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!

February Sun

I went out to visit my folks for a few days, which meant that my dad and I were going to go for a backpack on the ocean. I could not believe it when he told me that the weather was supposed to be good. I have been to the ocean a few times in the winter and each of those times we have had some very interesting weather. This time, though, it was honestly sunny for three full days. We had a modest backpack planned with a trip from Third Beach to Mosquito Creek and back. We did not get to early of a start because we did not want to have to mess with the tides. The trail started out in the trees, which took us down to the ocean. We sat there and had lunch. Then we took off down the beach. It was a very nice spot with lots of stacks coming out of the water to break up the ocean view. After not too long, we hit a headland, which we had to climb up to go around. We spent a little over a mile in the trees before hitting the beach again. We stuck to the beach and passed Strawberry Point and stayed at Toleak Point. We thought about staying up in the trees because the campsites looked meager, but we finally found one to our liking up in the trees. With time to kill, we filled it with games of cribbage and golf. Also we spent some time down at the tide pools enjoying what was left of the low tide. We saw some anemones, but no starfish. Back for some games of cribbage and reading while we waited for Dad's stove to cook dinner. It was having some issues that I felt was due to the cold. Dad was a bit upset because he has had that stove for decades and never had such an issue. The only thing we could think of is that maybe the consistency of the fuel has been changed such that it creates a worse mix for the cold. Mine has seemed to always have those issues, so I was not too surprised. In the morning, we took the day hike out to Mosquito Creek. We had to climb up a very steep headland to get there and it was nearly like climbing a ladder. We made it fine and eventually it took us to Falls Creek with an impressive waterfall. After crossing Falls Creek, we had to cross Goodman Creek and were able to make it past both without getting our feet wet. Eventually we were lead back to the beach where we enjoyed walking near the logs to see if we could find anything interesting that had washed ashore. We crossed Mosquito Creek when getting there to chat with the two people down fishing the surf. The guy was trying to fly fish the surf and it did not seem that he knew what he was doing. We ran into some interesting folks on this trip. The first couple we saw leaving the first day was normal, but the other three groups were interesting. The other two groups were two guys with an ice axe and a single guy who did not seem to actually know where he was and where he was coming from. He struck us as the most odd and we ran into him again near Falls Creek. We were wondering where he would end up and hoping it was nowhere near our campsite. After a couple creek crossings and a climb down the rope ladder, we were back at our campsite. This time we were there for low tide and we got to go out to the tide pools. We saw multitudes of starfish and anemones, but unfortunately I forgot to bring the camera. We played some more games of golf and cribbage. I was doing much better at golf then cribbage on this trip. Dad got the stove to work in the evening, but the next morning it was nearly impossible. We got going a bit earlier in the morning than we were planning, but we figured that we could work with the tide. It actually made it a much more interesting hike on the way out because quite frequently a rogue wave would sneak up on us and we would have to perch ourselves on top of logs. There were places that would be easy to cross on low tide, but we had to plan carefully to cross them during high tide. Dad tended to use his timing and stay on the beach, whereas I went over the headlands more often. We spent a lot of time combing the beach, but the most interesting thing we saw on the beach was on this day when we saw a giant fish head and part of a dead octopus. We were able to make it out a bit after noon, but it was an unbelievable three days strictly because we popped out of the trail with dry socks and dry packs. It is still hard to believe we were that lucky in February.

Crater Hill

Driving on State Route 9 from Springdale down to the tri-cities (Toquerville, La Verkin, Hurricane), I have looked up to see Crater Hill rising above. I looked at the steep volcanic slope right near Coalpits Wash and thought that it would go. Since it was now the dead of winter, I figured there would be no better time to get into the Southwest Desert. I parked my car along the road right next to the big bend right past Coalpits Wash. I hopped the fence that put me in BLM land. I looked up the slope to see a herd of deer that looked fit and more scared of humans than the deer that wander around the south campground. 

I picked my way up the slope they came from and with not much work I was able to reach the high plateau that I would follow out to Crater Hill. I could not believe just how flat and barren the landscape was out there. The Kolob fire ripped through the area in 2006 and it is still struggling to get life back. The views were incredible as it is rare to have a 360 degree view with the Eagle's Crags, West Temple, Bishopric, Cougar Mountain, etc... After about an hour and a half, I found myself at the base of Crater Hill. There seemed to be an easy way around to the right, but I wanted to make it more challenging, so I went straight up Crater Hill.

 It was rather steep, but not anything to worry about as it was all soft volcanic scree. About halfway up, I looked up to see two condors fly right over my head. They literally looked like a plane taking off from such a close distance. I watched them fly away into the blue sky. Eventually, I topped out on the scree field to a short ridge walk to the summit. A cairn was put there to let me know that I was not the first. The views were great as volcanoes have that unique ability to shoot up in the middle of something so that there is a lot to see around you. I wandered on down the mountain to return after enjoying the top. 

