Starvation Point

Jacqueline wanted to head back to the Virgin River Gorge to do a hike, so I found 4-wheel drive track that went out to an overlook of the Virgin River from Starvation Point. It was a warm Monday morning, but not to the point of what the low desert area can reach as far as temps. The flower's were out and so were the animals. I was shocked to see a very large lizard ahead of me. Luckily I had my interpreter fiance with me who exclaimed, "It's a Gila Monster! They are really rare and also really poisonous." We kept our distance, not learning until later that while being poisonous and lizards, they just so happen to also be really slow. We probably could have figured it out from the way that it walked where it seemed to be walking on its fist, similar to that of a crocodile or some kind of amphibous lizard. The main difference being that this thing lives about as far from the water as possible. It was awesome, something out of the Cretaceous. Around the corner, we were able to find an arch. I am sure that it has a name, but we are not sure so we'll name it Gila Monster Arch in honor of the rare desert creature. Not too far away from this, we spotted another interesting creature. The Leopard Lizard has spots like a leopard. We actually saw three total, but they were very awesome. It moved so quick. Supposedly they are very aggressive. Good thing it is only a few inches long. After all of this we finally arrived at our destination. Truly, I am usually not the type to go on a hike hoping to spot wildlife, but this one was sure a good one so far. We sat down and enjoyed the view of the Virgin River. I did not wonder why this was called Starvation Point because of the bare, dry landscape. There is most likely a good story behind the name, but topographical maps usually do not come with stories. We headed back since our road dead ended. Jacqueline looked up and pointed out a unique sight in the sky. There was barely a cloud in the sky, but the one that was right in front of us was basically a rainbow. It is a sight I have seen only one other time hiking toward Lyell Pass in Yosemite. On the way back, I looked to try to find the interesting little insect that we saw during the morning before all of the other interesting animals. Unfortunately, we did not get any more glimpses of the Arizona Blister Beetle. To round out our animals, we found one that was more familiar. The Horned Lizard can shoot blood out of its eyes at approaching predators, but this was one that we see in Zion frequently. It turned out to be a short half day hike of 8-10 miles with so much wildlife. It just shows the need to go to places where others do not go as this was right off the freeway, but still we could see with the diverse flora and fauna that it sure helps to enter the pristine zone.

Canyonlands SAR Training

I was a bit nervous approaching the week of SAR training at Canyonlands National Park. I had good reason because I would be hanging off ropes all week long. It turned out to be fantastic though. It is the best training I have ever been to. I learned more in that week than any other week in my life. I guess that your mind focuses a bit better when your life is on the line.

The first day was spent with introductions and knot tying lessons. Next we went through rappelling and ascending. Rapelling was old hat to me, but I screwed up ascending and set my ascenders far too high. After work I went down to Moab and watched Brian climb. The next few days were spent with lots of learning. We did lowers and raises with knot passes. Then we had to throw the litter into the mess. The hardest thing I did the whole we was be the litter attendant while everyone else went through knot passes. It was a bit disheartening to see my one connector strap piece of webbing as supporting me through life and death. We also got to do night ops, which included a night rappel. My group was awesome. We were so quick and our instructors fantastic. I was impressed the whole week with the thoroughness of the instructors. The last scenario, our group was an hour faster than any of the other groups. It gave me lots of confidence and I feel like I can be more of a help for the SAR program at Zion. In the evenings, I spent my time hanging out with the Hays'. They went climbing on Tuesday and then went down to Moab for the dinner where I won a free headlamp on Wednesday. Friday we went out to Grandview Point with another one of my friends from high school, Austin. It was good to see the views of the park while the three of them dreampt of all the things they were going to do during the summer. I was happy and sad to leave. Happy because I missed my sweetheart back home. There are many canyons to do in Zion this summer also and I am sure the newlyweds did not want me crashing on their floor any longer. Sad because my buddies would be there the whole summer and I would also miss the teammates who went through the week with me. I also am sad because I will never be able to take the NPS SAR training. While being an expensive operation, it is probably the most efficient government program out there. I can not sing the praises loud enough.

