I'm finally getting over the flu after being basically bedridden for four days. It hit me very suddenly on Saturday afternoon, and by that evening I was huddled up in bed with a fever and aches and pains everywhere. I'm really glad that I didn't go hiking that day because it would have hit me far from home. The days when I was sick are all a blur, and time seemed to pass infinitesimally slowly. I missed work up until yesterday when I was finally well enough to sit at my desk for eight hours. I don't think I've been that sick before in my entire adult life. Everything feels normal now except for a lingering sore throat, but it's not too bad.

I'm kind of hoping to get outdoors this weekend, though I'm not sure I have the energy for anything major. A friend tipped me off a couple of days ago to a geocache that he placed above the balanced rock in Helper. I drove out there today and checked out the mountainside with some binoculars to see if I could plan out a route, but it's gonna be a hell of a hike no matter how I get there. I've been up Helper Canyon once before and I know that with several miles of hiking you can get up on top from there, but I'm still not sure whether there's another shorter way. The geocache listing hasn't even been published yet, so there's no telling whether it'd be possible to go this weekend, and the weather is taking a turn for the worse on Sunday so the odds are against it. When I do make it up there, I'm sure I'll have an epic story to tell and some equally epic photos from the top of the Book Cliffs.

There are a couple of things that I meant to mention (and forgot) in my last post about the Wedge. The first is that, although I'm not aware of any rock art immediately at the Wedge, I saw a lot of evidence of the Fremont having lived in the area. There were two places, one on each side of Good Water Canyon, where people had spent a lot of time making arrowheads. I found flakes of chert scattered over areas dozens of feet wide, and even found a broken spear point (or perhaps just a cutting tool) in one canyon. I also saw a couple of rocks that could have been metates. I hiked slowly and spent a lot of time scanning the canyon walls for rock art or the remains of dwellings, but never saw any.

Something I was surprised by were the singletrack trails that crisscrossed the area. While hiking and driving around I noticed several bike trails, and I wondered how much the BLM knows about them. They spent a lot of time and effort closing off the Wedge to cross-country travel by motorized vehicles, but mountain bikes are apparently ok, or at least tolerated. I can't find any info online about any singletrack trails in the area, but it'd be fun to check them out sometime.

I may go back to the Wedge this weekend to explore some more. I'd originally wanted to go to Exclamation Bridge on Saturday, but I decided that I don't want to go alone because there will probably be some serious scrambling involved in getting to the bottom of the arch, and I'd hate to get down in there any not be able to get myself back out. If I bring a friend and a length of rope, I'd be a lot more confident that I'd make it out alive. :) Anyhow, as for the Wedge this weekend, I'd like to either hike some more side canyons off of Good Water Canyon, or try finding a route down into the San Rafael river gorge from the overlook. There are two new geocaches down in the river bottom that are supposed to only be accessible via a very long hike from up- or downstream, but it would be fun to descend straight down into the canyon to find them.

I was pleasantly surprised this weekend to find that there's a lot more to do at the Wedge than I had expected. Traci, the kids, and I arrived at campsite #8 near the Wedge Overlook on Thursday evening, and we spent the rest of the day setting up camp, eating dinner, and relaxing around the campfire. We all had (and still have) colds and weren't feeling great, so we turned in pretty early that evening.

We spent the next morning exploring the area around our campsite. The camp trailer was parked about 20 feet from the edge of a canyon that joined up with Good Water Canyon, and we all walked along the canyon rim after breakfast in order to scope it out, since we planned on hiking through the bottom of the canyon later when a few other people arrived. My sister Samantha and some of her kids showed up before noon, and it was nice to have some company. I got a little restless and went for a short drive on a bumpy and winding road that eventually linked up with the main road to the Wedge Overlook, and later I hiked even farther along the canyon rim near our camp. I hiked all the way to Good Water Canyon and back, but there were some parts of the side canyon that were too steep for me to see the bottom, so I still didn't know what we'd be getting into when we eventually hiked down into it.

