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

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 161 - JMT Purple Lake and Tully Hole

We got our first glimpse of smoke far across the valley as we climbed higher. Up on a ridge after a morning climb, we followed a side trail to an open viewpoint beyond the trees. Selfie:) The smoke, while visible, seemed to give the mountains a blue glow-- like a highlighter to a sketch. You could still see the edges of the mountain ridges, the story of their creation. We could hike in this. But the smoke looked worse farther south. Or it was getting worse as time rolled incessantly forward.  On day two we had ran into a northbound hiker we nicknamed Speedy Steve. Speedy Steve had hiked 18 miles a day through eight consecutive smoke-filled days, including atleast three "very bad days" when he couldn't see the surrounding mountains, the sun glowed a haunting orange and ash accumulated overnight. On the way to Purple Lake we ran into three dirty, beat up, tired north-bound hikers with a similar story. They had to spend one night in an emergency hut at Muir Pass to avoid the...
Post a Comment
Read more

Day 41 - Escalante Coyote Gulch

This one or two night Coyote Gulch hike was an easy test of my newly learned navigation skills.  Anxious to get started I awoke at 545 just as the sun was rising.  I followed an obvious landmark, a tall thin spire called Chimney Rock, northwest to Hurricane Wash (a drainage running into Coyote Gulch).  After a couple of hours of walking up over and around slick rock, I entered the famous Coyote Gulch.  The walls around me raised up, darkened and th water flow increased--like nature hinting at the scenic beauty ahead.  The normally crowded Coyote Gulch was fairly empty on this early Thursday morning, giving the canyon a very peaceful and quiet feeling-- fragile almost. Down steam, I ran into the famous Jacob Hamilton Arch and then thirty minutes further-- the Coyote Natural Birdge. Both were beautiful due to their see through the wall character, but both would be overshadowed in my memory by the Stevens Arch tomorrow. Pics.  By 1pm, I had hiked for six hours...
Post a Comment
Read more

Day 42 - Escalante Stevens Arch

The Stevens Arch is so massive that legend says daredevil pilots would fly through it. I was excited to see it!  Having napped most of the afternoon, I awoke promptly at 545, packed up my things and hiked down to the Escalante River as the first morning light was pouring into the canyon. Hiking around more waterfalls and ledges and along the stream before anyone else was up was nice.  My written directions said to look for sandy hill to my right which led up to my only exit from the canyon-- the Crack-in-the-Wall. I ran into the confluence of the Escalante River, a point which my guidebook noted was passed my exit route, requiring a ten minute backtrack. This was fine though because I had tons of time and wanted to see the Stevens Arch.  I crossed the knee-deep Escalante River several times before the Arch came into view. Like a window in the Roman Colloseum, the Arch seemed almost engineered by man in this tall curving canyon wall. I hiked under the arch and couldn't eve...
Post a Comment
Read more