The 1.9 million acres of Grand Staircase Escalante are some of the most rugged, and remote acreage in this country. This area is so remote, it was the last area to be mapped, and for a long time, showed up on maps as a huge, blank white spot. there aren't many roads that go through the National Monument, but Utah rte 12 is one of them, and its one of the most beautiful drives we've been on. Our first expedition was to the visitors center, which we've been to before, but this time we wanted to check out the hiking, and also to find out where there was BLM land where we could park for free because the state park here only had two nights available.
Armed with the information we needed, we set out early the next day to hike to lower Calf Creek Falls. This is an interpretive trail, so we picked up a sheet that pointed out what we would be seeing along the way. There were petro glyphs as well as ancient granaries high in the canyon walls.
After a 3 mile hike into a canyon, we turned a corner and this is what we saw. Such a gorgeous waterfall! When I had found out about this particular hike online, the person who hiked it mentioned swimming in the pool, so I was all excited and ready to bring the swim suits. When we talked to the ranger however, she smiled and said we can swim there, but with a water temperature in the low 50s, we may not want to. Oh well. We did wade in up to our knees, and watched some young guys swim all the way to the falls.
With our time here somewhat limited, we made the most of the day by continuing our adventure after the hike. We drove up Rte 12 and came to an area where we could stop and admire the view. To our surprise, the view included a top-down view of the falls that we had just hiked to! If you enlarge the picture you can see the waterfall, but it also gives you a sense of what hiking in a canyon is like around here. (the top picture also pictures the canyon we hiked in.)We spent the afternoon driving Hell’s Backbone Road, a road that was built in the 1930s by the CCC in order to connect Boulder Utah with the neighboring towns. The main attraction on that road, beside the feat of actually building the road itself, is the 100 ft bridge with 1500 ft drop offs on both sides that they built. Quite an accomplishment on their part!
Continuing our exploration of the area today, we headed to Hole in the Rock Rd. and parked the trailer in a small lot. We had to drive 26 miles down a washboard road to reach our destination- Coyote Gulch, home of Peek-a-boo and Spooky canyons. We debated for quite a while whether we wanted to drive to the end of the road, but in the end, decided it wouldn’t be worth the 100 mile trip. The road ends at Lake Powell, at the “hole in the rock.”
In the 1800s, a group of Mormons left the Salt Lake area and headed out to colonize a new area. They decided that coming through this way would be a short cut to their destination, saving them months of traveling. 150 people, with 80 wagons made their way through this area, and kept going, right up till they came to the Colorado River, which was 1800 feet below where they were standing. There was a small “hole in the rock” leading to the river, but it wasn’t big enough for anyone to get through. They spent the next 6 weeks blasting and digging in order to widen the hole, so they could reach the river. Tenacious!
After climbing down into Coyote Gulch, Peek-a-boo canyon was the first one we came to, but the entrance to the canyon itself required a climb of 12 feet. Since the canyon is only .3 miles deep, I decided it wasn’t worth the risk of injury, and I waited for Paul at the entrance.
He actually said it’s one of the coolest slot canyons he’s been in, with all kinds of nooks and crannies, and places he had to either crawl through, or climb over. As soon as he left, a woman who works for the National Park Service as a biologist showed up, so I had a nice chat with her while I waited.
A half mile further down Coyote Gulch was Spooky Canyon. I know why it’s called that- because it’s so narrow and dark (and cool, which was great, since it was hot out) that it’s spooky. Apparently quite a few people have literally become stuck, and have had to be rescued. Luckily we weren’t two of them. Again it is a short canyon, but fun. You can see Paul in this picture if you look into the canyon. He couldn’t wear his hat or his backpack to get through this area.
As if we didn’t get enough accomplished today, we hitched the trailer back up and left Escalante at about 2:00 in the afternoon. That’s highly unusual for us, since we ordinarily like to be finished traveling by then, but we decided to get as far as we could towards Capitol Reef National Park, our next destination.
