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| Hiking | 9.63 Miles |
1,000 AEG |
| | Hiking | 9.63 Miles | 4 Hrs 37 Mns | | 2.31 mph |
| 1,000 ft AEG | 27 Mns Break | | | |
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| partners | | I'd never even heard of the place, but 9L insisted it as a stop on our Utah weekend. The remnants of Hurricane Nora dumped a bunch of rain on Wednesday and dirt roads on the way in were still muddy, washes were flowing, and SR 95 still closed from flooding damage to the bridge over Cottonwood Wash. All this made me question the condition of the trail through White and Armstrong canyons. We were the only visitors in the park when we arrived and the ranger told us the canyons were still flowing and it was a muddy mess. After being assured there were no swimmers we decided to go and get dirty.
Temps were to get well into the 80s so we decided to knock off the overland portion of the loop first. We made quick work of the Mesa Trail before dropping down into White Canyon via the spectacular Sipapu Bridge trail, which features a combination of carved moki steps, metal stairs, railroad tie steps, railings, and ladders. Along the way there's a spur trail to a viewpoint and what is most likely a modern "ruin" to satisfy the tourists.
In the canyon, wonka water was flowing nicely, and it was clear that some significant flow had been through here in the last couple of days. As a result, what may have once been a reasonably well-defined route to follow, was mostly nonexistent and there was a lot of pushing brush and climbing banks to avoid the water.
I had horse-collar ruin marked on the map, but there's no sign or indication as you pass by it in the canyon. After some poking around we found a route that led up to it and a fun little climb utilizing a huitzil log got us up to the ruins. One, in particular, was quite nice, still adorned with an adobe facade, and another with a roof still largely intact.
Continuing on we made our way downstream to the confluence of the two canyons and the absolutely massive Kachina Bridge. This one is enormous, and we spent a few minutes here trying to properly capture it in photos. The canyon downstream looked interesting but would have required some wading, and thusfar we had managed to keep our feet dry.
We turned upstream in Armstrong Canyon, first bypassing a deep pour-over, which today was nicely pouring over! The bypass takes you up the canyon wall utilizing part of the Kachina Trail (an optional exit route), before dropping back to the canyon bottom. Armstrong is a much wider, more moderate canyon than White was, and it had also flooded significantly more. Despite its width it was evident the water had reached levels as high as 10 feet. There were sections where there was no sign of trail anymore and flood debris high up on what clearly are benches that don't often see flooding. There were also two spots where we were unable to avoid a water crossing. The first was more than hiking pole deep and we moved a bit upstream to avoid getting the minaj cousin's friends wet.
The water made the canyon quite humid and the warmth and difficult hiking conditions were taking a toll. We did get a good stretch of cloud cover which was a welcome relief. By the time we reached Owachomo Bridge we were pretty happy to be done. Maybe it was just being tired at the end of the hike, but I found this to be the least interesting of the bridges despite its impressive size.
We saw no one else while hiking and there were only a single handful of cars on the park roads as we entered and exited the park, and only two park service employees at the visitor center. Oddly serene. |
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| I'm not sure what my spirit animal is, but I'm confident it has rabies. |
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Route Editor
Route Scout
. The next day we drive in to hit Arches which was already full and had a sign saying check back in 5 hours. So we went into town splurged on a coffee and ice cream for the kids. Headed toward Blanding stocked up on water as we were going through it faster than expected and hit Natural Bridges which happened to have no admission fee. We took the hike to horse collar ruins via the sipapu bridge and the kids loved it. We also checked out the other bridges and hiked to the base of the last one before heading to Cedar Mesa to find camping near Kane Gulch ranger station to get day pass permits the following day. Winged it and scored another quiet campsite. No traffic.
Natural Bridges 
