I've been doing trips to SW Utah in the summer (hot hot hot!) but last year's didn't happen due to surgery, and we decided to give it a try this year in April. Ah, much better temperature range - some days were pretty cold but mostly the weather was great. First part of the trip was staged out of St. G. Warm up walk to find the rock art we'd missed (by about 50 yards) on our previous attempt.
Attachment 66150 Then a short jaunt up Firepit Knoll - quite brushy, thank goodness the elk winter here!
Attachment 66151 We also walked the Wildcat Connector trail and then shimmied cross country to get on an eastern shoulder of Pine Valley Peak for a nice late day view. Next day was Canaan Mountain via Squirrel Canyon. I'd gone up Water Canyon a few previous times. I just love this place, slickrock heaven up there! We topped out on the trail to the ATV track then climbed the slickrock mound to the north for just stellar views and awesome hoodoos.
Attachment 66152 Next day for variety I wanted to walk some place in the Red Cliffs so we went up Cottonwood Canyon. It was a very strange day as there was a lot of dust in the air being blown in by the approaching weather. Instead of just walking up and down the canyon, we first walked on the trail which parallels the highway just at the slickrock foothills, then cut cross country on a little use trail I'd seen in aerial photos and into the canyon. All is pretty though the visibility was less than perfect.
Attachment 66153 Next day was a transition day to the move over to Mt. Carmel Junction for the rest of the trip. We'd planned on walking Coalpits Wash or similar, but it drizzled as we left St. George and was really raining at the trailhead - not wanting to walk in wet clay we moved on. Stopped at the visitor center but it's not that much fun so we continued to east Zion. We stopped in the Many Pools area and hung out cramped in the car for a while wondering what to do, but the rain turned into snow, and that was pretty, so we went out and walked around in it, finding water flowing into lots of little pools, until we got too wet and cold. Later we warmed up in the motel, sky cleared, and we got a flash of evening sun at Coral Pink Sand Dunes.
Attachment 66154 I always try the Wave lottery but never get in, and don't have the patience to go to Kanab every morning to see if I can get a walk in for the next day. But I love the area. So we went to check out an area the photographers call Edmaiers Secret. It's basically the area above Buckskin Gulch on the East side sort of half way from the House Rock Valley road to the beginning of the Buckskin narrows. There's lots and lots of strange slickrock stuff to explore up there!
Attachment 66155 And we dropped into the Gulch at the last easy access before the narrows started slotting up. Walked most of the way to Wirepass before hitting thigh deep mud puddles which we were really not prepared to cross.
Attachment 66156 Then, back into East Zion slickrock country. I am quite fond of the area south of route 9 because a lot of the red stuff is exposed once you get over the passes to the south. Totally awesome day on slickrock most of the day with a sweet little peak to bag.
Attachment 66157 That was going to be a hard day to beat, but we tried the next day with lower Hackberry Canyon. A few years ago looking north from Yellow Rock I'd seen the most amazing red canyon... It's the Moenkopi layer in Hackberry. It truly is amazing so
click here to read about the full body licious workouts. We wanted to try a loop suggested by Kelsey. Now I know better than to take his books literally, but I did find a blog from someone (from Kanab?) who had done successfully followed it. So before we started up canyon, we checked out the remains of the old cattle trail as it came down over the rocks to the north, and took a waypoint. The canyon was stunning once we got into it
Attachment 66158 After the old cabin we headed east. Now Kelsey has an amazingly good description, with "foto", of the beginning of this old cowboy route, and we found the cowboy signature rocks, but after that we lost it, and basically contoured around on a Moenkopi ledge when we should have headed further east to encounter a higher Navajo cliff band than the one we first brushed against. Views were great, it was getting late, we were clearly close, but chose to play it safe and backtrack in the late day light.
Attachment 66159 Next day, back to East Zion. Up to the base of Jug Handle Arch, crossing Keyhole.
Attachment 66160 And on over to the "Center of the Universe" for still more slickrock. We knew we had gotten our slickrock legs back on this trip by the relative ease of the pretty steep descent.
Attachment 66161 Ah, it was a wonderful week, despite the snow, and the 25 degree mornings!