Dark Canyon (Young's - Lean-To) May 2011

[andykrow]

First off, thanks to Scott P and Bobb169 for their help on this. And once my girlfriend weeds through the 500 pics she took I'll post some up.

With a little inspiration and a long-time desire to see Dark Canyon, we headed off. I had heard rumors of loops other than the Wooden-Peavine and wanted to try something different. I saw a couple mentions online of Young's being cool. Lo and behold Steve Allen decribes descents of both Young's and Lean-to in Canyoneering 2 so I figured that was enough beta.

Day 1. We arrive in Blanding at 7 in the morning and check on road conditions. No one seems to know, but there was "lightning in them mountains" last night so the road might be wet, according to someone in a gas station. Both BLM and NFS had no idea what any of the roads are like near the Abajo's or Dark Canyon Plateau. So we take 100 East north out of Blanding, since it becomes FR095 and that appears to be the most direct route, and I figured my FJ is up to the task with mud tires on it. 095 was in great shape and easy to follow, you basically take that for maybe 30-40 miles until you hit 088, take that north maybe 10 miles until you hit the Sweet Alice Road, and take that west for 20 or so miles. (These distances are vague on purpose - I read maps not odometers!) Roads were tacky and nice up till we dropped down the North Long Point on Sweet Alice. That's a steep descent but no 4 wheel required (high clearance is necessary though!!) After the dropping down the road got into clay and I had to lock the hubs. It was very slippery and without 4 wheel drive you'd be in trouble, even with it the going was tough. In dry conditions the road was high-clearance for sure, but not too loose. An outback or similar car could go the whole way being careful in a couple spots.

Near the head of Young's you see a stock pond and ancient corral on your left, past the Fable Valley trailhead. This is marked "horse pasture" on maps. We got here around 11am, having driven the dirt roads for about three hours. Not many people back in here! We saw two RV trailers on the whole 60 miles. Anyway we stashed the cruiser back in the trees and headed down the old road nearby (follow the SA directions at this point) to the line shack in the cliff wall. Super cool spot and if it wasn't full of mouse and rat poop this would be a great place to hang out. We left there with a light rain falling and headed down to Young's.

SA's directions are good, although exiting a little sooner than he recommends for the first big drop in Young's is wise. It's a hard exit either way - good route finding required and this is a very tough climb with a heavy pack. It's a dry route too if there isn't rain happening so you'll be carrying a lot of water on this day. To get around this drop you need to completely exit the canyon, I'd guess 600 feet vertical at this point. To re-enter Youngs you drop into a side canyon. SA mentions camping in this side canyon and that's where we stopped. If there hasn't been rain in a while though this will be a dry camp, and not a very spacious one although the views are great. There is a spring in Young's at the bottom of the descent (another 500 feet down...) so you could carry water. There's no good camping in the bottom...

Day 2. We took a short day here, camping in the side canyon you enter after hiking around the second big drop. This is an awesome camp, and if it's rained recently you have nice rain-water potholes like we did. Otherwise you're drinking from Young's which is pretty nasty but drinkable. Lot's of wine tonight! I love packing with bag's o' wine...

Day 3. Into Dark. There's a huge poison ivy field to negotiate in Youngs about 20
mins up from Dark, 1 hour from the camp. You'll want pants for this, and I'd recommend getting in the creek for this part. We hiked about half the length of Dark on this day , maybe 3 hours down from the Young's mouth. Absolutely beautiful, limestone terraces and waterfalls. TONS of 15 foot cliff jumps into deep pools, I took many swimming breaks.

Day 4. Down Dark. It was about three hours down Dark from camp to get to the confluence with Lean-To, and from there Dark looked so crazy and deep and cool we decided to camp there and day hike farther down it. Not the best camping spot but not bad - this is right where Sundance comes down so you'll actually see other people, and there's lots of gnats to deal with. Probly from careless people leaving food around. Up till now we hadn't seen a SINGLE person on this whole loop so it was a bit weird running into others. Dark gets huge walls and tightens up from this point. Very impressive.