Our friend Chris showed up that afternoon, and shortly afterwards everybody began the hike along the bottom of the canyon that we were camped near. The very top of the canyon cuts through the rough and block-like Carmel formation, but very shortly after beginning our descent we encountered the top of the Navajo sandstone layer and the canyon bottom smoothed out considerably. For the first 0.4 miles the bottom of the canyon stayed pretty much the same, with a mix of smooth, bare sandstone and sand-filled sections with trees and other vegetation. After that the bottom of the canyon narrowed and a very short slot section started. We reached the top of a 10' drop that we couldn't downclimb, and Chris and I were pretty sure we could scramble up the left (north) side of the canyon, but the rest of the group stayed behind because it was too steep for the kids. We climbed pretty high out of the canyon and skipped about 400' of the bottom that was a mix of narrow water-filled slot and thick bushes. Once we regained the bottom of the canyon we ran into another steep drop that ended at the bottom of Good Water Canyon. Chris and I worked our way around the drop along a very sketchy route that I was sure would be difficult to climb back out of. We finally got into the bottom of Good Water Canyon and started heading south down the bottom of that canyon. It wasn't long before we got to a huge dropoff (easily over 100') that ended our progress down the canyon. I placed a geocache there at the edge of the drop but to the far left of the canyon to avoid it being washed away during flash flooding. We worked our way back to the north in Good Water Canyon to see if progress was possible going up the canyon, but we soon found another two dropoffs that were impossible to climb up, so we reversed our original route coming into the canyon and tried meeting up with the rest of the group. After we made it back past the most difficult part, I was surprised when my cell phone rang. It was just Traci, calling to let me know that they'd given up on waiting for us and had headed back to camp. Chris and I made it back to the easy part of the canyon and made good time back up the canyon. Samantha and the kids had only come down to spend the day, so they left before dinner time. Chris set up his tent, we all ate dinner and bull-shitted around the campfire the rest of the evening, then went to bed relatively early again.

Sam and Mark were planning on coming down Saturday evening for a few hours, so my family and Chris went for another hike that day before they arrived. We drove down the road to the eastern part of the Wedge and then hiked to my geocache at the southeastern edge of Good Water Canyon. It was about a four mile hike for Chris and me, but Traci and the kids stopped about half a mile short of the cache and waited for us to get there and back. Twice we passed through one of my favorite areas in the Swell, a ponderosa pine stand in the bottom of a secluded canyon. I would like to have explored that area more, but Traci and the kids aren't used to hiking that much and so we kind of slogged back to the truck. Sam and Mark arrived later in the evening and we had a good time at camp well into the night.

Sunday was the day we were heading home, but we had to get one last hike in before we did so. We decided to check out the next canyon south of the one we had hiked on Friday. It started out much the same as the previous canyon, although we encountered some steeper sections in this canyon, one of which we had to bypass. After more than half a mile of pretty easy hiking, we got to a slot section that ended in another drop that was too steep to downclimb. Traci and the kids once again stayed behind while Chris and I looked for a way around the drop. We first went left along some ledges above the bottom of the canyon but we got cliffed out on that side. We returned to where Traci was waiting and then tried the right side of the canyon. We scrambled down yet another sketchy route going down below the drop, and we ended up in a narrow part of the canyon that had a flat bottom. After a short distance the flat bottom gave way to another short section of narrows that we stemmed over and downclimbed. At the end of the narrows the canyon opened up, and we were standing at the top of another huge drop. This canyon was very similar to the previous canyon we'd hiked, but it was longer and the narrows section was much better. I placed a geocache above this dropoff as well, then we reversed our route and were able to make it back to Traci and the kids without too much difficulty.

Chris headed home when we got done with the hike, but Traci and I still had a lot of things left to do in order to break down camp. We leisurely ate lunch, packed everything up and hitched on to the trailer, then drove home. I'm still wondering how I failed to notice all of these interesting canyons near the Wedge. After returning home and checking them out in Google Earth, I'm excited to go back this fall/winter for some more hiking.

I fired up Google Earth just now and noticed some new satellite imagery for about half of Carbon County, and in Emery County it covers the Highway 10 corridor and the surrounding populated areas. The imagery appears to be from fall 2006, judging by a couple of missing buildings and the yellow colors in the trees. It's very high resolution compared to what we used to have. I can clearly see my car parked in the driveway and the 4x8' utility trailer in the back yard. I can even discern individual people walking in the parking lot at the grocery store. It doesn't look like the new imagery has made it into Google Maps yet. This will be a fun new toy for a while. It's just too bad that none of the San Rafael Swell is covered by the new stuff.

As I was typing up the trip report for my hike to Hurst Bridge, I began searching for JR's trip report because it was the primary reason I wanted to hike there in the first place. Among the search results was Shane Burrows' report about Exclamation Bridge, which is very close to Hurst. I read that report when it first came out two and a half years ago, but had forgotten about until I came across it again yesterday. I was within a quarter-mile of Exclamation on Saturday and didn't even realize it! It appears to be the most amazing natural bridge/arch in all of the Swell, and I could have reached it by hiking an additional 30 minutes from Hurst, if I'd only known.

