Brewhaha
09-12-2008, 07:21 PM
DenaliGuide (DG) and I got together today for a mini-Bogley meetup in the "true" Southern Utah - Cedar Mesa. DG has been exploring the Mesa for about a week and put out a call for anyone and everyone to meet him sometime and do some hiking. I decided to take him up on his invitation and we spent a great day hiking the McCloyd Canyon Loop. The tale follows:
DG wanted to meet at the Moonhouse main parking lot at 8 am this morning. I left Monticello at about 5:30 am and got to the parking lot at 7:30 (and, yes, Cirrus, I took my beater little truck ;-) There is a great little campsite real close to the parking lot. I pulled into an empty parking lot and was getting my gear together when DG comes strolling up the road ready to go. We hop in his truck and drive to the Moonhouse trailhead.
We make the hike to the Moonhouse which is a fairly easy hike requiring a little scrambling. It is claimed that the Moonhouse Complex contains 49 rooms - which is probably correct if you count all the rooms in the immediate and adjacent area. After looking around and spending alot of time complementing the BLM on their site managament wisdom and policies we start hiking down McCloyd canyon.
The hike took us within sight of many, many ruins. DG was like a machine in finding and pointing them out. I was amazed. If you ever really want to truly see the structures and art in a Cedar Mesa canyon you need to go with DG.
The route around the loop required some pretty ingeneous route finding in order to avoid several major impassable pouroffs. At one point we ended up having to do a 15 ft rappel. It was either rappel or climb down a sketchy "ladder" (Kelsey's term) made of old logs and underoos waistbands. The rap was the right choice. We went to the bottom of the canyon and ate some lunch in the shade of the Cottonwoods. During lunch DG regailed me with stories of his weeklong adventure on the Mesa and his guiding and flying expertise. I shared with him adventuresome tales of teaching college algebra.
At another point DG found some tricky and strategically placed Moki steps that saved us lots of time. He free climbed them like a native and then belayed me up. Most people have no idea they are there and have to use a nasty scree pile across the canyon. DG is a wizard with this kind of stuff.
Anyway, after making the loop and seing all of the ruins we exited via a southern tributary and made our way back to the vehicle. I headed home and DG headed off to another canyon - damn he's lucky.
I took the pictures and DG served as the eye-candy. We did take one picture of us (standing a little too close together) in order to prove to my wife that I was doing what I said I was doing.
I'll say it one more time - if you ever get a chance to have DG take you anywhere, do it and you won't be sorry. (FYI - you may be able to bribe him with Diet Coke and Tuna in a bag.)
Thanks DG for a great time.
P.S. Kelsey describes the whole route (except the Moki steps) but leaves quite a bit to the imagination and Tassoni tells you to turn around at the first pouroff, thus missing the fun of the underoos ladder and moki steps.
P.P.S. DG, it looks like Kelsey advocates staying high on the narrow ledge and going around that very sketchy ledge that we bypassed.
DG wanted to meet at the Moonhouse main parking lot at 8 am this morning. I left Monticello at about 5:30 am and got to the parking lot at 7:30 (and, yes, Cirrus, I took my beater little truck ;-) There is a great little campsite real close to the parking lot. I pulled into an empty parking lot and was getting my gear together when DG comes strolling up the road ready to go. We hop in his truck and drive to the Moonhouse trailhead.
We make the hike to the Moonhouse which is a fairly easy hike requiring a little scrambling. It is claimed that the Moonhouse Complex contains 49 rooms - which is probably correct if you count all the rooms in the immediate and adjacent area. After looking around and spending alot of time complementing the BLM on their site managament wisdom and policies we start hiking down McCloyd canyon.
The hike took us within sight of many, many ruins. DG was like a machine in finding and pointing them out. I was amazed. If you ever really want to truly see the structures and art in a Cedar Mesa canyon you need to go with DG.
The route around the loop required some pretty ingeneous route finding in order to avoid several major impassable pouroffs. At one point we ended up having to do a 15 ft rappel. It was either rappel or climb down a sketchy "ladder" (Kelsey's term) made of old logs and underoos waistbands. The rap was the right choice. We went to the bottom of the canyon and ate some lunch in the shade of the Cottonwoods. During lunch DG regailed me with stories of his weeklong adventure on the Mesa and his guiding and flying expertise. I shared with him adventuresome tales of teaching college algebra.
At another point DG found some tricky and strategically placed Moki steps that saved us lots of time. He free climbed them like a native and then belayed me up. Most people have no idea they are there and have to use a nasty scree pile across the canyon. DG is a wizard with this kind of stuff.
Anyway, after making the loop and seing all of the ruins we exited via a southern tributary and made our way back to the vehicle. I headed home and DG headed off to another canyon - damn he's lucky.
I took the pictures and DG served as the eye-candy. We did take one picture of us (standing a little too close together) in order to prove to my wife that I was doing what I said I was doing.
I'll say it one more time - if you ever get a chance to have DG take you anywhere, do it and you won't be sorry. (FYI - you may be able to bribe him with Diet Coke and Tuna in a bag.)
Thanks DG for a great time.
P.S. Kelsey describes the whole route (except the Moki steps) but leaves quite a bit to the imagination and Tassoni tells you to turn around at the first pouroff, thus missing the fun of the underoos ladder and moki steps.
P.P.S. DG, it looks like Kelsey advocates staying high on the narrow ledge and going around that very sketchy ledge that we bypassed.