I'm so far behind on posts, it's kind of ridiculous. I can't tell if I've just been lazy or too busy to get caught up, but I'm trying my best, so just bear with me for a while :)
A few weeks ago, I ended up with a little string of days off in a row and, naturally, had to plan an adventure to fill the time. I'd been eyeballing a trip to Escalante to sleep under The Jacob Hamblin Arch for a while, but the first opportunity I had to get up there, it was really cold still and freezing at night...not my idea of a good time, especially when wading through a river and creek for much of the time. Cold and wet = not my cup of tea. Early May seemed like the perfect time and I even found a friend to join me as I wasn't sure what to expect down there and it's so stinkin' isolated that I was, frankly, a little freaked out to venture out alone :).
We had everything packed and ready to go so that we could take off right after work. We drove about 4 hours the first night, literally stopping on the side of the highway to sleep (luckily, there was no traffic, so it wasn't that bad). We awoke early the next day and hit the road once again, making our way to the tiny town of Escalante, UT where we'd hoped to find a diner of some sort, but were short on our luck. Nothing opened for several hours, so we made due with a gas station that had fresh donuts and coffee. After gorging ourselves on sweets, we hit up the Escalante Information Center for a backcountry camping permit and our portable poop bags and headed out of town in search of the infamous 40 Mile Road. It wasn't far at all and the road was remarkably well maintained, allowing us to cruise right along and make it to our trailhead within an hour. As we looked out over the bleak landscape, it was hard to believe that such a grand, amazing, and majestic canyon was so close...we just couldn't see it from where we were.
We parked in the tiny parking lot, alongside 3 other vehicles and loaded up our backpacks and water, signing in at the trailhead before making our way towards the massive chasm that would be our home for the next couple of days.
The first mile or so of the trail was just trekking across solid rock, following cairns along the way. I'm pretty certain that, if I'd been alone, I'd gotten lost before I even made it to the canyon. As we went along, we could see the massive canyon start to open up before us and incredible rock formations take form on the horizon. Eventually, we made our way to "Crack in the Wall", where a wall dropped down almost a hundred feet below us and we had to slither through a section about 1' wide between a chunk of rock and the wall. I hiked down first while Brian lowered our packs down the face, untying each one at the bottom and then he followed.
We loaded back up at the bottom and started down a sandy hill towards the canyon, taking in the breathtaking rocks around us.
A short while longer, we found the edge of the actual canyon, and into it, a tiny, sandy trail straight down.
Keep in mind that we were each lugging massive packs, mine probably hovering around 30 lbs and his, more like 80 lbs. We slid in the sand, gripping in vain for anything to break our fall as we descended. The trail would break on a more level spot for a few feet where we could stand and get our bearings, and then would dip farther down for a bit until it would catch up with some slick rock that we'd have to scoot across. There were several super steep spots that I only felt comfortable traversing with three points of contact, but found it incredibly difficult with my pack on. Once we got closer to the bottom, I took my pack off and managed to skid (fall) down a small section of rock...essentially shattering my entire ass and tailbone (I'm exaggerating, but at this point several weeks later, it occasionally still bothers me, so it wasn't all just in my head). It kind of knocked the wind out of me, so I had to rest for a few minutes before loading back up and heading into the canyon.
Once we got down there, we weren't actually sure which direction we were supposed to go, so we actually went upstream into Calf Creek Canyon for a little ways, before concluding that that was not the correct direction.
We turned back and eventually made our way to the intersection where the Calf Creek emptied into the Escalante River and, once again, were unsure which way to turn to reach the Gulch that I was so excited for. We gambled with a right-hand turn and trekked downriver for about a mile as Steven's Arch loomed above.
The river trickled in areas and raged in others, allowing us to trek most of the way and wade in parts. I did manage to find a spot, rather suddenly, that dropped off deep and required actual swimming...thankfully I didn't have my pack on at the time or all of our food and gear would have been soaked.
We turned around a couple of miles down and made our way back to our packs beneath Steven's Arch. We decided just to set up camp there for the night as we really had no idea how far away The Jacob Hamblin Arch was or in exactly which direction. We set up our tent, made a delightful lunch of macaroni and cheese, and settled in for a quick nap. Brian had packed in his beloved drone and was waiting for the perfect moment to whip it out and get some incredible footage of the rocks surrounding us. He got a couple of good minutes before the wind caught the poor device and sent it careening into a massive boulder right in front of our camp. He crossed the creek and recovered it, but it was pretty well destroyed. Meanwhile, I took all of my sopping wet clothes off and sprawled them out over some rocks in the sun at just the same moment that a friendly fellow in a small kayak came drifting down the river past our camp. Of course I was naked, and of course the only other person that we saw the entire time just happened to be floating by. Figures.
We decided to venture back out, this time upstream from camp to see what we could find up there. We concluded that, if the Gulch was just a short distance away and if there wasn't anybody else camped there, we would just return, pack back up again, and move camp. In the meantime, we loved our campsite on a bend in the river that we had all to ourselves.
We ended up coming to a side canyon (Steven's Canyon) with a stream trickling out and figured that we'd just explore further. As we went, the canyon grew narrower and massive boulders started becoming more common, making scrambling a must. There were a couple of super sketchy spots where we had to tie a rope and climb up with it's help. As we wandered deeper, we heard a faint cry, like that of sheep, echoing through the rocks. We followed it as it got louder and seemed to be multiplying. I was expecting to find sheep or goats stuck in the canyon or peering over the edge of the cliff down at us, but we soon concluded that it was just toads in the creek.
The next morning, we managed to sleep in and make oatmeal and coffee before cleaning up camp and taking off in the direction we came. We decided to venture up Calf Creek a few miles and see if we couldn't find Coyote Gulch up that way. We dropped our packs, once again, at the end of the trail that we'd gone down into the canyon on, and made our way upstream.
We soon realized that we were on the right track, as we passed a bunch of waterfalls and recognizable rock formations and arches that I'd seen in my research for the trip. We stopped and swam in a couple of the deeper pools to cool off (it was crazy hot down there) before realizing that we'd gone through most of our drinking water and probably needed to head back before we ran completely out.
With only a single bottle of water left, we climbed up and out of the canyon and then began the torturous excursion up the deep sand hill that had led us to the river. We had to stop, literally, every 15' or so to catch our breath and swish our precious supply of water. It was horrible. Once we reached Crack in the Wall, Brian climbed up and sent down a rope for me to hook up to the packs so he could pull them up. Then, I hiked up and we made our way back across the barren landscape to the car where we guzzled every last bottle of liquid we could find.
We changed quickly and turned back toward the town of Escalante, where we stopped at an amazing little establishment called Escalante Outfitters, a little motel/store/coffee shop/pizza spot where we ordered the most amazing dark beer, thin crust artisan pizza, greek salad, and rhubarb pie a la mode. Bellies stuffed, we hit the road back towards home.
At approximately 11 pm we were 25 miles outside of Flagstaff and one of the wheels on his SUV CAME OFF OF THE CAR and was rolling down the highway beside us at roughly 85 mph. I can't believe we didn't flip. Apparently, the actual lug nuts broke off as the tire was in tact. The rotors, however dug into the asphalt for quite a ways and were totally destroyed by the time we came to a halt. After over an hour on the phone with the insurance company and tow truck driver, we decided just to get as much sleep in the meantime as possible, as he had to work the next morning at 7 am. By 4 am, we were back in Sedona, safe and sound with more amazing stories under our belts. I can't wait to go back and actually make it to The Jacob Hamblin Arch! I'm far from disappointed in our adventure there and will cherish the memories forever :)