Hiking with the Wife

Jacqueline and I finally found some time again to get out on the trail together. I left the hiking decision up to her and she wanted to hike the Eagle's Crags. We parked at the bottom of the hill because that road is washed out so often and thus added an extra hour to the hike. No big deal though, as it was a beautiful day and I had some great company. I forget how nice this trail is until I get to hike it again as there are little or no people on it usually, yet it is not overgrown. The flowers were out today and Jacqueline made sure to get some shots. The plan was to hike up to the top of the Eagle's Crags as the trail lead us up most of the way, but we always wanted to go farther. The problem was by the time we got up high, some weather was moving in and the wind was blowing hard. We were not in the mood to take any unnecessary risks, so we decided to just call the hike good where the trail ended. We continued down the trail as we enjoyed the flowers and ran into the only other group of people heading up. It was a short fun hike, but on this day it was all about the company.

I Bet You've Never Done This Hike

Whoever you are, I bet you have never done this hike that I just went on. True, many people have probably done bits and pieces of it. Starting out with Gifford Canyon. I have personally been in Gifford Canyon on three prior occasions. My first trip was in only a few weeks of having been in Zion in 2006 where I found some rather great slickrock scrambling. Later, I went with my dad and then the other time I went behind Bridge Mountain. So this was more along the lines of that Bridge Mountain trip. This time though, I found the correct way of getting out of Gifford Canyon rather than climbing the face of a cliff. This lead me to a very flat plane above Gifford Canyon, where I headed north to find the drop in canyon for Hepworth.

 After picking the wrong one and backtracking, I found the correct route. I remembered how difficult it was after I got there. It was a trip back in time as 2.5 years earlier I learned that going straight down this canyon would not work. You have to do a short section of scrambling which was rather perilous and this was just to get up on to the high point where you drop down. It was not too difficult to get down from there, but there was a little bit of route finding where I had to drop into a little slot on the left side of a large slab to gain the canyon floor. From there it was really neat with some narrow sections and some short scrambling to get around areas of difficulty.

 The one and only problem I was having with this route was my new shoes. I bought Chaco Canyonland shoes and most of the time they had a lot of grip. But with moss, they are particularly poor as twice I completely lost my feet and ended up on my butt in sections that were for the most part not difficult at all. 

This left me a little weary of doing anything particularly difficult. Eventually I popped out to Hepworth. This left me with multiple choices. I could head toward Bridge Mountain again, but I needed something new. My debate was whether I wanted to hike over to Stevens Wash or stay in Hepworth. I chose to hike Hepworth and rather than take the normal route down toward bridge mountain, I decided to go up. This is where my hike started to get more rare. I had to bushwhack a bit, but for the most part the canyon held no obstacles. It was like a typical east side canyon, where I initially had to climb up. 

The only problem with this being that now it was starting to get warm and I forgot the sunscreen so I was trying to keep my microfleece on. Once I gained the saddle, I looked down and of course it did not look possible to get down. But after picking my way down each obstacle, the sandstone illusion allowed another possible few feet until I reached the canyon floor. As soon as I hit the canyon floor, I found a big pile of crap. This would not even be notable if I was not in such a strange place to see that. Was it cow? Horse? A wild animal? Usually visitors' questions about feces really don't interest me, but this was bizarre. 

I continued down following my map which showed me that I should get to a point where I could see Parunaweep. Sure enough, I walked into a huge amphitheater with large cliffs all around and I followed this until it ended at a sheer drop-off and I look into Parunaweep. If you look at my blog about Eagle's Crags, there is a picture in there overlooking the Shunesburg area. Well, this view was the reverse angle and another great view this time of the lower stretches of Parunaweep. Every other individual probably would have just returned back the way they came knowing that there is a way out. Given that I had been hiking for three and a half hours by this point, that may have been wise. 

But looking at my route description (otherwise known as a map), I found a couple of blue lines on the map that suggested the terrain was a drainage. There were two very close together that shot right off the same area as the Hepworth drainage hit the edge. 