I headed for the sandstone outcrops to the southwest of Crater Hill. I passed these on the hike up and thought I should check them out. They were so neat as they were a little miniature mudstone environment in the middle of a volcanic wasteland. There were little mazes and canyons within the sandstone. There were also lots of nests, holes, and animal bones showing that quite a few animals called this area home. I also saw plenty of petrified wood and chert. I was thinking that I may find some artifacts, but there did not seem to be signs left. I wandered through the area for a good forty-five minutes, looking closely but trying to avoid getting my face to close to all the animal feces that filled the nooks. Getting back to the car was a breeze as I was able to find a use trail that lead me right down all the steep volcanic boulders. I went back a week and a half later to check out the sedimentary rock I saw from the top of Crater Hill. This was to southeast of the peak. It was much of the same with lots of little canyons and so much petrified wood. The cool part was all of the petrified wood in the rock itself as whole trees were in there. This is definitely the place to go to get your fill of petrified wood. On the way up and on the way back, I saw the same herd of deer as this must be their territory. I could see how it would be nice in the winter season, but this part of the desert reaches the hundreds daily in the summer time.

Snowshoeing in Great Basin

Eric won a private cave tour at Great Basin and he was kind enough to invite Jacqueline and I to go with he and Izzy. We left Springdale after Jacqueline got off work on Wednesday. Eric drove, which was nice because I did not know how the roads would be. They turned out to be fine, but it was a long 3 hour plus drive through the darkness to get to Great Basin. As we approached, we watched closely the temperature reading in Eric's car. It was dropping slowly, hovering around the twenties. As we drove into the park and up to higher elevation, we saw the thermometer continue to drop. When we got out of the car at our campsite, it was 14 degrees. We decided to put up the tent on the asphalt because there was too much snow on the rest of the site to give us a spot to sleep. We were not able to stay up long because of the cold and were forced to retreat to our bags. It took us some time to adjust to the cold, but with my sleeping bag and a bivy sack, I felt fine. Jacqueline was cold through the night, but she chose to sleep on top of her second sleeping bag instead of in it. Eric and Izzy slept in the car and they both slept fine. We started our day by driving down to the visitor center and making plans with the person who was taking us on the cave tour. We made plans to meet her after she got off work. Then we headed up to the Upper Lehman Campground where we would pick up the Lehman Creek Trail. The trail went up hill the entire hike. Someone had been on the trail just the day prior, so it made it easy to find. Izzy was struggling a little bit because her snowshoes were definitely inferior to the three of ours. We were in the forest most of the way. Eventually, the broken trail became unbroke and we were stuck trying to find the way. This became a more difficult task than we originally thought it would be. Where we thought the trail would be lead us into a river valley. The trail was obviously not there, so we decided to head up to the ridge. This was a tiring prospect, but we were helping each other out by switching off the lead. Jacqueline and Eric were doing a much better job than I was with the lead, because I lead us up to nothing. Eric lead us back down and we still did not find the trail. When I took back over, I stumbled upon the meadow we had been looking for. We got some great views of the peaks, including Wheeler. We found the trail from there and we kept going. When it was getting close to time to turn around, Eric and Izzy turned around first. Jacqueline and I continued both feeling well. When we ran out of trail, though, I was disheartened and we decided to turn around catching up with Eric and Izzy before too long. We moved much quicker on the way down, of course, and were back with plenty of time. We briefly stopped by the campsite before heading down to the visitor center for our cave tour. We were taken into Lehman Caves for our private cave tour and it was a treat. We asked if we could do it with headlamps and Marie, who was our guide, was all for it. It is incredible how much more we could see with headlamps on. The most striking advantage was that we were able to see all the inscriptions on the cave ceiling. There were many and they were rather historical. It was easy to see dates in the late 1800s and early 1900s when they used to use the candles given them to burn their name into the ceiling. The first people who ran the cave used to let people take whatever they wanted when leaving the cave when it came to cave formations, so it was just amazing how unnatural the cave remains. We were able to go to a few spots others don't go and the nice part was that we got to do the tour much faster than others. We also got to stop and enjoy the formations a bit more and take different pictures than people usually get. We left from there and went into Baker to get some dinner. We went to a local place. I got a burrito and a beer. Marie met us there and invited us to stay at her house. Eric and Izzy took her up on that because Izzy was not feeling well. Jacqueline was excited about it also. I was the only one left unhappy with it. I appreciated the gesture, but I feel much more comfortable in my own tent than I do in someone else's house. Eric and I had to drive up to the campground, take down the tent in the dark, and drive back to Marie's house. It was not until about 2am until I got to sleep. The bed was too short and there was cat hair everywhere. We enjoyed talking to Marie and hanging out, but I would have been much happier in the cold. The next day Eric, Jacqueline, and I took the road out to Lexington Arch. I was pessimistic about actually seeing the arch because I thought the road would be snowed out. As we got closer to the mountains, the snow did increase. Eric kept going, though, and got us within a mile of the trailhead before we had to park. We walked the rest of the way on the road until we ran into the trailhead. From the trailhead, it did not take long before we lost the trail. We wandered around until we picked a trail up. It lead us to an old cabin. From there we lost the trail and began to head up the ridge looking for it. It was nowhere to be found, but when I looked up, I located the arch. It was huge. I never had the urge to go see Lexington Arch, but after seeing it, it was impressive. It dominated the whole canyon area. I looked across and realized, the trail must be on the other side of the canyon. Everyone was convinced that we did not want to continue trying to find the trail, so we turned around. I was happy with the great view that we got of the arch. We left there and on the way back had our car chased by three large sheep dogs protecting a herd of hundreds of sheep. We went back to Marie's place and picked up Izzy. From there, we made the journey home, but we enjoyed our weekend in Great Basin.

