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| Backpack | 16.80 Miles |
800 AEG |
| | Backpack | 16.80 Miles | | | |
| 800 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | After Wolverine and LDH; a logical choice was Silver Falls Creek and Choprock as a longer loop backpack. I'd done this one before too, in the early days, and came out the wrong branch of Choprock, a long ways from my car. Two ladies from Colorado gave me a ride back to my car. I was not looking forward to a long dry walk.
Silver Falls Creek has neither falls or a creek, the only thing I can think off is someone named it after some big storms and maybe some big silvery falls off the wingate sandstone.
The walls here are just massive, the canyon huge and impressive. You feel like a puny ant in this landscape. Beautiful desert varnish. Again, a nice easy hike, along partly an old track that connected across the Escalante through Harris wash. Water starts mid canyon and while not a huge flow supports trees etc. The little cottonwood seedlings amused me, hundreds coming up in the wash, soon to be mowed down with the monsoons. I wondered if I came back in 60 years if at least one new tree there of some size.
A large alcove has the Hobbs signature, all along this section is some "older" graffiti if you will. GB Hobbs family also erected a plaque there, he was trapped here for about 5 days in 1883 in a snow storm taking supplies to another town. There are other signatures from the late 1880's and a surprise signature that I remember seeing before but has new meaning now. I get around to pics and post it there.
More pleasant ambling and now to the Escalante River portion. My destination canyon of Choprock is the fourth major and 5th side feature on the same side as Silver Falls Creek. It's kinda fun to keep up with what's a canyon or not as you are in the maze of vegetation trying to follow a maze at times of trails that run up and down the creek side and change with the floods. I met two trail stewards here. I guess the Russian Olive tree, a thorny import, is now on the hit list above the evil tamarisk tree. They were "girdling" the bigger trees and cutting the smaller ones back and killing the little stumps. I thanked them for their service, they seemed concerned I was out there by myself; they told me I was the first person they had seen and they had been camped out there working for about 4 days. I had seen their car at the Silver Falls Creek TH.
I walked on and correctly located Choprock canyon. One branch of this canyon is now pretty popular with the canyoneering crowd but is just one branch of this large system. I walked up a little ways and found a good size alcove, all mine for the night. To the next part--- |
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