Castle Rock

A friend of mine, Eric Lassance, was up to Zion to visit old friends and hike in the desert. He put together a guys' weekend out in Escalante in the Paria area off the Cottonwood Canyon Road. It seemed like a really good idea and a place that was close enough to home, but I had never been there before. I rode out with Alan and Adam, two guys that I knew but had not hung out with too much. Eric rode with Greg who I didn't know much at all by this point. Our first destination was the Toadstools. Zyla and I had visited the Toadstools six months earlier from the trailhead that left near the highway. Alan knew of a different way to get there off the Cottonwood Canyon Road. So after picking up some supplies in Kanab, we were off to the road and showed up there in the late morning. We followed a path that lead through the open high desert. There were other people around, though there were no signs for a trailhead. Eventually our path led to a point where it dropped off the rim and into a landscape full of strange formations.

Some looked just like mushroom tops while others looked like sombreros. There were many different toadstools and we all wandered around the whole place taking as many pictures as we could find unique formations. We spent a good 40 minutes wandering around the toadstools in different groups.
Alan was surprised that there were other people there and there were quite a few including clueless foreign tourists. I remember coming to this area in 2002 and just thinking how remote and quiet the area was. Now, even the Southwest has lost its innocence. Still, the farther we went up the Cottonwood Canyon Road, the quieter it became. We didn't have many plans, but decided that Yellow Rock may be a good destination for the rest of the day.
 I had just heard of Yellow Rock only a few days earlier. It was a beautiful rock looking like a mountain covered in snow, but instead of snow it was mostly yellow sand. It did not look too formidable, but as we started hiking it, it seemed so much larger than it truly was. We met some people coming down and talked to them for a few minutes. I found my way up to the top first. I was not quite trying to hike faster than everybody else, but I just did not take the time to mess around as much as everyone else.
I did take some pictures of the interesting formations and colors. Yellow Rock was so easy to imagine as an ancient sand dune because it looked just like the sand dunes of Death Valley. We spent some time on top, then headed down. We drove up the road a bit of a way before we found a nice spot to pull off the road by the small stream and picked a campsite. I made sure to pick my spot first a little ways away from the group knowing that
it could be hard to sleep if I just wanted to go to bed. We spent the rest of the night having a few beers, sitting around the campfire, while Eric, Alan, and Greg told sarcastic jokes to make fun of each other and Numz a frozen yogurt shop in Hurricane. I slept well, though others did not. We awoke to a cool morning, but with a purpose for the day. This was the biggest obstacle of them all on the whole trip was climbing to the top of Castle Rock.
Castle Dome was defintely the largest, most difficult sandstone mountain out in this area. It stood out above each of the other peaks. We had a route description from Kelsey's book, so it was time to use it. We parked across from a canyon and started the trip going up the canyon. Soon the route took an abrupt turn and we were climbing elevation. We eventually ended up at a high viewpoint of Castle Rock. This was good enough for Adam who was the least ambitious on climbing this peak. Eric called it quits here with Adam as he did not sleep well the night before. I think looking at the peak from this vantage point also led to it being quite intimidating as it looked nearly impossible.
Alan, Greg, and I continued on. We first picked our way down a small drainage until we were back in the canyon proper. From there we found a nice ramp that led up the slickrock of Castle Rock. We had to do some work to find the least steep way, but mostly it was just hiking up using the friction on the soles of our shoes to keep moving upward. We were able to make the flatter section up top with a few good choices on routes to take. Once we were there though, we had a difficult time finding where the actual top was located. We all wanted it to be closer, but Greg and I realized that it must be the farthest away point. Alan was not as determined to get to the actual top.
He still got a great view from the perch that he called the top down to the road and into our campsite as well as the whole surrounding terrain, but Greg and I figured that if we went this far, there was no use stopping here. We both took different routes and could not entirely determine what would be higher. I chose something that I thought would be higher and it turned out I was right. What I didn't account for is that the last ten feet would be straight up vertical rock.
 There were numerous holds though and I decided that it was worth the risk. I climbed my way up it making sure to remember where to put my feet on the way down. The view was awesome and this really felt like a good accomplishment as Castle Rock was such a massive rock.
The views were amazing and I was happy I went all the way to the summit. I climbed down as it was not the most comfortable spot to be with room for only one individual on top. Greg joined me soon afterward and scrambled his way to the summit. We went down after that, joined up with Alan, and eventually found the other two. This was the last of the hiking on this day. We drove our way back home after that. It was fun to have a trip with other guys doing something I love in this beautiful area.