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| Hiking | 22.00 Miles |
960 AEG |
| | Hiking | 22.00 Miles | 8 Hrs | | 2.75 mph |
| 960 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | I initially found the Snake Gulch hike in Wilson's book "Hiking Ruins Seldom Seen" then followed-up up at HAZ finding Rob's great description. Decided it was a must do.
I had been considering a trip to hike the Toroweep/Lava Falls route quite some time and tacking Snake Gulch into a long weekend made good sense. The plan was to camp at the Snake Gulch trail head Thursday, hike the Snake Gulch "out & back" Friday then bust north for some R&R at a Kanab motel. Then, Saturday morning we would drive several hours out to Toroweep to do Vulcan's Throne, leaving Lava Falls route for a VERY early start on Sunday as well as the huge drive back to Flagstaff. The first part of the trip went perfectly as planned...however, I once again was foiled by the Toroweep logistics for Sat/Sun (read on).
We (my high school basketball buddy from Kingman) left Flagstaff around 1:30pm and easily made the Snake Gulch TH (via Jacob's Lake) around 5pm. We setup camp and roasted some dogs over the campfire. At 7am, armed with Kelsey's maps, we headed north up Nail Canyon to the old homestead/ranch, then west through Snake Gulch. Our mission...to find as much Rock Art as possible.
Beyond the homestead, we didn't really see clear signs of history until about the 2 mile mark when we came upon the petroglyph alcove. Another mile or so we hit the first panel (Rob called it the "parents panel") and from that point on the pictographs become very abundant.
About 3/4s the way, I climbed up a 20' vertical ledge to some great, semi-hidden pictographs...it was a very tough down climb, but I fortunately survived w/o breaking my neck.
We finally arrived at Table Rock (was "supposed" to be obvious, but it's rather diminutive size left us both wondering a bit.) but for some crazy reason didn't even bother to explore the south (or north) side of Table Rock so I suspect from Rob's description that we missed some great art. 
We both decided to continue west for bit, and around the 6.5-7 mile mark, my buddy told me he had had enough and was breaking. We found a shady alcove to eat but instead, my curiosity got the best of me. I grabbed a liter of water and my camera...told my buddy I was going to quickly "bust out" the rest of the canyon and sped off on my own. Was not a very smart idea. I simply thought the end of the canyon was a cool mile or so away (was actually about 3)..but with every curve of the canyon, a new bend would emerge. I finally reached the intersection of Snake Gulch and Pigeon Canyon. I was hot, legs all cut up from the sagebrush...I was becoming very nervous and apprehensive. I started to regret what I had just done and wished I hadn't gone so FAR off on my own. I found the ranch (north alcove just past the fence) and "the ruin" mentioned in some online material (see photos-south of the intersection about 1/4 mile on the west side of canyon). Nothing very spectacular, but I achieved my goal. As I hurriedly hiked back to where my buddy was, I continued to be plagued with troubling and anxious thoughts of injury, dehydration or snake bite..I had to force myself to not think so negatively. I only had about 1/4 a liter left, and was heavily reserving (never saw a drop of water anyway...springs out there?? hmmmmmm...Don't count on 'em.)...I developed a headache (from dehydration or stress I suspect).
I finally arrived back to my friend who was starting to worry a bit, and was getting ready to go out and look for me...we headed back east to our vehicle and surprisingly my friend's 100oz Camelback went dry with roughly 4 miles to go. We had to ration and share what was left of my 100oz'er (maybe 1/3) for the remaining part of the trip and went totally dry about a mile from the trail-head.  22 miles total (for me per GPS).
We arrived back to my truck and enjoyed refreshments. The hike from the trail-head to Table Rock is an EXTREMELY NICE day hike; flat with plenty to see along the dusty single track, but HOT...can't imagine summer out there. IMHO, there should be no huge interest to hike beyond Table Rock. (We saw two nice pictographs at our rest alcove about 1 mile past, but they were 80 feet up and impossible to reach w/o ropes or a "Randal Schulhauser type" telephoto lens  ). Wear gaiters if you got 'em...anything off trail leads to mass amounts of tiny foxtails from the grasses/weeds....I think my socks are ruined.
After arriving to city of Kanab, we started asking locals about the drive out to Toroweep. After gathering everyone's opinion, we basically talked ourselves out of any attempt...my historic '87 4-Runner has 265K miles and the off-road tires are balding on top. A puncture from a sharp rock out in BFE would have cost me a thousand dollar tow. Toroweep would need to wait for another day. 
LOL...I'm optimistic though, I'm already planning another Toroweep/Lava Falls attempt, perhaps combining it with a search for Shaman's Gallery on Tuckup!!! Any takers??? You can you drive!  |
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