Trail Canyon

I got a call from Eric on Saturday morning and his idea was to go check out Trail Canyon. Since that is a place that I have wanted to visit for quite some time, I was excited. We headed out at 11:00am and were to the Right Fork Trailhead before noon. Right Fork was similar to last weekend except we found a trail to avoid all of the tough rock scrambling around the Left Fork. We ended up at the Trail Canyon junction and started heading up. Immediately we saw the signs of last year's massive flood. Trail Canyon flashed big time and the impact was rather severe. We could see where the floodwaters were twenty feet up on the walls. It was crazy. We continued our hike and expected to be cliffed out at anytime. We just never were. Once we had to scramble around a pour-off but then we saw something unique to find in Zion. A slope to access some higher country. It was rather easy going and the burn from a few years previous helped us to push on through. When we made it above the slope, we continued up the drainage until we ran into another slope to ascend. Above that was some of the most spectacular views of Zion. In one direction, you could see Tabernacle Dome, Firepit Knoll, Red Butte, Spendlove Knoll, Cave Valley, etc... In the other direction, there was the West Temple, Kinesava, The Towers of the Virgin. It was amazing and we both realized the exciting potential of Trail Canyon. From our viewpoint, we looked out to our left and thought about the broken steep slope and whether that was possible. It was possible, it seemed, just difficult. 

Instead we headed south to check out Cougar Mountain. Wondering whether we could reach the summit, we caught our view over the next ridge. The answer for this day seemed to be no as we were going to have a tough time keeping enough daylight. We were surprised to see just how flat it was near the top. It was also exciting to see all the hoodoo type formations that resembled Cave Valley. We decided to forget the summit on this day and instead headed over to an arch. From there we were granted with a view straight down into the Coalpits drainage. It was just awesome and we fully appreciated the spot we were located in. The nice part about it was that we agreed it was easy to get to. We did not have to risk our lives with any crazy maneuvers, so coming back was not a daunting task in any way. Turning around was a good idea as we popped out a little bit after six. It would not have been fun to get stuck out there just to reach the summit of Cougar Mountain.

Accidental Rediscovery

What the plan was for this day was to hike up La Verkin Creek as far as physically possible. So I took the same path that you take to Toquerville Peak, which actually is Mt. Anderson. I just discovered that looking at my new TOPO software. So I jutted off the road where I saw it went down to the creek. Pretty nice and I was happy to be by the creek on this cool, windy day. There was a path, created by ATV's and dirt bikes. It went in and out of the creek. I was not too thrilled about that as I tried to cross without getting my feet wet. Just when I was starting to feel like Alexander Supertramp, I gave it up and decided to just let my feet get wet. It was unfortunate, but made it all easier. The creek was running high from Spring run-off. Just minding my own business and wondering how long this trip could go upstream, I stumbled upon an enormous waterfall. I was shocked because the terrain could be pretty much described as boring. I heard about Toquerville Falls before, but was never sure where it was. I decided that this must be it, but that thought frustrated me a bit. You could see the impact from all the ATV's right by the waterfall. I figured there must be an easier path than the one that I took to get there. There was and the road was graded and I believe even my truck could have possibly navigated that road. I walked to the end of my forward progress. A fairly well maintained gate with KEEP OUT and NO TRESPASSING ended the day. I sat down and ate a sandwich, then using my new Camelback decided to run the road back. I did a decent job, arriving in half an hour to forty-five minutes shorter duration on the trip back. The waterfall was excellent and the trip was well worth it. I don't think I would want to do it on a warm summer's day as that waterfall, I am sure, turns into a nice swimming hole for everyone. It would ruin the pristine nature from which I got to rediscover it for myself.

South Guardian Angel Canyon

Let me begin by saying that I have no authority to name this canyon and in no way is this official. I just figured since it was the canyon directly below the South Guardian Angel that drains into Right Fork, it just made sense. With that said, Jacqueline and I had a very unique experience this weekend as we saw a real wild spot in Zion. There was no discernible path or any sign that other humans had been there....

