RedRoxx
05-29-2007, 05:21 AM
Time really flies when you are having fun---- to prevent this from being a novel I'll put down an outline then a short (hopefully) summary of key events.
Name trails or places in no particular order--
Honaker trail-- geology tour de force to the San Juan River near the Goosenecks. Layers thru time, great views of river, lots of fossils, beautiful cliff faces, land on a sandy beach. Trail in good shape but need HC for actual TH parking, in the middle of nowhere.
Big Notch TH Dark Canyon to Scorup cabin- Traces headwaters of Dark Canyon thru impressive Cedar Mesa rock formations in a mountain ( think big pine trees) environ in a wide valley. Trail disappears in valley, follow cow paths to cabin. Some ruins too. Very nice and historic cabin in a wonderful setting.
Grand Gulch 5 day from Collins TH to San Juan River and back--- and the rangers said not much archaeo--depends on what you mean. A ton of rock art. The canyon from a little before the side canyon of Redman to near Grand/Shaw arch is some of the most beautiful canyon hiking I've done. Recent rains made for lots of wonderful shallow slickrock pools, water everywhere in this normally dry end of things. Side canyon spectacular. Absolutely great campsites, I carried a bivy and never used it, slept outside every night. This was the last portion of this canyon system I haven't hiked at least once.
Summit of Henry Mountains-- Mt Ellen-- a little over 11K. This was a spontaneous lets escape the heat. Not much of a hike usually as a road goes over a pass between south and north summits. Was able to car camp is a beautiful grassy Aspen ringed meadow at 9,500. Road over pass still snowed in, but trail was pretty clear due to wind blowing snow off. So, some postholing getting up to the TH!!!. Good trip to summit in what must have been 50+ hour winds. Pretty awesome views. No body else on trail and did not see anyone on entire drive up on mountain roads. Woulda come in handy when I had a flat tire and had to change it.
New section of the Dirty Devil River, several days on this one. Tough drive access, road in very bad shape from past flash floods, had to rock fill in and build for Cherokee. Saw no one else on this one either. Pretty hot but great hike as flood had also cleaned out Tams from river side and packed the sand. Some nice swim pools, solitude, big cliffs, slept outside on this one too. Luckily had some "settling" pools to get water from as the River was running with lots of silt. Had another spa mud bath. Great side canyons too.
Oh, and Escalante area. Not enough time there but some new places for me. Nice overland route, getting me out of the canyons, the Boulder Mail trail. Those who have driven the "hogback" on Hwy 12 between Boulder and Escalante near the Calf Creek area--when you look out over the sea of slickrock this is the area of the route. I love history,and this route was in use starting about 1902 for biweekly mail delivery to Boulder, a fairly isolated area even into recent times. In and about 1912 a telephone line was routed over attached to trees to service the families via a party line. This line was in use till about the 1960's I've read. The route follows bits and pieces of this old line, in and out of several fine drainages such as Death Hollow. A very nice overnighter. I walked also along the Escalante, and looked into more sidecanyons of sidecanyons, the narrow slots and lots of fine lighting for the pictures.
Also did some not name hikes, more look at map and explore. Lots of little gems out there. Some places no boot marks or evidence of any recent traffic.
Name trails or places in no particular order--
Honaker trail-- geology tour de force to the San Juan River near the Goosenecks. Layers thru time, great views of river, lots of fossils, beautiful cliff faces, land on a sandy beach. Trail in good shape but need HC for actual TH parking, in the middle of nowhere.
Big Notch TH Dark Canyon to Scorup cabin- Traces headwaters of Dark Canyon thru impressive Cedar Mesa rock formations in a mountain ( think big pine trees) environ in a wide valley. Trail disappears in valley, follow cow paths to cabin. Some ruins too. Very nice and historic cabin in a wonderful setting.
Grand Gulch 5 day from Collins TH to San Juan River and back--- and the rangers said not much archaeo--depends on what you mean. A ton of rock art. The canyon from a little before the side canyon of Redman to near Grand/Shaw arch is some of the most beautiful canyon hiking I've done. Recent rains made for lots of wonderful shallow slickrock pools, water everywhere in this normally dry end of things. Side canyon spectacular. Absolutely great campsites, I carried a bivy and never used it, slept outside every night. This was the last portion of this canyon system I haven't hiked at least once.
Summit of Henry Mountains-- Mt Ellen-- a little over 11K. This was a spontaneous lets escape the heat. Not much of a hike usually as a road goes over a pass between south and north summits. Was able to car camp is a beautiful grassy Aspen ringed meadow at 9,500. Road over pass still snowed in, but trail was pretty clear due to wind blowing snow off. So, some postholing getting up to the TH!!!. Good trip to summit in what must have been 50+ hour winds. Pretty awesome views. No body else on trail and did not see anyone on entire drive up on mountain roads. Woulda come in handy when I had a flat tire and had to change it.
New section of the Dirty Devil River, several days on this one. Tough drive access, road in very bad shape from past flash floods, had to rock fill in and build for Cherokee. Saw no one else on this one either. Pretty hot but great hike as flood had also cleaned out Tams from river side and packed the sand. Some nice swim pools, solitude, big cliffs, slept outside on this one too. Luckily had some "settling" pools to get water from as the River was running with lots of silt. Had another spa mud bath. Great side canyons too.
Oh, and Escalante area. Not enough time there but some new places for me. Nice overland route, getting me out of the canyons, the Boulder Mail trail. Those who have driven the "hogback" on Hwy 12 between Boulder and Escalante near the Calf Creek area--when you look out over the sea of slickrock this is the area of the route. I love history,and this route was in use starting about 1902 for biweekly mail delivery to Boulder, a fairly isolated area even into recent times. In and about 1912 a telephone line was routed over attached to trees to service the families via a party line. This line was in use till about the 1960's I've read. The route follows bits and pieces of this old line, in and out of several fine drainages such as Death Hollow. A very nice overnighter. I walked also along the Escalante, and looked into more sidecanyons of sidecanyons, the narrow slots and lots of fine lighting for the pictures.
Also did some not name hikes, more look at map and explore. Lots of little gems out there. Some places no boot marks or evidence of any recent traffic.