So now I'm dying to go back. Getting there might be a problem because I don't know the exact location. The NABS gallery page has a map link, and I'm hesitant to put my full trust in that until I get at least some other information confirming the location, but it's the best I have to go on. Shane has a route description on Climb-Utah, but I'm too cheap to pay for a subscription. Canyon Quest has some pictures of Exclamation Bridge, but no other location info. A blog post from Red Rock Adventure describes a failed search for Exclamation, and this Lynn Sessions photo was taken from the exact same vantage point as the first photo in Shane's report (linked above) so I'm assuming that Lynn went there or at least tried, but that's the full extent of the information I can find about the arch.

I'll keep looking for more info, but I plan on making the trip in a couple of weeks regardless of what I find out. I'm pretty good at stumbling my way into what I'm looking for, so hopefully my luck will hold out and I'll be able to find Exclamation Bridge.

I made it to three out of the four geocaches that I'd planned on finding yesterday, and though the weather started out iffy, it turned out to be a nice and mostly sunny day. I left home at around 7:30 in the morning, and the only rain I saw all day was in Cat Canyon just east of Wellington, where it rained for about two minutes. I reached the trailhead for Hurst Bridge at the wilderness study area boundary in Ernie Canyon two hours after leaving home. When I started hiking, there were dark clouds covering the entire eastern horizon and blotting out the sun, but it was all blue skies to the west. For the entire first part of the hike the edge of the storm stayed almost directly overhead, and it was pretty windy. At first I was wishing that I'd brought some gloves, but after a mile of hiking I was warmed up enough that the cool wind felt good.

The first mile of the hike to Hurst Bridge follows the bottom of Ernie Canyon. The canyon bottom was firmly packed sand and gravel and the going was very easy. I kept a fast pace in order to stay warm. After the easy part, I left the canyon bottom and started the climb up the San Rafael Reef along the south rim of the canyon. I'd spent a lot of time at the computer planning out my route using topo maps and Google Earth, and I was eager to see how the actual terrain compared to my perception of what it would look like. I followed the waypoints I'd created in my GPS across the rough terrain, and things turned out pretty good. The path I'd chosen at home worked well on the ground. After an initial climb of about 0.4 miles, the ground sloped down for a short distance, then began climbing again, but a deep box canyon opened up that I had to go around. The south side looked less rugged, but I couldn't tell for sure whether or not there were any small cliffs that would prevent me from getting past the canyon. I reached the top of the box canyon and only had to scramble down one small ledge, after which the terrain leveled out a bit more and the hike became easier.

Hurst Bridge is in a maze of canyons and sandstone fins that would be nearly unnavigable without good aerial photography to guide you, but luckily it's near the outer edge of the maze. I approached the arch from the east in the bottom of a wash, and though I had to climb out of the wash a couple of times to avoid some heavy bushwhacking, it eventually led me directly to Hurst Bridge. The sandstone arch was very impressive, as was the general area surrounding it. I lost satellite reception in the narrow canyon a couple of times while taking pictures, but once I passed under the arch the canyon opened up and I was able to get a good enough signal to find the geocache there. After signing the logbook in the cache, I took a few more pictures and then headed back toward the trailhead. I followed the tracklog in my GPS so I could take almost the exact same path back to the trailhead. The hike to the arch had taken me two hours, and the hike back to the truck took an hour and 20 minutes. My round trip hiking distance was 5.4 miles.

After Hurst Bridge, I drove a short distance to the end of a road and began the hike to another geocache at an old truck that had been converted into a pump jack and hoist. I spent about 15 minutes at the old truck taking photos and trying to figure out what it was used for. The hike was only a mile round-trip, and most of that was along an old road that had been closed by the BLM. It was well past lunch time by the time I got back to my truck, but I didn't really want to take the time to eat, so I just hopped in and headed to my next destination. On the drive back to the main road, the road crossed over a very steep sandy slope. I'd read about somebody else's attempt at climbing the hill in their Jeep Wrangler Rubicon, but they couldn't make it up. There's another way around the hill, but I was determined to at least give it a good try before taking the easy way out. :D I put the truck in 4-low and tried taking it slow at first, but after a short distance my tires just started spinning in the sand. I gave it a few more tries after getting a short run at the hill, and on the fifth attempt I made it to the top!