It started with the idea that we needed to go backpacking. It had been since I proposed to Jacqueline since I took my beautiful lady into the wild to sleep out for the night. We headed up one of my favorites, Right Fork. I could not believe the devastation from last year's flood. The picture of me looking like I am drowning is last June at the swimming hole. The other picture is after the flood. Talking to one of our friends, he said they estimated last September's flood to be at 13000 cfs. That is intense and I could see it throughout Right Fork, but more so in the lower reaches. We ran into another guy coming back. He said that this was the first time he had seen anyone else hiking in Right Fork. That was how we wanted it. We were going a bit slower than usual, but we found the spot by South Guardian Angel Canyon that I wanted to camp at. Then we put up the tent, dropped off all the overnight stuff, and headed up the canyon. The upper parts were not too impacted. After boulder hopping and some creek wading, we ended up at Double Falls. We spent a little bit too much time playing around there to go any farther. I went for a dip and Jacqueline took about fifteen pics. I scrambled up to see how close we were to Barrier Falls. After going for a few minutes, I determined that we were not close enough to convince Jacqueline to try to get up around a fairly difficult obstacle. So we headed back down to our camp, where we enjoyed an excellent evening chilling out. The temperature dipped down to near freezing, because that was how my shoes were in the morning. It took the sunshine around nine o'clock to get Jacqueline moving. As soon as we left camp to head up South Guardian Angel Canyon, we hit a waterfall. Very easy to get around, we scrambled around it. The canyon had no visible signs of anyone being there before except ringtails and turkeys. We did not do too much bushwacking and boulder hopping before we hit the next waterfall. This one was impressive with quite a vertical drop and hanging gardens all around. We thought this was likely the end of the road for us. But we looked to our right and there seemed to be a way around. I scouted it out and figured that Jacqueline could do it. She came on up and while it was not incredibly difficult, it was still rather steep, but Jacqueline handled it well. I am here to tell the world that my 95 pound sweetheart is a pretty tough character when she wants to be. Not too much farther after making it up and into the drainage, we came to the next waterfall. I grabbed the camera out and Jacqueline was already trying the only possible way to get around it. It was a nearly vertical chute, but she pulled it off. What she did not like was that the only way around the waterfall was to cross right under it. She thought it would be slippery, but I did not think it was too bad. I got up above her and tried to throw a rope down to her. Unfortunately, right where she could have climbed up, there was a whole bunch of poison ivy. Oh well. I did not want her to do anything she was uncomfortable with, so I got her permission to keep going up canyon. Thinking I would run into a waterfall before too long, I was hauling. It turned out to be rather boring country, reminiscent of Upper Coalpits. I made it all the way back to where the drainage splits and both of them are just boulder chutes. I could have gone all the way to the wall to check that out, but it had been twenty minutes and I knew my sweetheart would be worried. When I got back, Jacqueline was upset with me for being gone so long. I calmed her down and we made a smooth descent of the canyon. We got to the tent and packed are stuff, both agreeing that it must be a lot hotter than yesterday. We made good time getting out of Right Fork, leaving time for a dip in the new swimming hole formed after the flood. A difficult scramble out with full packs on, we did it just fine and got back to the car so Jacqueline could spend the rest of the evening doing homework. I was pleased with the trip and happy that I got to spend the weekend doing something that I consider very unique and pristine.

Blue and Flat Wade

This weekend we had some guests that we had to entertain. The first of which was Flat Wade. My nephew has a school project where they send a likeness of themselves to someone else and they take it to fun places. So Eric and I went hiking out at Red Cliffs Desert Reserve with Flat Wade and Jacqueline and my other house guest, David's dog Blue. It is always more exciting with a dog around. We went on the Prospector Trail. It turned out to be a rare trail in Southern Utah that actually was a path. 

It lead us through a desert landscape with views of the cliffs until we hit the road up to Leeds. We saw from the map that we could take a different path back, so that is what we did. This time we were right next to the cliff. The trail was in and out. Blue was not as excited about the cross country hiking but he did well. In total we put in about four hours and probably about an eight mile hike. The next day, Jacqueline and I headed up to the mountains. An old timer told Jacqueline at the visitor center one day about a Sequoia tree that was planted in the Pine Valley Mountains. 

I was expecting a longer hike, but the dirt road ended up being very good to a gate. There was a strange man there who told us that he passed a kidney stone last night and he did not seem to be in a good mental state. We worried about leaving the truck, but we had to do it, so off we went. The weather was perfect and the trail was an old road. Blue and Flat Wade were having a good ol' time. The mountains looked nice with the spring snow melting swiftly. The rivers around showed the signs of intense snow melt. 

The road lead up a long way and we were doubting the existence of this Sequoia tree. Right near the Browse Guard Station, we ran into two guys who assured us of the existence of the tree. Sure enough, when we went behind the Guard Station there it was. It was not as big as it will eventually get, but it seemed to be thriving in this dry Utah environment. We had some lunch and let Blue play in the creek a bit. Both of us were still in the mood to do some more hiking, but there seemed to be not many options ahead of us. So we headed back down the hill, stopping only to check out the creek. It ended up being a very nice Sunday hike. I was happy because we had much better luck with this trail then others we have tried to hike on the east side of the Pine Valley Mountains. When we got back to the car, the guy with the kidney stone was gone which made us both happy. An excellent day outside and we both even got a bit of a sunburn to prove it.