Day 5. Up Lean-to. This is where going up a canyon with directions for how to get down it proves to be difficult. SA mentions the trail getting around the "huge" drop but isn't clear on how to find it from below. So we head up canyon, ignoring the light trail right at the beginning of Lean-to, figuring it just short cuts the ridge between LT and Dark. So we hike TWO HOURS up Lean-To (mostly over nasty boulders), watching for exits to our right, seeing nothing but steeper and higher cliffs until we get to a huge dryfall. Ugggghhhh. Nothing to do but turn around and go all the way back down LT. Turns out the little trail at the beginning of LT, about 100 yards from Dark, is the one you want. Hop on it and just keep going up, eventually you'll be on a very well-established trail that puts you back into the LT wash above the dryfall. It's an awesome trail and a very dramatic spot. Don't make our mistake, although the lower part of LT is cool and has some good camping right up by the dryfall.

So at this point we wasted 3 hours, and needed to make up some time. If you don't need to bust out a big day there's great camping here, although it is on the bottom of the wash (wide and all slickrock here) so don't camp here if there's weather around. Throughout Dark and LT you'll see lot's of evidence of the huge 2006 floods... kinda makes you want to camp up high but the great spots are all low.

From this good camping area you get into a spring area that SA describes as "a struggle, a real bear." You know if Steve Allen says it's a struggle it's going to be effing hard! This area is basically making awkward climbing moves over car sized boulders with a big pack on. Not fun. About halfway through this it eases up and there's great camping with an unbelievable swimming hole in red sandstone. We camped here.

Day 6. Got to get out and to the truck! We're running behind so we wake up at dawn. Not totally through the "bear-ish" spring area but the worst was definitely the first section. At basically the top of the spring area you'll get to the large pool SA describes as "idyllic" (though not nearly as idyllic as our camp-spot swimming hole) You will need to pump all your water for the day right here. And to be safe we each carried about a gallon and a half from this point on. After here there's no reliable water and it's a long dry hike to the car. The camping would be good here and the water is SUPER TASTY. Weird that Young's was so gross and LT is so good. Right above this pool is your exit spot for the upcoming dryfall, on the right looking up canyon. No real trail but there is a cairn at the bottom - you pretty much find your way up the talus. The dryfall isn't far if you miss this spot though... no hours of hiking only to turn back like the day before...

LT was pretty fun after this point, there's a couple dryfalls to negotiate. After you see a major wash/valley coming in from the right (looking up canyon) start looking for an exit on the left. This is not cairned or anything - totally off trail. The cedar mesa just looks more broken up and up canyon LT started looking steeper and higher-walled, so we decided to make our escape. It wasn't too hard but there are at least 5 or 6 big cliff bands to figure out. On the top of most of them we found a cairn(!), but nothing like that at the bottom. (If you aren't used to route-finding you shouldn't be on this loop anyway!) Using the maps we just tried to stay as high a possible, always climbing and staying in our general heading towards the Sweet Alice road. We popped out right at the airfield, which is where SA recommends dropping towards Lean-To, so I guess we did it right! Those cairns were probly from people dropping into LT via the Canyoneering 2 route.

At this point there's 5 miles of road walking to get to the truck, so we dropped packs and left the girls with them and busted it out in an hour or so. The road's super easy to drive too so we were back to them in 15-20 minutes once we got the truck. PBR's and back to Blanding!

All in all this is a very tough trip! Not for beginners. You could definitely bust it out in 3 nights but you just won't see anything, nor have time for all the swimming... Have some extra food and be ready to do extra hiking with the route-finding required.

pics to come.

PS, I won't name the places, but two restaurants in Monticello were the two worst eating experiences I've ever had, for service and food. Just get into CO as quick as possible if you're in the area.

[Jammer]

Good stuff. Glad to hear it was a good trip and you had no problems with the big packs on the entry/exit. Can't wait to see pics.

- Jamal

[ibenick]

Sounds like an awesome trip! But I still have to say.....

[Wasatch]

Nice. Dark Canyon is an awesome place to spend time in.