Finding Winter

Another weekend, another snowshoe trip. We were back again, but this time we did not have to worry about having enough snow as in the high country, it had been snowing all weekend. Eric wanted to make the trip up to Cedar Breaks, so we left a beautiful day in Springdale for a snowy, windy mess up above 10,000 feet. I was not complaining as this was something I was definitely in the mood for. I was glad that Eric was driving because road conditions were horrible, but he made it to where the road was blocked off. We parked there and got our gear together. In the process, I realized that I forgot my lunch and actually any form of food was not in my pack. Feeling very foolish, I told my snowshoeing companions for the day, Eric and Izzy, and they were kind enough to share food with me. The conditions were brutal, but following the road was easy enough. There were snowmobiles that would occasionally come by and clear a path for us. I was amazed just how white everything was. I do not think it was whiteout conditions necessarily, but every tree and bush was covered in white. We could have been anywhere as the sight of the orange cliffs of Cedar Breaks, just was not appearing. We passed the yurt that served as the ranger station and then tried to find a trail to a lake. I believe we found the lake, but it is tough to say as it just looked like an open white area. There were some orange markers up to follow that were off the road, but with such deep snow, we eventually got wise and ended up following the road. We didn't last long before turning around. The wind and snow seemed to get stronger as the hike continued. So after eating a bit, we wandered back to Eric's car, only stopping to enjoy some of the trees along the way. The snow covering the trees was the only sight worth seeing on this white washed hike. I enjoyed it as conditions reminded me of a trip through Yosemite many years ago. Difference was, this was for only two hours, while that trip lasted for four days. Still it is what makes Southern Utah great, in that, it is only a couple hours of driving and you can go snowshoeing at 10000 feet.

Sloppy Mess

Eric and I tried real hard to get a snowshoeing trip out of Zion, but it was more like a snow hike. For most of the trip, we did not use snowshoes, but the views were still good. We went up on the East Rim Trail from the east entrance to the park. I learned in the process that Eric had never been on that trail. Thus, it turned into a rather good choice. We only made it as far as Jolley Gulch before turning back. Still in the snow, it made for about a four hour trip. I used snowshoes for longer as there were a few spots that we sunk in, but Eric barely used his the whole trip.

Stout Canyon

Eric came back from being in Colorado and Iowa on his furlough, so we went out for a snowshoe. Jacqueline told us that Highway 14 was closed due to a rockslide, but we wanted to see for ourselves. So we drove up there and found out that it was closed at Duck Creek. Luckily, I looked at a map of the area before hand, so when we saw a sign for Stout Canyon, I knew that it was a forest service road that we could snowshoe on. It turned out to be a rather flat snowshoe. The road was easy to find as snowmobiles and cross country skiers used it previously to us. It would actually be a good road to ski as I saw later that it ends back at Highway 89. With two vehicles, it would be a steady, yet gradual downhill ski. The views were nothing spectacular, but still nice as there was much of the rock around that makes up the formations around Cedar Breaks. We also got some good views after a bit out toward the east, where the Pink Cliffs rose to become the Paunsaugunt Plateau. When we were feeling like turning back, we tried to head up a steep hill to check out the view from up top. That was where we were reminded just how hard it can be to manuever through deep, fresh snow. We made it up on the ridge, where we had our fill and turned back. There were no issues finding our way back as our tracks our clearly marked for us. We stayed out 5-6 hours, which was a good day and more than the two of us thought we would do.

Huber

I have hiked Huber Wash a couple of times before and enjoyed it on both occasions. Jacqueline never had been there before, so I figured the beginning of January would be a great time to explore it since most of our other options for trails in the park were now covered in either ice, snow, or mud. Huber turned out to be a great pick as it was muddy in quite a few spots, but for the most part it allowed for a smooth, easy hike for the two of us. The mostly dry wash lead us eventually to a dry fall and we picked our way to the left until we were at a very narrow scrambling section. I thought this could be the end, but after climbing it a couple of times up and down to show Jacqueline just how easy it could be, we made it up on to the plateau around Huber. This is where we deviated from the trail, just wandering around the southwest desert, trying our best to avoid the cryptobiotic soil. We were in search for petrified wood. There is quite a bit out there, but most of it is in small, broken piles. We wandered to a the top of a point where we got awesome views of Eagle's Crags, Smithsonian Butte, Mt. Kinesava, Cougar Mountain, and Crater Hill. We scrambled down the other side of the point and finally hit the jackpot with some nice, large petrified logs. Having fulfilled our mission on this day, we found our way back down into Huber Wash and wandered on out. It turned out to be a great 3-4 hour jaunt for a mostly snow free trip.