So I took that canyon back up and after looking at the first choice and deciding it was impossible, I took my chances with the second. It was a slickrock wonderland. I followed this depression in the slickrock up until it turned me around. Fortunately it never did. Along the way I saw a desert tortoise home and did some friction climbing up until I gained the top of the saddle with a view back into Gifford Canyon. This was an interesting spot and I figured that I could drop back into Gifford and continue back out to my truck. I know that some people hike from Gifford to a viewpoint of Parunaweep. Problem was, I could not locate the route in. 

I started out on the west side of Gifford and traversed over to the east side as it looked like I could pick out a route from the top. Once I got there, though, a series of obstacles left me not wanting to overcommit myself. So I had to come up with another option. After soaking in the beauty of the whole of Gifford Canyon, I began my traverse over to Crawford Wash. I was happy I did that because I got a great view of the whole east side area from Parunaweep to Checkerboard Mesa, all the way out to Mt. Carmel. It took me a series of trials and errors to get into Crawford Wash, keeping in mind the fact that some of that are is a Wilderness Study Area. I finally crossed over to where I could see that if I dropped down I could get to the saddle between the two sides of Crawford Wash. This was very reassuring as this was the last choice I had left. It worked and soon I was dropping into Crawford feeling happy and confident, since Jacqueline, David, and I hiked that part of the canyon before. 

I remembered that there was one point we had some trouble with in Crawford and eventually I got there. After checking out the route around a dropoff, I decided that going down it would be a better prospect. It was just a short section as I was able to take a crack next to short jutting out section most of the way down. From there, I threw my pack to the ledge below where it stayed just barely as one little umph more would have pushed it into the pool that lay below. I was able to downclimb without the pack on my back rather easily as the first step was the hardest and from there I was good. It was just a long slog out from there. I took Crawford the rest of the way down until it ran me into Clear Creek/Pine Creek. I forget how beautiful Clear Creek is until I am there. The narrows are just as good as the Narrows. There was snow in parts, which was funny after a day of wondering how badly I was going to be sunburned the next. I got to the arch in Clear Creek and I saw that I was going to have to get wet, so I climbed out from there and hiked the rest of the way back on the road. It was an eight hour day of purely hiking and I was spent. I always love when I get back to my truck and I have just been somewhere completely new and different opening up the puzzle that is the east side wilderness in Zion NP.

Shelf Canyon

After sitting in the car being radio relay on a SAR last summer where some people got stuck in Shelf Canyon thinking it was the route to Spry Canyon and hearing how cool it was back there from all the people who got to be involved, I decided to take a look. I could not find any parking at Canyon Overlook parking, so I had to park up the road and walk back. Much to my surprise I found not one, or two, but three different parties in Shelf Canyon. There were a total of ten people all nicely equiped in jeans looking as if route finding was not one of the skills they would list on their resume. Jacqueline told me later that Shelf Canyon was in the St. George magazine. There is a reason why I keep my descriptions vague and do not want to create a route description for others to follow me. I figure, if you have the skills and knowledge, you will figure out all of this stuff on your own. Face it, maps are as good a route description as anyone should need. Suffice it to say, none of the ten people, besides me, made it back to the interesting part of Shelf Canyon. There were too many minor obstacles, none of them presenting too much danger, that got in the way of that progress. The biggest was a huge boulder chockstone which if one attempted to go left which was the most straight on approach, they would be turned back. But sneaking through a small opening, one could go right and thus gain the top very easily. This I did and soon I was back into the narrowest part of the short canyon. This only went for a short time and by the time I hit the wall, literally, it had only taken me fifteen minutes. I continued back down to find the people still struggling their way up the easier obstacles. I helped them as much as I could with route finding, but there is just something to be said about the experience that I have gained. For those of moderate or expert ability, this would be a no-brainer. Check it out because it is so short and so cool in such a little amount of time expended, just about half an hour. For those of the beginner or less adventurous, I would suggest hiking Canyon Overlook instead. I am definitely going to take Jacqueline back after work someday this summer to escape the heat in the narrows of Shelf Canyon.

