In May, I went hiking in Utah with some people I met on the internet.
I have a had a report on my trip to Nepal on the internet for some time, and many people going to Nepal have contacted me because of it. One of these people, Dave from Salt Lake City, hired my guide last fall, and this spring he sent me e-mail asking me if I would like to go hiking with him out west. There were several options, including the Grand Canyon and climbing Grand Teton. I don't have much climbing experience, and the timing for the Grand Canyon trip didn't work for me, so I picked a place I hadn't been before: Dark Canyon, a primitive wilderness area between Canyonlands National Park and Lake Powell. I had been to Canyonlands before and wanted to return to the area, so this sounded interesting.
I flew out to Salt Lake City on May 4 and met Dave and his girlfriend, and we drove down to Lake Powell that evening. We stopped for dinner along the way at a diner which was featured in National Geographic, but had rather unremarkable food. We were supposed to meet more people at Lake Powell, but didn't know where they were camping. It was late, so we just pulled into an overlook and camped there.
In the morning, we met the rest of the group and drove out the dirt road to the trail head. We carried extra water on the way in to stash at the canyon rim, so we would have something to drink after climbing out before hiking back across the desert to the car. It was a couple of miles to the canyon. The desert had special black "living soil" you weren't supposed to step on. Some pretty cacti were blooming.
At the rim, we
searched a while for the route down. There appeared to be several options.
Some of our group had been here before, and knew the way. We followed cairns
down the steep rocky 1200 foot descent into the canyon, and rested a while at
the bottom. We found some shade where we could get out of the hot mid-afternoon
sun for a while.
We continued
on and came to the narrow stream that flows through the canyon. Vegetation
grew in the oasis along the stream. We picked a campsite at a place where a
second dry canyon joined this one. This was a lush spot, with lots of reeds.
An impressive rock formation towered above us. We would use this camp for
our base for three nights.
After dinner, we walked up the dry canyon near our camp until we couldn't go any further. The next day, we walked upstream along Dark Canyon. Following the stream was tricky at times, because you can run into dead ends if you don't know when to climb up to the next level, or sometimes you can climb too high and have trouble getting back down to the stream. Sometimes we would walk in the stream itself, or stop for a swim in a deep pool to escape the desert heat.
After lunch, we
came to the most impressive sight of the day, a big waterfall with a boulder
in the middle. We continued on a bit further to a swimming hole, where most
of the group turned back after our swim. We had intended to go up to a point
where two major canyons join, but it was clear that it would take longer than
we expected. Several of us continued on. In the end, I went on alone to search
for the canyon junction, but I am not sure what it looked like and suspect I
never found it. I did find an Anasazi ruin, however, a square stone foundation.
On the way back, I caught up with the rest of the group. At one point, someone
behind me told me I had almost stepped on a rattle snake. I looked back, and
saw a small one sleeping right in the middle of the trail. I had stepped over
it without noticing. It woke up and became angry as we stood there watching it.
The next day, we followed the canyon downstream toward Lake Powell. Along the way, we encountered a camp of bare-breasted ladies who told us they had tried going there yesterday, but could not walk close to the stream, and ran out of water. They were going to try again today. In fact, we found that it was not possible to follow the stream all the way. This direction, the canyon became deeper and narrower, and some tricky climbing was needed. Eventually we left the stream and followed a narrow path high up on the canyon wall. This would have been a difficult place for someone afraid of heights.
Eventually, the trail descended again to the stream, and we followed it
down to the muddy, brackish upper reaches of Lake Powell. The water widened
and became greenish, and fish jumped. Most of our group turned back at this
point, but some of us continued on to try to reach the main body of the lake.
It was clear that it was still a good way off, and there were some tight
squeezes to get around rock formations along the lake, so it would take some
time. In the end, all of us headed back before going too far. On the way
upstream, we stopped at a couple of deep pools for swims. A few of us also
explored a narrow dry side canyon before returning to camp.
On our final day, got up before dawn to try to beat the heat for the steep 1200 foot climb out of the canyon. We didn't get a very fast start, but fortunately, it was cloudy for a change today. Dave and his girlfriend got up first, and were the first up. I was the next to the last out of camp, but the third to start climbing. I made it up in 90 minutes, and the others who followed took quite a while longer. We didn't wait for all of them, but started back. It was hot and sunny by the time we arrived at the car.
Four of us drove back to Lake Powell, to our original meeting spot, and left a message for the others. We got lost along the way in the maze of dirt roads, so this took a while longer than expected. We had been thinking of hiking a slot canyon nearby, but decided instead to just stop in Capitol Reef National Park for a short hike on the way home. We stopped at a burger spot we told the others to meet us at in the message, and had lunch and waited. It was quite a while before they showed up. We discussed where we would hike at Capitol Reef, but didn't wait for the others to finish lunch.
It was really late when we got back to Salt Lake City. I had an early flight the next morning, so we had some soup quickly and went to bed. It was a fun trip.