Vasey's Paradise from South Canyon

I am not the best at organizing trips out with friends. In fact, often times, I enjoy going out on my own because having to plan all the logistics of people meeting up together can be challenging. I decided that I needed to spend some time with some friends, though, and embark on something a bit more challenging. The Grand Canyon had been calling. It had been quite some time since I spent some time in the Canyon. I had always wanted to see Vasey's Paradise again after riding past it on a river trip some 16 years earlier. I was talking with Will See and he said that he would be down to give it a go.

I never hung out with Will much, but knew he was someone who I would enjoy hiking with. This was his second full year at Zion, but he spent most of last year dealing with the remnants of a broken ankle after a climbing accident. We made plans to drive to the trailhead and begin on the morning of the 14th. I had been in touch with Tim Hopp also. Tim was working at the Grand Canyon for the winter, but on the South Rim. The turnoff for South Canyon was about halfway for both of us to meet up. Tim was not sure whether he could come for quite some time, but finally decided at the last minute to make the trip. I was stoked!

 He was there at the trailhead when Will and I got there. Then it was a long drive down a couple of dirt roads. We were excited to see that we were the only group camping at the trailhead when we got there. After that, it was a few beers and then some rest in our separate tents. We made an early morning of it and were up with the sunrise. We got a quick breakfast in and then were on the trail. The view was spectacular right away looking down the incredibly long, but beautiful South Canyon. The trail dropped off rather abruptly and was somewhat steep in places.

We had to make sure we stayed on the right path, but it wasn't too difficult. We must have dropped over a thousand feet if not more in just that first mile to get down to the dry creek bed. From here, we just needed to follow the stream bed for quite some time. It was an endless sea of boulders, rock walls, and sand. We followed bend upon bend of South Canyon. We knew that at some point we had to get out of the canyon bottom, but we were not entirely sure where. We figured out it was probably somewhere behind up when we came to a rather large drop off. This was the prettiest part of the canyon and at this point, we wished we had brought some ropes with us to continue down.

 Without them, we had to turn around and go back upstream. We were still happy we had been downstream because it was a really pretty part of the canyon, but this just added a little more hiking to our already long day. This stretch of trail went up high on the left side of the canyon below. We followed it until it dropped off steeply to the river below. We picked our way through the limestone until we were down at the Colorado River. From here, we just needed to follow the river over to our destination. There were Indian ruins along the way and we saw another group's stuff who was camping down there. We continued downstream to a lunch spot. Here we chatted with one of the members of the other group who seemed a bit like he had taken too many drugs in the 60's.

Will stayed after lunch, but Tim and I wandered over to Vasey's Paradise and Stanton's Cave. Vasey's Paradise was such a neat little spring coming out of the rock wall. We got up pretty close to the falls and I was curious to see if there was any so called "Poison Ivy" around. As I assumed, I didn't see any poison ivy at all and I think that this is just a warning that is put up to try to protect the fragile vegetation around the spring coming out of the wall. Stanton's cave was cooler than I thought it would be. There was a metal gate in the way, but there was more to this cave then we got to see. Obviously this was a good place to escape the heat in the summer and had served as a hiding place for the ancient people that used this area. We were excited to beat the heat a bit here too, as the Grand Canyon was already warming up to a slightly uncomfortable temperature. We really felt this as we journeyed back up from the river. The sun seemed to really beat down on us when back in the boulder strewn canyon. It felt like an endless amount of time before we hit our junction to go back out of the canyon.
The whole time we hiked the leader never switched as Tim was blazing a trail and Will and I would switch off who was in the back of the pack. As we hit the hill to hike out, it was even more apparent that we were no match for Tim's super human endurance. We seemed to be only halfway up the hill when we saw him wave to us from the top. It was not like I was taking it easy, either, as I was working hard. Eventually, Will and I made it to the top also. There Will took with him the traveling Buddha that we found at the trailhead. I wonder what he did with that thing? As we drove back, we were happy with the way that we had chose to do the trip. We were driving back in the dark, but that was okay. Incidentally, I had an amazing thing happen on the drive back. We got out of Will's truck to adjust something and I dropped my wallet. I noticed it pretty quick and looked hard for it in Will's truck. I decided I must have dropped it. We turned around and sure enough, it was sitting right by the side of road. We spotted it from his truck randomly in the middle of nowhere. I felt incredibly lucky to have found it again. It was a quick stop at Subway then back home to relax. Great trip!

