Sunday, May 3, 2009

Taking Another Crack at Escaping Spring Creek

Having already been to Spring Creek a couple of times, I suggested it as a hike to Eric who had never been there before. He was up for it and I just wanted to make sure that on this trip we got a bit farther than Jacqueline and I made it in the past. The hike is really neat. At first, we started out in an open area near a creek that quickly narrowed. The creek dried up and we were stuck fighting the brush and occasional obstacle. The worst was usually the brush. A couple of hours in we made it past the area that Jacqueline and I got to a couple years ago. Eric and I contemplated turning back, but I was glad that we didn't. Jacqueline and I only made it to a break where there was a really narrow canyon. I asked Eric which way he wanted to go, but he didn't care. We decided to keep going up the main section of canyon. It soon began to open up. We also got some water back in this section. The walls did not seem very high and eventually we got to some snowy sections. The walls seemed to turn into scree and there were some places that we had to climb around the flowing water. I wanted to see if we could make it out of the canyon. We tried one spot, but it got too steep. We found another spot and this worked. Seeing nothing but trees, brush, and very steep hills, we decided to call this the end. I was happy that we had negotiated the obstacles well enough to escape the canyon. On the way back down we found a big dead bird and even found the time and energy to check out a side drainage that did not go too far, but became really narrow. It was a good day spent with a good friend and I was glad that Eric and I found time to explore Spring Creek.

No comments: