Dark Canyon and beyond
Well, it's a suitably dark and dreary day of rest, so I figure it's about time that I start posting about my adventures of the last month or so on here. It's raining and I'm sick, so it's not like I'm about to do anything else.
So, the last day I've worked was the Thursday before Labor Day (and yes, I *am* still employed). After every seven years of service, my employer gives me a two month sabbatical--8 weeks paid time off in one big chunk to do with as I please. I hit my seven years of service on my birthday (Aug 27th), and the official start to my sabbatical was the day after Labor Day, Sept 2nd. I report back to work on the last Tuesday in October, three days before Halloween. So anyway, my wife and I flew up to Oregon that Thursday evening, Aug. 28th. We spent time with family and friends, and I participated in a moderately horrible Portland Labor Day Scrabble tourney. I spent the entire tournament thinking that I shouldn't have been playing Scrabble. It started from before the very first game, so I strongly feel that that attitude *caused* my 5-15 performance and was not the result of it. At any rate, I came away convinced that it wasn't a good idea to play in the other two tournaments I was signed up for over the next month so I canceled out of those not long after the Portland tournament ended. I'm on a Scrabble sabbatical, too. We'll see if it lasts just two months or not.
We flew back from Portland on Wednesday, Sept 3rd, and my aunt and uncle flew in from Maine the next day. Charlie and I took off for the hinterlands of southern Utah on Friday morning. I'd been planning this trip for a while, and had rented a car for the time they were here in anticipation of it. The plan was to spend two weeks hiking, backpacking, and meandering our way around southern Utah and northern Arizona. Our first destination was a four day backpacking expedition in Dark Canyon. After a few minor side trips, Mexican Hat, the Goosenecks, and the Moki Dugway, we arrived at the Woodenshoe Canyon trailhead in the mid- to late-afternoon. We packed up the packs and hit the trail, but still only made it 3-4 miles that day before we decided to camp for the night at a sweet campsite not far from the trail.
The next day we progressed down the canyon and stopped for water at Cherry Canyon. It's quite remarkable what a boost to the spirit it can be to find flowing water in the desert. Not far after that, we found a very well preserved cliff ruin up on a ledge on the right side of the canyon. We clambered up to investigate, and Charlie was pretty tickled that you could find such a ruin out in the backcountry. I realized after the hike that we missed our chance to go up another side canyon and find a few more ruins, but I guess that will have to wait for another hike. We continued down the canyon until we found another small spring crossing the trail. We drank our fill, and, being tired, we found a campsite within a quarter mile and stopped for the second day.
Our third day on the trail turned out to be a grueling 15 miles. We finished the last couple of miles in Woodenshoe Canyon and turned right to go upstream in Dark Canyon. Where Woodenshoe had been fairly wet with at least standing pools of water every so often, Dark Canyon was dry as a bone. I had gone through most of my reserve water was very nearly totally dry by the time we reached the next marked spring on the topo quad another four miles or so down the trail. I walked right by the spot I knew it had to be before doubling back and finding it by the telltale sign of a patch of green grass. That just doesn't happen by accident in the desert, and I shouldn't have missed it on the first pass. What we found was the most welcome, cold, clear water you could imagine, just gushing out of the side of the rock face. We drank our fill, filled our bottles, and stopped for a most welcome lunch break. We kept going on past the junction with Trail Canyon, and made it all the way to the junction with Poison Canyon before calling it a night. It wasn't quite as nice a campsite, but we were both thoroughly tired and ready for the rest.
In the morning, we pushed on the last few miles to the junction with Peavine Canyon, then turned up that direction and followed the four wheel drive track up for some miles. We made a medical stop to attend to a nasty set of blisters on my feet, then continued the trudge up canyon until we reached the trail up and out. I was in a significant amount of pain at that point, but just kept pushing myself forward. Charlie has a few years on me, and slows down quite a bit on the uphills we were facing to get back to the trailhead so we ended up going pretty close to the same speed. I ended up pushing hard to get up the last hill and got to the trailhead before him and just sat there in a daze. The original plan had been for me to walk the two miles of road to the other trailhead to pick up the car, but he ended up doing it because my feet were in no condition to make it. In all, we covered right around 45 miles in four days and saw some amazing sights. Despite the pain I put myself through at the end, it was totally worth it. We had meant to camp that night at Natural Bridges, but owing to the condition of my feet and how tired Charlie was, we drove over the high road and back down in to Blanding to stay at the Comfort Inn.
The next day was for some needed R&R. We did our laundry and took a morning jaunt to check out the amazing ruins at Hovenweep NM. Charlie had been so impressed by the ruins in the canyon that I wanted to show him some more amazing examples of architecture. We headed up to Natural Bridges next, and set up camp after waiting out a thunderstorm that was rolling through the area. We drove the loop to enjoy the show put on by all the water running off through White Canyon, then went back to camp to roast some hot dogs and enjoy a nice dinner. Charlie ended up spending the night in the car because he felt the beginnings of a cold coming on, so I spent the night worrying how waterproof my tent was as the sporadic showers came throughout the night. It turns out that it was waterproof enough because I was fine in the morning. We packed up and got underway to head out to Halls Crossing and take the ferry across Lake Powell. While there, we actually found that we had cellphone service and I called home to talk to the wife. After conferring with her, and considering that my blisters had pretty well crippled me for further heavy backpacking, we decided to call the trip early and head back down toward Albuquerque that evening. In retrospect, it was probably the right idea because there were all kinds of thunderstorms kicking around the region (we same some kind of storm or another pretty well the whole way home), with a forecast for more of the same. The immediate plan had been to cross the lake and head off into more backcountry on the Burr Trail, which can get mighty ugly in the kind of weather we were seeing. We got out of line at the ferry crossing and headed southeast. Just a half hour later, we stopped to enjoy the results of some of the flash flooding just along the road. A dry wash had turned into a red raging torrent full of silt and rocks crashing its way along to the San Juan River some miles away. We went ahead out to Muley Point to watch all of the storms rolling around, then headed down the Moki Dugway and pointed toward home. The only other stop, except for gas and food, was to detour out to the Four Corners Monument so that he could get his tourist shot in four states. It was an even lamer stop than usual with the rain and clouds dampening the spirits of the few hardy tourists that did bother to stop and pay the $3 a head to visit. I was at least hoping to snag some frybread or something, but none of the food vendors were open. Bleah. We made a beeline for home after that, and got in right around nine at night after a very full trip.
So, the last day I've worked was the Thursday before Labor Day (and yes, I *am* still employed). After every seven years of service, my employer gives me a two month sabbatical--8 weeks paid time off in one big chunk to do with as I please. I hit my seven years of service on my birthday (Aug 27th), and the official start to my sabbatical was the day after Labor Day, Sept 2nd. I report back to work on the last Tuesday in October, three days before Halloween. So anyway, my wife and I flew up to Oregon that Thursday evening, Aug. 28th. We spent time with family and friends, and I participated in a moderately horrible Portland Labor Day Scrabble tourney. I spent the entire tournament thinking that I shouldn't have been playing Scrabble. It started from before the very first game, so I strongly feel that that attitude *caused* my 5-15 performance and was not the result of it. At any rate, I came away convinced that it wasn't a good idea to play in the other two tournaments I was signed up for over the next month so I canceled out of those not long after the Portland tournament ended. I'm on a Scrabble sabbatical, too. We'll see if it lasts just two months or not.
We flew back from Portland on Wednesday, Sept 3rd, and my aunt and uncle flew in from Maine the next day. Charlie and I took off for the hinterlands of southern Utah on Friday morning. I'd been planning this trip for a while, and had rented a car for the time they were here in anticipation of it. The plan was to spend two weeks hiking, backpacking, and meandering our way around southern Utah and northern Arizona. Our first destination was a four day backpacking expedition in Dark Canyon. After a few minor side trips, Mexican Hat, the Goosenecks, and the Moki Dugway, we arrived at the Woodenshoe Canyon trailhead in the mid- to late-afternoon. We packed up the packs and hit the trail, but still only made it 3-4 miles that day before we decided to camp for the night at a sweet campsite not far from the trail.
The next day we progressed down the canyon and stopped for water at Cherry Canyon. It's quite remarkable what a boost to the spirit it can be to find flowing water in the desert. Not far after that, we found a very well preserved cliff ruin up on a ledge on the right side of the canyon. We clambered up to investigate, and Charlie was pretty tickled that you could find such a ruin out in the backcountry. I realized after the hike that we missed our chance to go up another side canyon and find a few more ruins, but I guess that will have to wait for another hike. We continued down the canyon until we found another small spring crossing the trail. We drank our fill, and, being tired, we found a campsite within a quarter mile and stopped for the second day.
Our third day on the trail turned out to be a grueling 15 miles. We finished the last couple of miles in Woodenshoe Canyon and turned right to go upstream in Dark Canyon. Where Woodenshoe had been fairly wet with at least standing pools of water every so often, Dark Canyon was dry as a bone. I had gone through most of my reserve water was very nearly totally dry by the time we reached the next marked spring on the topo quad another four miles or so down the trail. I walked right by the spot I knew it had to be before doubling back and finding it by the telltale sign of a patch of green grass. That just doesn't happen by accident in the desert, and I shouldn't have missed it on the first pass. What we found was the most welcome, cold, clear water you could imagine, just gushing out of the side of the rock face. We drank our fill, filled our bottles, and stopped for a most welcome lunch break. We kept going on past the junction with Trail Canyon, and made it all the way to the junction with Poison Canyon before calling it a night. It wasn't quite as nice a campsite, but we were both thoroughly tired and ready for the rest.
In the morning, we pushed on the last few miles to the junction with Peavine Canyon, then turned up that direction and followed the four wheel drive track up for some miles. We made a medical stop to attend to a nasty set of blisters on my feet, then continued the trudge up canyon until we reached the trail up and out. I was in a significant amount of pain at that point, but just kept pushing myself forward. Charlie has a few years on me, and slows down quite a bit on the uphills we were facing to get back to the trailhead so we ended up going pretty close to the same speed. I ended up pushing hard to get up the last hill and got to the trailhead before him and just sat there in a daze. The original plan had been for me to walk the two miles of road to the other trailhead to pick up the car, but he ended up doing it because my feet were in no condition to make it. In all, we covered right around 45 miles in four days and saw some amazing sights. Despite the pain I put myself through at the end, it was totally worth it. We had meant to camp that night at Natural Bridges, but owing to the condition of my feet and how tired Charlie was, we drove over the high road and back down in to Blanding to stay at the Comfort Inn.
The next day was for some needed R&R. We did our laundry and took a morning jaunt to check out the amazing ruins at Hovenweep NM. Charlie had been so impressed by the ruins in the canyon that I wanted to show him some more amazing examples of architecture. We headed up to Natural Bridges next, and set up camp after waiting out a thunderstorm that was rolling through the area. We drove the loop to enjoy the show put on by all the water running off through White Canyon, then went back to camp to roast some hot dogs and enjoy a nice dinner. Charlie ended up spending the night in the car because he felt the beginnings of a cold coming on, so I spent the night worrying how waterproof my tent was as the sporadic showers came throughout the night. It turns out that it was waterproof enough because I was fine in the morning. We packed up and got underway to head out to Halls Crossing and take the ferry across Lake Powell. While there, we actually found that we had cellphone service and I called home to talk to the wife. After conferring with her, and considering that my blisters had pretty well crippled me for further heavy backpacking, we decided to call the trip early and head back down toward Albuquerque that evening. In retrospect, it was probably the right idea because there were all kinds of thunderstorms kicking around the region (we same some kind of storm or another pretty well the whole way home), with a forecast for more of the same. The immediate plan had been to cross the lake and head off into more backcountry on the Burr Trail, which can get mighty ugly in the kind of weather we were seeing. We got out of line at the ferry crossing and headed southeast. Just a half hour later, we stopped to enjoy the results of some of the flash flooding just along the road. A dry wash had turned into a red raging torrent full of silt and rocks crashing its way along to the San Juan River some miles away. We went ahead out to Muley Point to watch all of the storms rolling around, then headed down the Moki Dugway and pointed toward home. The only other stop, except for gas and food, was to detour out to the Four Corners Monument so that he could get his tourist shot in four states. It was an even lamer stop than usual with the rain and clouds dampening the spirits of the few hardy tourists that did bother to stop and pay the $3 a head to visit. I was at least hoping to snag some frybread or something, but none of the food vendors were open. Bleah. We made a beeline for home after that, and got in right around nine at night after a very full trip.