Bryce, Alone, In the Snow

Jacqueline let me have a day on my own to go for a hike, so I chose to go to Bryce to get a good long hike in. Since we had kids, it had been much tougher to take full days and really just put some miles in. The winter had been pretty mild, so I figured Bryce would be a decent bet. I did the two hour drive and they let me go in for free. The park was beautiful and temperatures were pretty comfortable. I went out to the Swamp Canyon trailhead. From here, there were two paths and I chose the one that went to the south because it looked less snowy. I was a little worried when I first started that there would be nothing but snow this entire hike, but as I dropped elevation down to the Under the Rim trail, I quickly discovered that I was incorrect and mud would be the main concern.

The trail would go in and out from being muddy to being nice and clear, but there was really a minimal amount of snow once on the Under the Rim trail. It was quiet out and by quiet, I mean, I saw no one else on the trail.

The views were great and it was nice to be down low looking at the snowy cliffs above. I put some miles in and made it as far as the Yellow Creek campsite. Here I had lunch down by the creek. I wanted to go further, but knew I should probably turn around. On the way back, I enjoyed the views and listened to some music. I decided to take a different route back and try the snowier side of the trail. This was going fine until I hit a wide open spot and the trail just disappeared. I looked closely at my map and realized that the trail was going to go up the hill through the snow.

 That looked like a formidable obstacle. I wasn't about to go back, so instead, I decided to cross country it through the snowy field. This was quite ridiculous as the road was right next to me. I thought about walking the road, but that looked longer. I just post holed for 15-20 minutes, got a good workout in and eventually popped out on the other trail which I was able to follow back to the car. Minor bump in a rather comfortable day just putting in the miles and enjoying the scenery. 

The actual Wildcat Canyon

Everyone goes for a hike on the Wildcat Canyon trail. This is a pleasant hike that follows an old road and thus stays rather flat dipping down once to hit the usually dry stream bed of Wildcat Canyon before climbing up to the West Rim and joining that trail. I chose on this day that when I made it to that dry stream bed to go down it. It was late winter, so the stream had some water in it but I was able to stay dry. I made it down there by following a lava flow that put me in the trees. At times I would traverse the banks, but most of the time I could stay right down near the watercourse to follow that through Wildcat Canyon.

It was a good hike, definitely remote, and quite a bit less brushy before the scrub oak started to leaf. This canyon is usually used as an access route into the Right Fork, so thus, it was not usually used. There were no signs of trailing of any sort even though this should be an easy spot to see social trails appear. There were canyons coming in on the left that just looked too appealing to ignore. The second of these I succumbed to the draw of exploring. I looked at my map and realized that I was not going to get anywhere significant, so maybe this canyon could be significant.

 Turned out that it was interesting. It got super narrow at time, but the most interesting part was just how far back it allowed me to go. I was able to go to the very back of the canyon where I could look straight up and see the path the waterfall would take during a rainstorm. This would be a huge waterfall and thus it gave me no hope of climbing up above. There is always that little voice in your head that thinks maybe you can climb out, but with a huge waterfall, that voice was shut down. I continued out of the canyon and was forced to turn around due to time constraints. It still could not stop me from checking out the first such canyon that came in from Sawmill Springs area near campsite 9. This one did not have that straight up wall feature and I even made a half hearted attempt to scramble on out. When it got rather steep and I was by myself, I figured this may not be a wise spot to get myself in trouble just to find out if it would go.

I turned around and headed back out of the canyon. Instead of going the way I came, though, I thought, what could happen if I just decided to go straight up all the scrub oak. Without being leafed out, this was something that was doable, so I did it. It was rather steep at times, but without the leaves, I was able to pick the wisest way up a dense jungle of 7 foot tall oak. Eventually after a sweaty climb, I popped out on the trail and continued back to the trailhead. I was happy once again to do something that I wondered if anyone else had considered trying out in Zion before.