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| Hiking | 7.00 Miles |
510 AEG |
| | Hiking | 7.00 Miles | 3 Hrs 15 Mns | | 2.15 mph |
| 510 ft AEG | | | | |
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| partners | | Like so many of the days I've spent in southern Utah, the morning was a dismal disappointment. It was raining. It was snowing. We were leaving. Well, okay, so dismal may be an overstatement. Afterall, I was still hanging out with some of the most kickpumpkin hiking chicks ever, and we still had a whole day of hiking before our drive back to the Old Pueblo. AND we were gonna see an area I'd never visited before. So, it wasn't a complete wash.
We drove out to the old movie set in my new uber cool ride. The road must've been graded since I was out there last because it was actually in pretty good shape. Once we got on the right fork of the road (head west young lady) it wasn't long though before it deteriorated and the wash crossings just looked a little ambitious. It was still looking stormy, and I didn't think Bu would get across those things if they were damp, let alone icy or worse yet muddy. So we parked a short way down the spur and started to hike along the ranch road. It went from good solid road to rutted nightmare around every bend - usually related to crossing the myriad of small drainages in the area. However, once you reach the main wash it's very obvious where you should go. Follow those footprints up the tamarisk lined wash under the beautiful green striped mudstone. Perfect.
The wash bottom was muddy, and the mud was STICKY and or SLIPPERY. There were even areas where the mud was frozen and where large amounts of ice sat in the shade of a bend. I would NOT want to be down here in a flood event, though. The arroyo is deeply cut for nearly its entire length and it would take a great deal of adrenaline to get a booty like mine up those loose walls.
As Angela has already chronicled, we did manage an incorrect turn as we navigated up stream. I think this happened about 5 minutes after this conversation:
"I don't know what they were talking about that there are many confusing drainages coming in on both sides. It's pretty obvious where we're supposed to be hiking".
"Ah, that's just written for idiots. We're not idiots. We're the smart ones."
Yup. The smart ones alright.
In this fascinating landscape of badland hills and eroded cliffs we were looking for the one named landmark in our description: the Chinle Dome, or more specifically, a brightly colored Chinle Dome. It's even drawn on the rudimentary map we got from Trails.com. Now - I wasn't 100% sure what a Chinle Dome would look like, but I thought it would probably be the purple, pink and mauve striped formation we were approaching. One problem, though - there were at least 4 Chinle Domes in the immediate neighborhood of the wash we were following. To make things even more confusing, there were oddly spaced cairns and footprints all over the area. Once again, it was easy to convince ourselves that we knew exactly what we were doing...afterall, if we weren't the first ones up here, it meant we were on the trail, right?
Eventually all of those washes hit the base of the Vermillion Cliffs. They hit the base and turn into steep, loose, nighmareish drainages that cliff out well below the mesa top. But the arch was supposed to be ABOVE the mesa. We knew exactly where we were supposed to be aiming for - we just had no idea how we were supposed to get there.
It took the exploration of at least 3 other minor drainages before we admitted defeat. There was a benefit to all of this though - the area was thick with large hunks of petrified wood and other colorful minerals, not to mention the peerless views to the south, west and east. Debates about the constantly changing weather outlook (stormy skies one minute, blue and puffy the next) and confusion over the route finally drove us to give it up and head back for the car.
On our way back we were struck with a number of thoughts:
1. Evidently we are NOT the smart people. The correct wash felt pretty obvious when we passed it coming downstream.
2. We must've tripled the distance between the car and our stopping point by following the wash, which bends and curves and doubles back on itself constantly. I felt a little like my dog when she hikes with me.
3. 3" of mud on your shoes does not really make your effective stride longer. It just makes your shoes heavier.
4. A day spent half-lost and wandering around in the Utah badlands in Grand Staircase Escalante is better than a day spent comfortably anchored to my chair at work.
But, we definitely weren't finished with THIS adventure yet! |
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Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.- Barack Obama |
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Route Editor
Route Scout
to wind our way thru the steep-banked drainage/arroyo and into areas where the overhanging walls rose up next to you. The occasional gypsum lined banks in both white and turquoise were marvelous as was a lot of the rockery and flora we would see along the way. At times, the dirt route would be muddy (we'd have to employ the Keet Seel quicksand-like walk) and a couple times we hit either a little water or crusted snow.
, we should have gone left (and the drainage was just slightly lower here - per the instructions that say to stay in the lower drainage) but went right as the instructions says the landscape opens up at this point. Well it does on both sides as Sirena and Sarah found out when we came to that point again on the way back and they followed the other (left/west) drainage.
before heading back. The rocks here were stunning. We would discover quite a bit of petrified wood along this slope and the slope to the east of us with the HUGE white rocks. Wendy found the most beautiful piece that had that dark lavender color running through it. I will post a pic of it in my rock collage. On the way back we took a couple short-cuts up and over rather than staying in the drainage. It was steep in some sections but that's what made it FUN! We came across this one little berm that was covered in the fine pale sea foam-colored dirt so we had to stop and get some pics.
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