Thursday, August 31. My dad, two brothers, and I met up at the Cheesebox road just after 7:00 PM, drove in about 9 miles and found a place to camp. In the morning, we drove up to the Gravel Canyon trailhead and hit the trail around 7:30. It turned out to be a great canyon. Lots of boulders to go under/over/around, a few downclimbs, a couple short rappels, and some fun swims. Overall, it was very wet. We tried stemming over some soup, but I decided that took too much time and that I'd swim whatever came next. Well, I asked for it. We got into the stinkiest water I've seen yet. Chilly, too! Huge, floating, pine needle/stick/cow pie/etc. islands. Some were almost too hard to break through because the narrows were so tight, yet they didn't float enough to get you over them. Kind of like quicksand. My dad took the lead while I took some photos, but then he got stuck trying to push them ahead of him. We traded, and I just started pushing them down, breaking through them. Good thing we had some flotation in our packs. Anyway, we finally made it though and tried to rinse off in some cleaner (but still foul) pools. It was a blast! There were some storm clouds, thunder, and sprinkles on our way out, but nothing serious. Some really cool ruins down there that I guess we'll save for next time. When we got back to camp, we heated some water and washed the stink off.
We planned to do Cheesebox Saturday, but there were pretty good clouds on three sides of us, so we hung around camp and played cards to see if they'd break up. They ended up getting worse, so after lunch, we packed up camp and drove to the highway. On the way out, we stopped and hiked up an old mining road to the top of a mesa. We explored a bit and set up a big stunt rappel for practice. We were a bit concerned about White Canyon flashing and getting stuck on the other side, so we drove out and cooked a nice dutch-oven dinner. On Sunday, we were lazy and explored the ruins at Fishmouth Cave. Pretty cool. We had left one truck at Natural Bridges, so after Fishmouth we went back to get it and cruised through the Park. They had received some rain and some hail (looked at first like snow, see pic), so White Canyon now had running water in it. The campground was full, so we camped nearby in the National Forest. We had a nice dinner, great cool, clear night, and a nice breakfast. We then drove to Fry Canyon and cruised through that in about 2.5 hours. My camera battery died after the first pool, but fourtycal's pics look great (I think we followed your tracks from a few days before). It was fun, but the swims were long, especially in the cool morning. Anyway, that seems like a great little canyon for families and kids to get the full-meal deal without killing themselves, especially in hot weather. When we reached White Canyon, it was still flowing. Beautiful, brown, warm water. Nice hike back to the vehicles. We headed home our separate ways just before noon.
Even though we missed out on Cheesebox, it was a great trip! (I think one hardy group did either Cheesebox or Gravel on Saturday while we wimped out--would love to hear a report.)
P.S. Since this trip, I've learned a thing or two about taking pics in canyons. Shoot portrait, for one. This was my first try, so hopefully they'll improve next time around! Enjoy.
P.P.S. I'll try to upload some of the video to Youtube or Google video, then post a link here.
