TR - Northern San Rafael Swell

[tmartenst]

My wife and I decided to do a quick overnight backpack to our old familiar rim above the San Rafael River. I needed to get back to Thanksgiving Point for a 1pm tee time on Sunday (1st time this year and it was free!) so we were planning to get in midday on Saturday and get out early on Sunday. We didn't get down to Tidwell Draw until 2:00pm and then hiked to the rim in about 1 hour and 30 minutes. It is definitely still hot down there (the hottest I've experienced in that area) but we were also hiking in the hottest part of the day. We set up our tent and enjoyed doing absolutely nothing for a while. Because of our quick exit the next day, we did not scout out our normal camping spots and instead set up camp right near the top of the canyon. We ate some dinner and enjoyed the ever stormy view. We saw some pretty wicked lightning from northeast of Spring Canyon and decided to pack up and head back down to the truck instead of staying so exposed. This would mean hiking in the dark by the time we got to the lower canyon.

Packed up the tent and got some departing shots of the storm with the soundtrack of my wife's gentle nudging to get the 'f' out of there. Priorities, right? We hauled down and didn't need headlamps until the lower 1/3 which was happily off of the exposed slickrock. The lower 1/2 of the canyon was hiked/ran with lightning blowing up to our left but no rain. About 10 minutes from the truck we heard the not so friendly rattle of a local. Rattlers in the dark are more creepy than in daylight! We made it back to the truck from the top in about 50 minutes and just then it started to rain. We decided to head towards highway 6 to get off of the clay roads and had a much better sleep in the back of the truck. It rained a few more times throughout the night.

We saw isolated thunderstorms in the forecast but made the call anyways. More than half of the time we have been to that part of the swell (10 plus times), we have sat through rain and lightning. Never a dull moment in the tropical rain desert.

FYI: Fall reds are pretty nice along the drive out of Spanish Fork along Hwy 6.

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Notice the rain to the right. This was a huge cell with lightning coming right at us:

[asdf]

What canyon you did you hike?
I did the Arch Tower Canyon / Cave Canyon loop yesterday.. pretty epic with the rain and snow.

[tmartenst]

We typically do Horsethief (above). We also like the view and options better than Archtower/Cave. The Archtower/Cave loop requires more routefinding and is a longer hike though. Any canyon you scramble up in that area is cool. I proposed to my wife at the top of the reef after Cave.