Malibu/Mammoth/Harris Wash/Escalante River/Vegas loop

[gnwatts]

I suppose this does not qualify as a "trip report" in the traditional sense, but could be attempted today, although not under the same conditions.
In late March of 1979 my room mate and I decided to go on a road trip. He had been talking about this place he generally referred to as "the canyonlands". He had attended high school at Colorado Rocky Mountain School in Carbondale, Co, and they had done a field trip to Dark Canyon. He was going on and on describing it's amazing features. I had gone to the University of Utah for 1-1/2 years, and had heard of the Escalante area from friends. So a plan began to formulate in our sleep deprived minds (we had just finished our 1st semester of architecture school the day before we left). We decided to drive north from LA (from our home near Malibu) to Mammoth Mountain, stay at my parents condo and ski for 2 days. Then it was up 395 to I80 and across Nevada to visit friends in SLC for a day. Then down to the Escalante River, we really were not sure where we would end up on the river, we just knew that was where we had to go. And finally through Las Vegas for some Field Work and then home to LA.
We soon realized that the skis would not fit on the car with the top up, but I never liked the top to my Fiat anyway:





Skiing @ Mammoth:



We were driving across Nevada when we noticed these amazing buildings near the highway. We stopped and read about the Thunder Mountain Monument, on a big sign on the other side of a fence that had kind of a sketchy ladder structure to facilitate jumping over. Soon this boy about 9 years old appears. He says his father had built this place and his name was Chief Thunder, but his given name was Frank. We asked if we could check the place out, because at this point we were intrigued to say the least. The kid said that all of the buildings were made out of stuff they had found in the desert, and the buildings were a kind of museum dedicated to Native Americans. There were car windshields on the outside of the building with exhibits you could see on the inside. I don't remember the exhibits but I remember the giant hypodermic needle sticking out of the fireplace on one of the buildings. We asked him where his father was as we wanted to meet him, but he said that he was up in the mountains near by, and that he was in trouble as the state highway department did not like his sign. Which sign ? we asked him stupidly, and then he walked off.






So we survived Salt Lake, left our skis with my friends, and took off for "the canyonlands". I had done very little backpacking, and was using borrowed stuff. I had depended on Joe, as he had done quite a bit of backpacking. We had 7 days worth of pasta, bagels, peanut butter, granola and whisky, but nothing to cook in. We had no filter (I don't know when they became required), or stove. So we stopped in a little town before Escalante searching for what Joe called a "#10 can", which we miraculously found in a store. It was basically a large fruit can, and we got two of them, using them to cook in and eat out of. That accomplished we stopped by the BLM office in Escalante, and decided on Harris Wash. We left Escalante for the Hole in the Rock Road, then to Harris Wash. where we were instructed to drive across the wash and park. It was kind of dark by the time we started hiking, and with some some of the whisky in us we decided to walk the wrong way, as we thought the ranger told us to walk beside the wash some distance and then rejoin the wash, so we would not have to walk through the deep sand. But we forgot to rejoin the wash, and we continued across the desert until we were tired and ready to sleep. We didn't care where we were, just that we were there. In the morning we continued along, getting nervous because we were running out of water, and we see the Escalante River canyon about a mile cross country. So we walked until we reached the edge:



This was an amazing thing to me. I had grown up in southern california, been skiing in Mammoth, day hiked around SLC, but nothing had prepared me for this. Walking across the scorched earth to arrive at this place was a wonder and I will never forget that feeling. Anyway, we were stoked we had found water but it was also 500 feet below us. We headed along the rim up canyon, and soon found a way down via a large sand dune I think, and a final wall we jumped off of:



We hiked down river a mile or two and camped here for 5 days.



We then headed down river to the confluence with Harris Wash:



and hiked up the wash, which had a beautiful stream, very lush, very deep, like paradise



This is me, apparently in some self inflicted trance like state.





We only spent the one day hiking out in Harris Wash, but I would return years later and spend a couple of days in there. We did not see anyone in a week, until we rang the bell at 11 oclock at night in a little motel in Escalante. We were told that native southern Utah residents did not like people with long hair, but the lady who answered the door gave us a room, made us dinner (baloney sandwiches) and took my check (amazing). You could imagine what we looked and smelled like. She was an angel. The next morning we ate at the Double D cafe, I think that was it's name, which was pretty tense in some ways, all of these ranchers talking and drinking coffee and staring at us. They were polite, but you could tell they were not sure about us. But we survived breakfast and Las Vegas, and made it home. Things were simpler then, we planned most of the trip in an hour and did not really care to much about details. It was a lot of fun.

[blueeyes]

Love the hair and tube socks! Nice write up.

[gnwatts]

Thanks blueeyes

[accadacca]

Love it! Retro Trip Report! We need more of these on Bogley. It would be interesting to see people and places from a long time ago.

[gnwatts]

Thanks accadacca.

[ibenick]

This makes me wish I could go back in time and see some of these places before they were as well used as they are now. Kind of like reading Desert Solitaire.

[gnwatts]

I have not been in the Escalante area for 20 years or so (at least backpacking). I have no Idea what it is like now.
It was kind of cool to find our "route" in Steve Allen's book. At least I think it is the same sand dune. We wouldn't have gone there in the first place if we had read about it in some guide book.