15 Attachment(s)
Climb-Utah "Hurst Bridge'
02/27/06 Hurst Bridge T/R
My wife and I very much enjoyed this hike. We left Mount Pleasant around five and got to Ernie Canyon T/H around nine. We had hopes of making it all the way to the Exclamation Bridges but because of my ankles we had to let go of that thought. Never the less we did get to see Ernie Bridge and Hurst Bridge, along with other unnumbered wonders of the San Rafael. The weather was the best we've ever experienced while hiking the Swell. Cool enough to keep you from sweating but not so cold as to see your breath. Ole man winter was well behaved this day. I believe the hike in and out total took us six hours, again because of my ankles. I've had both repaired, the right one twice, so all in all I feel damn good about making this "Climb-Utah.com >Weekend Warrior" hike.
The BLM built a three pole high "A" frame fence to block the mouth of the canyon. There is a section of the fence that crosses what would be the creek bottom, it's been moved aside. I don't think the BLM moved it because there are several "Wilderness Study Area" signs spaced evenly crossed the mouth of the canyon. It's here that we parked the Cherokee on the safe side, put on our Camel Paks and went for our walk.
Right off I realized that the hardest part of the hike would be trudging along the sandy creek bottom. We used to take the horses to the sand pits to give them a good workout, now I know why they broke sweat so quickly. But it was worth it, for every minute of silence we enjoyed it was worth it. We never saw another person or sign of anybody else the whole time other than we carried out five partially deflated red/white/blue balloons. Wish you could have been there, but then again glad you weren't. Know what I mean?
I've learned over time that sometimes the hike back down is far worse on the feet than the hike up. I think the downward force pushed my feet tightly against the toe of my boots. My feet hurt for the next couple days.
I use a GPSr during our hikes, helps keep us on track and better yet, it gives you an accurate record of you wanderings. Transfer the tracks to a topo map and you get an excellent birds eye view of where you've been. I used the GPSr coordinates from Shane's Climb-Utah and had no problems getting to our destinations. Not having the USGS "Old Woman Wash" map I doubt we couldn't have made it in w/o his coordinates. Good job Shane.
