I had planned on doing this hike on the 13th but my family and I came down with Covid earlier that week, and it really knocked me down for several days. I felt really cruddy for three or four days, but by the 14th I felt well enough to take Cassia out for a very short local hike, and on the 19th I did an even longer hike (but still short by my standards). I’d lost my sense of smell and taste for several days, which was an interesting experience. I could still sense sweetness and saltiness, but most other flavors were lost on me. I could feel the burn of hot sauce but not get any flavor from it, and drinking coffee felt like drinking hot water. Finally by the 21st I was feeling mostly normal again, and even though I’d already been on one hike that weekend, since the weather was looking iffy for the following weekend I decided I had to get out again on Sunday. I spent the winter solstice back in Arches National Park, hiking nearly 10 miles to explore a canyon and check out an old road. I’d first noticed the road in Google Earth, and later I saw it while hiking the canyon rim. A Michael Kelsey guidebook calls it an “old wagon road,” but as I found out on this trip it’s probably an oil exploration road made by a bulldozer.
I got an early start to my hike, just before sunrise. It was only a little chilly but a breeze made it feel much colder. After a short while I was down in a small canyon where the air was calmer and luckily I didn’t have to stop to put on another layer. It was a couple of miles to the main canyon I was aiming for, and my route there took me through small drainages and alongside fins–anywhere I might find any cultural remains. I didn’t find any, though, and after a while I was at the top of a side canyon, basically a fault that’s been eroded enough to allow passage down into the main canyon.
Abajo Mountains at sunrise
Leaving the parking area
Dropping into a canyon
Dropping back in below a dryfall
Pool
First direct sunlight
Across the slickrock
Hazy sunrise
Entering a narrow and rugged side canyon
I was surprised to see fresh footprints coming and going through the side canyon. After passing through a narrow spot the canyon opened up and became steep and bouldery. I made it to the main canyon and turned downstream at first, so I could connect to where my route in the canyon ended on that trip two years earlier. I explored small side drainages and found a shallow overhang with a crude shelter made of juniper branches. I checked out another overhang high above the watercourse that turned out having nothing inside, but on the way back down I found a drill bit for oil or gas drilling. Strangely it was about 10 feet above the current watercourse, and the level it was at was fairly inaccessible except by scrambling up, so it had to have either been deposited that high by a flash flood, or the bottom of the wash has eroded 10 feet down since it was first left there. Farther down the canyon I found some remains of the bulldozed road, which I wasn’t expecting because it’s not easily visible in any of the available aerial imagery I could find.
Fresh footprints
Large juniper spanning the canyon
Almost to the bouldery part
Rocky descent
View back up the side canyon
Water down in the canyon
Slight overhang
Crude shelter in the overhang
Scratches and maybe pigment on the sandstone
Crude shelter
Drill bit
Drill bit
Drill bit location (just below the scraggly juniper in the center)
Rocky berm along the old road
Pool and narrow section bypassed by old road
Once I reached where I’d left off on the previous hike, I turned around and went up the canyon so I could walk as much of the old road as I could. I found a stove pipe and a broken v-belt, the latter likely an indication that motorized machinery was once used somewhere in the canyon. I took a side trip, climbing out of the canyon on what I expected was a constructed stock trail. It appeared well-used in the sat imagery, but once I got my boots on the trail I could see it didn’t currently show much traffic from deer, and it definitely wasn’t constructed. I explored a little on top, and then instead of going back into the canyon the way I came up, I down-climbed a little crack and followed a narrow ledge around to a different side canyon where I’d seen a promising overhang. I didn’t find anything there except for what I assume is a bunch of coyote crap. I took a short snack break there before following another game trail back to the old road, and on that trail I saw some older human footprints. Again it’s surprising to me that so many people are down in this canyon exploring!
Stove pipe
Old road
V-belt along the road
Sandy slope leading up a game trail
Road cut below
Game trail
Game trail
Game trail
Narrow ledge leading around the corner
Slight overhang above the canyon
Crack that I downclimbed
Narrow ledge
Overhang
View into the main canyon
Old footprints
Reaching the road again I followed it up the canyon for as far as I could before I could no longer make it out on the ground. That turned out to be half a mile farther than where it was discernible in the aerial imagery. In one section a ledge had clearly been drilled and blasted to make a wide enough path for a bulldozer. I’ve looked at aerial imagery from the late 1930s up until the most recent, and it’s not apparent where this road goes in any of it! I lost it on the ground where it reaches a big sand dune which has probably filled in the original bulldozed route across it.
Back on the road
Can along the road
Barely visible road section
Narrow road cut
Big dryfall below the road
Rocky road
Recent rockfall
Another narrow road cut
Blasted sandstone
Game trail but no discernible road
My turnaround point where the country opens up above the canyon
I turned around and hiked back down the road to the side canyon I’d originally descended to get in here. Along the way I traveled a short section of the road that I’d missed when I climbed out and back in on game trails, and in that section there was evidence of a bulldozer having filled in a section which has since completely washed out. I climbed and scrambled out of the canyon and took the most direct route back to the car, reaching it by about 3:30 PM.
Balanced rock
Bulldozer scrape on a boulder
Old dozer fill that’s been washed away
Reflection
Exposed cottonwood roots
Thin layers
Bouldery climb
Back in the flatlands above the canyon
La Sals over the petrified dunes
Gap between domes
Flat-topped Navajo Sandstone formation
After this trip I returned to Google Earth and I think I’ve found what might be an old drill pad where an oil well was drilled, and it’s definitely conceivable this road went straight there from where I lost it, but there’s zero sign of the road in between. And it turns out I was within 1,000 feet of the potential drill pad earlier this month. It would be a minimum of about five miles round trip to reach that spot to verify my theory, and I’ve already explored most of the area between there and the nearest road. And I’m kind of bored of this area since my last few trips have been a bit lackluster, so I’m not super enthusiastic about returning. I already have my next trip to Arches planned out and it’s somewhere completely different and more promising, but maybe sometime in the next couple of months I’ll get the opportunity/motivation to finally reach the end of this road.
Photo Gallery: Arches Backcountry X: Winter Solstice