I got back on Utah Highway 24 and drove 5.5 miles northeast in order to reach the trailhead for the next hike to the pools in Eardley Canyon. The road getting to the trailhead was rougher than the road to Ernie Canyon, and I needed 4WD to get up a couple of steep hills along the way. It was 3:30 pm by the time I got to the trailhead in Straight Wash, and I was pretty sure by then that I wouldn't have time to find the fourth and final cache of the day, but I knew I'd at least finish this hike before the sun went down. The hike was almost entirely in the bottom of Straight Wash, and again the bottom of the canyon was well packed which made for easy hiking. In the lower portion there were a few places with standing water that I had to go around. There were also a few short stretches that were very rocky and I had to pick my way around boulders and large rocks. I took a shortcut that cut 1/4-mile across a horseshoe bend in the canyon and shaved a mile off the entire hike. I'd been hiking in the sun in the bottom of Straight Wash and I'd shed my sweatshirt because I got too hot, but upon entering lower Eardley Canyon it was entirely shaded and quite cool. I lost GPS reception in the narrow confines of the canyon, but the description on the cache listing specified exactly how to find the cache without a GPS. There were several pools of water in the bottom of the canyon, but they were easily bypassed by hiking along some ledges on either side. My progress up the canyon ended at a huge pool of water with a big dryfall behind it. The pool was almost entirely full from last week's rainfall and the water was relatively clean--Torrey drank quite a bit from it, but she didn't go for a swim. After finding the geocache, I headed back down the canyon and into Straight Wash again where it felt good to get back into the sun. During the hike back to the truck, my legs got really sore. I had to stop to rest a couple of times, which I hadn't done at all previously during the day. About a third of a mile short of the truck, I left the bottom of the wash and tried looking for some petroglyphs that I'd read about on the internet. I had stupidly not entered the coordinates for the rock art in my GPS, and I was hoping that the description I'd read would be enough for me to find them. It took me only a few minutes to find them, but they were behind some thick bushes and in full shade, so none of my photos turned out well.

When I got back to the trailhead the sun had just barely set behind the San Rafael Reef. The hike had taken me two hours and 20 minutes and covered 4.3 miles, for a total of 10.7 miles for the day. I took the time to make a sandwich for me and Torrey (yes, I fed her PB&J too) and then I set out for home. I sped a great deal of the way home, and got there just before 8:00 pm. It was a very fulfilling day, and I'm glad I took a chance and ignored the weather forecast. Besides the chilly wind in the morning, it was a perfect day for hiking. And since I missed finding one of the caches along that section of the Reef, I've got a good excuse to go back another day.

Here are some Google Earth .KML files from this weekend's hikes that include my GPS tracklog and some key wapoints. Clicking on some of the waypoints will show pictures of those areas.

Hurst Bridge
Lower Eardley Canyon Pools

The weather was so lousy last weekend that the boys and I just stayed home the entire time, while Traci spent the weekend scrapbooking at her aunt's cabin in Joe's Valley. As the rain kept coming down on Saturday, I felt glad that I'd decided not to go hiking or 4-wheeling. Since there was bad weather forecast for Sunday as well, I didn't even consider doing anything that day. Sunday turned out to be a nice day, although it was cooler than usual and breezy. Still, I was kicking myself for not going out on Sunday. It didn't help seeing that Summit42 had gone down to the Temple Wash area and had a good time. That helped me decide what I wanted to do this weekend.

This weekend's forecast calls for rain and snow beginning Friday night and continuing through at least Saturday, but screw it. I'm planning on hiking in the San Rafael Reef all day Saturday and finding four geocaches (1-2-3-4) that I've wanted to find for a couple of years. I'm not sure I'll get to all four caches--two of them require 5-mile hikes--but I'll try to find them all before I run out of daylight.

I'm a bit nervous about the rain because I'll be in and around some canyons that have large drainages, namely Ernie Canyon, Eardley Canyon/Straight Wash, and Uneva Mine Canyon. None of these canyons slot up enough to trap me in a flash flood (at least not in the areas I'll be hiking in), but it's possible that I may have to cross running water either on foot or in my truck if it rains enough. Luckily the roads are sandy rather than clay, so I should be able to get in and out of the area without getting the truck stuck. I'll just keep an eye on the canyon bottoms and the sky, and I'm fully prepared to cancel my plans if it gets wet enough.