. Because the previous 2 times I did this I did the narrower of the two trails first (spooky) I naturally assumed this was the correct order and we set off towards the start of spooky some ways down the wash. Its funny how memory works, that’s what I was thinking to myself as we vigorously debate the way forward because….um…we can’t find it. Lucky for us another family was coming down off the rocks after getting lost themselves after doing peak-a-boo and despite their mishap they actually had a map of the area stored on their phone (how they got lost I have no idea, since where they were the trail is clearly marked).
After eventually locating the right trail we head in and WHOA, this trail is even trickier than I remember. There is one spot mid canyon that requires some legit skill to get up over…keep in mind this is a common scout/family hike…and then further up, a hole that looks at first glance to be either extremely challenging or downright undoable.
Turns out its just challenging and we one by one scramble up the narrow gap overhang that leads shortly to the end of spooky. Up and over to the next canyon and down the challenging but easier peak-a-boo, made even more interesting with the inclusion of water in most of its pockets. 3 destinations knocked off the list and no casualties except my hat which is probably in the bottom of one of the holes in peak-a-boo, no one knows where it went. Not bad so far given our track record.
Given that its now about 4, and the proposed campsite tonight was literally just a stab in the dark based on google earth imagery I’m keen to move on and find a place to sleep tonight, preferably without beetles.
As luck would have it, the spot I picked on the map by chance was the exact spot that my wife and I had picked years ago as fresh newlyweds when we came down to hike coyote gulch, this nostalgia was lost on Wade however as he promptly left to scout out an even better site. I was a little bugged at first, but I’m glad he did as the site we ended up with was perfect, it even had about a half a cord of firewood piled up for us to use. I have no idea why it was there, or who it belonged to and I guess we’ll never know, though we really didn’t use too much of it.
Tom starting cooking pork chops and potatoes, wade got his shower going (oh man, what a treat), Joe did his typically Joe thing and vanished to explore on his own and I got my guns out to do a little target practice against the nearby sand hill about 20 yards from camp. Turns out I need more practice as do the rest of my comrades, since we set up 5 cans, shot about 30 rounds of .38 special and 80 rounds of 22 and hit 2 cans…from 20 yards. Oh well, it was still fun…after all I got to combine my loves of the southwest, nudity (well, shower tent nudity at any rate) and firearms in one evening and got to top it all off with a pork chops. Win.
Stay tuned for more.