Skip to main content

Day 38 - Escalante The Fin and Deer Creek

Waking up in the secret canyon felt special-- like a once in a lifetime moment you should cherish-- and we did with a breakfast and then a hike up the canyon on the opposite, easy sloping side. Andrew, Blake and I had scouted the exit the previous night and knew the group could ascend it. And they did. Once to the top, we broke off into agressive and non-agressive groups with brother Joshua joining Joel and the scouting party from yesterday. 

Aggressive group, nicknamed Group Intrepid by Joshua, and led by triathlete Canyoneering master Alan, set out to see if we could climb up the fin, a narrow ridge above the Escalante River we had past below on our first day. We used our navigation skills of reading a bearing on a map with true north and then applying to the field with magnetic north and set out. We slogged through soft sand and over slick rock and around trees for several hours and Alan showed us his tactic for saving time on hikes-- cutting through the end of drainages and ridges. This worked very well for the first several crossings but as we neared the fin close to the river the terrain got very ridgey. Maps only show changes greater than 40 feet of elevation so sometimes the micro terrain or ridges and valleys between those elevations can be difficult to navigate. A 10 foot shear dropoff is still un-passable. We pushed hard up and down and steered our way toward the base of the fin. Now facing a forty foot blockage we stopped, claimed a hard fought victory, and ate lunch and enjoyed  incredible vistas to our left and right. 



A quick forty five minute hike up brought us to the meeting place with the other group. Together we descended into the canyon following a route described in the guidebook. Again confused by the language (especially since this one was given for coming up not down) we stumbled a bit following the directions but eventually pushed our way down, finding a cairn marking a hidden side path down a drainage to the canyon bottom. Finding paths up and down canyon walls is super fun-- my favorite. 

Tired but knowing this was my last full day at the Escalante River, I joined a group to explore nearby Deer Creek. A quick hour and a half hike proved exceptionally tranquil. We passed a magical pothole with hanging gardens and water reflecting off the back wall, a wide and high side canyon valley with towering totems and the Bowington Arch, a rock span set high in the wall. 




On the return trip to camp, Alan decided the pothole was so gorgeous that he couldn't pass it without a swim, so he undressed and jumped in the cold water. Andrew followed suit and then when-in-Rome I jumped in, followed by Blake. A skinny dip in a magical pothole pond at Deer Creek was the perfect finale to a full crescendo of a day in Escalante. 







Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 168 - JMT Pinchot Pass

The mountains appeared like sand dunes in the soft early light.  We drank our coffee, packed up our gear and set off up the hill toward Pinchot Pass. Not a mile up the trail, we encountered another sensational High Sierra lake, Lake Marjorie, and the peaceful reflections off the lake's surface.  Mountains of white and red and grey and black surrounded us-- all surfaces seemingly from another planet, but welcoming us this morning on Earth. Jeff and Steve and a lady named Tara joined us at the picturesque summit of Pinchot Pass.  We remained there for a complete hour, enjoying stories of hiking triumph and Jeff's difficult but rewarding experiences as a search and rescue captain. Reluctant to leave the 12,000 foot pass, but begged forward by the slowly descending trail, we hiked on.  The wonderful landscape in the background, with layers of blues, and browns and whites, appeared like an Ansel Adams masterpiece, and the trail a magical doorway to its frame. The sce
Post a Comment
Read more

Day 171 - JMT Guitar Lake

Wow, was it cold this morning. After waking up and eating breakfast, we packed up quickly and found this scenic sunspot to warm our bones. We had a short eight mile hike to Guitar Lake today,  the last viable campsite before the five mile hike to the 14,505 foot-high Mount Whitney summit.  We stopped at this lovely meadow and looked for bears. We only saw deer but were able to enjoy the incredible peace of the far mountain range. Steady hiker traffic, the most of the entire trip, including one group of twelve elder hikers, passed us as we rested, and jumped! Views of Mount Whitney finally came into view at Timberline Lake, a quaint lake where camping was unfortunately forbidden. We passed a group of twenty Taiwanese hikers.  The summit of Mount Whitney looked heavily defended when viewed from below. We were going to wake up tomorrow at 230am and hike up to the summit for sunrise-on-the-top-of-the-world*. The thought of this dark task was a bit foreboding.  We made it to Guitar Lake by
1 comment
Read more

Day 150 - Big Sur Hearst Castle

Big Sur coastline continues in its beauty.  Elephant seals practice sparring. They make a snore-like belly belch sound while sparring and then after ten seconds later lie back down to snooze on the sand.  The Hearst Castle is an incredibly luxurious complex on top of a high hill overlooking the ocean and coastal mountains. The feel was Mediterranean, royal and magical.  The outdoor pool had a Roman feel-- on a hill, in California. Strangely awesome.  But the indoor pool was the tops-- like a Turkish kings dream moment come to life.  I found a beautiful campground close to the castle and stopped for the night. 
Post a Comment
Read more