Valley of Fire

We have wanted to do some hiking in Valley of Fire for quite some time. Being that it is March and the weather is actually agreeable, we took the plunge. It is about a two and a half hour drive from Springdale to Valley of Fire, so we did that on Thursday morning/afternoon. We got there and picked out our campsite which was a secluded spot out on our own. Camping was fourteen dollars, but we got to deduct our six dollar entrance fee from the cost. We quickly set out for our hike. We drove past the visitor center to the White Domes. There were a lot of people there and they all were hanging on the trail. Jacqueline and I stayed on the trail for about ten minutes and then found a canyon to continue hiking through. It turned out to be a good idea as when we were looking at the trails in Valley of Fire, they were nearly non-existent. But there are incredible hikes to be had if one just forgets the trail and wanders out on their own. The cliffs are large, but not impenetrable. We stayed in a canyon bottom until it began sputter out and then we climbed up to a saddle. From there we picked our way down to a ledge with a great view. We got some pictures with the shadows from the sun that I really enjoyed. The cliffs were all different shades of oranges, browns, purples, and reds which gives Valley of Fire its unique flavor. We picked our way down from our viewpoint and decided to find a new way back. Almost immediately, we climbed a cliff to check out the view. Once on top, this presented us with another option, but Jacqueline was none too keen on it when it looked like there may be some stemming involved to descend. We came back down and found an easier way to return. My wife was overly cautious about making sure we get back before dark and wondering if we were going to get lost. I was not worried in the least and brought us back to where we found the trail again. From here, we could see that the trail went through some nice narrows, so we backtracked on it to check that out. Then we continued on our way taking the trail the rest of the way to the car. Jacqueline's worry left us with plenty of time remaining, so we stopped at the Petroglyph Canyon trail on the way back. It was a short hike that would end us up at Mouse's Tank, which is muddy pool of water. The journey was the destination on this hike, though, as I could not believe the massive amounts of petroglyphs. In the last few weeks, I have become overloaded with petrified wood and on this trip Jacqueline and I would become overloaded with petroglyphs. There were literally hundreds in this one canyon and in the whole park, there were over a thousand, I am sure. We were very impressed. We finished that hike rather swiftly and made it back for a fun evening of playing cards and listening to my book on the Ipod, "A Beautiful Mind". We had a very nice evening sleeping in the back of the truck, where we awoke early to set out once again. This time we were headed out to Fire Canyon. After stopping at the visitor center to pick up a map, we discovered that they did not have one. So we were on our own. We parked at the overlook and found our own way down into the drainage. From there we followed the canyon down. We brought a rope with us, because we read something about fire canyon having some downclimbs that were tough. We found nothing, but then again we had nowhere that we were going in particular. We hiked for a couple of hours until the drainage kind of just ended with cliffs all around us. Having thought this to be sufficient, we turned around. But along the way, both there and back we saw many arches, narrows, large cliffs, and interesting colors. We did side trips on the way back climbing up things to get good views and going through side canyons to find little arches. Eventually, we made it back to a junction where we knew the right way and it would get us back to the truck. But instead, Jacqueline was all for trying to find another way out. So we did that and all though we got beat up by the little trees, we eventually made it out to the road. There we took one last look down and appreciated the variation of white to red as the rock changed colors right where we dropped into Fire Canyon. We left after this, but enjoyed our weekend away together in Valley of Fire.

Incredible View

I set out to hike up Small Tunnel Canyon which is north of the small tunnel. Foolishly, I forgot that I have already been there. After a while, it just kept getting more and more familiar to me until I realized that I had already been there. So I picked a different place to explore after making it to the end of the canyon and being turned around at the same point with the same obstacles magically still there. So I found my way down canyon by a different route that was actually rather neat with narrows and slickrock. My goal was to climb up in between two buttes where there looked to be a nice saddle with an excellent view. It ended up being rather steep and I had to pick my way up through the steps, shelves, and ledges that slickrock offers to break up the rolling round edges. 

It did not take too long to gain the little canyon below the saddle. From there I lost the risk of a somersault sending me into oblivion and was able to just find my way up less steep territory until I gained the saddle. From there, I got a great view into the rest of the east side as the cliff dropped almost straight down from the saddle which I knew from looking at my map. So I had my lunch and began to wander on down. Looking up, I spotted the view that made the whole trip worthwhile. There were the four giants of the southern part of Zion all lined up together. 

In my view, I was able to see the Watchman, Bridge Mountain, the East Temple, and the West Temple. I was awestruck and had to stand there and soak it in for a while. I was able to safely pick my way back down the steep slickrock and find my way back to the truck. The view made the hike count, as I turned an oops into an ahh!