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Traci and I planted our garden on Saturday. We’ve got mostly tomatoes (a few varieties), some squash, strawberries, and lettuce. I got some other yard work done that day, and this evening I enjoyed the coolness of an early summer storm (that hasn’t produced any rain) and finished weeding the flower beds in the front yard. Sunday was Mother’s Day and I had a nice surprise for Traci. I bought her an air mattress so she could go camping more comfortably with the boys and me, but I removed the mattress from the box and replaced it with a Kindle Fire. When she pulled the mattress box from the gift bag on Sunday morning she seemed to like it, but I told her I slipped the card into the box. She opened the box and cried when she realized what was inside. I suppose that means she liked it.

I made breakfast for everybody–bacon, eggs, and toast–then brought my mom’s gift to her and visited for a while. That evening after a dinner of ribs and corn on the cob, we went for an ATV ride–at Traci’s request, even!–with the Gravett family. They have a Polaris Ranger Crew that holds their entire family, and Traci and I followed on our two ATVs, each with a kid on the back. We rode up toward Kenilworth then took the Diff Hanger trail which follows a bouldery wash, and is coincidentally where my dad’s ashes are scattered. Doing the trail on ATVs presented a few challenges but made some parts easier than in a full-sized vehicle. Traci and I took bypass routes in two spots but Chris took his Ranger through the entire trail, having to winch up one tough spot. It was a fun ride, and we finished up just after the sun went down. I feel lucky to have a wife whose idea of a fun Mother’s Day is to do a difficult rock-crawling ATV ride.

Yesterday was mine and Traci’s 14th wedding anniversary. Fourteen years doesn’t seem like too long a time unless I start to think of it as almost fifteen years. We didn’t exchange gifts–we rarely do. We spent our anniversary at home with the kids and fixed a hugely obscene dinner of ribeye steak, shrimp, lobster tail, crab legs, and corn on the cob, which we ate while watching Deadliest Catch. It was typical of our anniversaries, but I think next year we’ll do something special.

I can check another thing off my to-do list. Since looking at topo maps of the Box Flat area a few years ago, I’ve wanted to hike to the survey marker on top of Nate’s Peak. I enjoy visiting remote survey markers, especially those which were set by a survey crew via helicopter like this one. Mark had Saturday off work and we made plans to try summiting Nate’s Peak, then hike a few more miles south-southwest to Point 6,648′. We left Price at 8:00AM, and I was so used to driving to the San Rafael Reef on weekends that I started heading toward US-6 before I realized my mistake and turned around toward UT-10. I brought my ATV so I didn’t have to take the truck across the rough road to Box Flat. We parked near the head of Big Hole Wash, unloaded the ATV, and rode brokeback to the south end of Box Flat and parked at the wilderness study area boundary. It was just under a mile and a half to the base of Nate’s Peak from there, and the hike was relatively uninteresting along an old 4WD route. We occasionally caught scant glimpses of something interesting in the East Fork of Red Canyon, but we were too far from the rim to see much.

The cliffs surrounding the top of Nate’s Peak looked impossible to breach from the bottom. There were several breaks in the cliffs but they looked nearly vertical and too tall to scale. The scramble to the base of the cliffs was steep, rocky, and loose. Once at the base, we started feeling around for any weakness that would lead to the top. We circled around to the southwest end of the peak and couldn’t go further that direction, then circled back around to the east end and couldn’t go any further. Along the way we’d seen only one spot that looked remotely within our abilities to climb, so we returned and looked at it more closely. I left Torrey below with her leash attached to a tree, and just as I was about to start climbing up to feel out the first pitch my phone rang. It was Joane, as she’d said she might make it there on horseback to watch us attempt the climb. She has a grazing permit in the area and wanted to see some photos taken from the peak of the surrounding land. She and her friend, Larry, were only about a third of a mile away and approaching us from the north. I told her where we were, then continued the climb. I was more worried about coming back down than getting up in the first place, so I climbed past the worst looking part and then descended again while Mark remained below just in case I needed help getting down. The climb went smoothly, though, so I went back up, Mark handed our packs up to me and then followed. There was one final but easier climb to get to the very top of the cliffs, then we were on top!

I was satisfied enough at that point that I could have turned around and went home and still considered the day a success. I took a lot of photos from the top of the peak and placed a geocache near the survey marker. I was surprised to find the survey marker and both reference marks unstamped. The National Geodetic Survey datasheet for the marker shows that it should read “NATES 1952,” but it was blank. Maybe the surveyors figured nobody would go up there, so why bother? Mark and I climbed back down, then descended the rocky hillside to where Joane and Larry were waiting. Here are the photos Joane took of Mark and I on Nate’s Peak. We talked for a while, then Mark and I set off for the second part of our hike. We stopped for lunch at the south end of Nate’s Peak and enjoyed the view into the head of Nate’s Canyon before continuing.

Much of the rest of the hike still followed the old 4WD route, though since the fence was put up at the WSA boundary, it appeared that mostly horses and cattle use the trail now. We did follow a single set of fresh footprints that I assume belonged to the owner of an old Chevy Blazer parked at Box Flat, but we never did encounter the owner. We enjoyed a nice view into the head of Spring Canyon to the west, and nicer views to the east over Red Canyon and Devil’s Hole. We got to a steep ridge that we descended, after which all signs of vehicular use ceased. In fact, there was no trail at all past that point, not even a horse trail. After descending the ridge there was a gentle ascent to Point 6,648′. We crossed some slickrock and saw lithic flakes on the ground, which surprised me given that we weren’t near any accessible canyons or water sources. We reached Point 6,648′ (so named because of its elevation and lack of an official name on the USGS topo map) and found a large cairn nearby. The view was just incredible.

Mark and I spent quite a bit of time there. We rested, ate and drank a bit, and I let Torrey finish off the rest of the water she’d been carrying in her pack–I still had plenty for both of us in my pack. I placed another geocache in the cairn, then we headed back for what would be a shorter and faster hike back to the ATV. In the slickrock area just north of the point we took some time to look near the lithic flakes for arrowheads, and Mark found a nice broken point. We looked around futilely for the other half, then moved along. It had taken about 4.5 hours to reach the point, including the climb up Nate’s Peak, but it took about two hours to return. We rested again at the ATV, then rode a short distance north and checked out Box Flat Cave.

It was my second visit to the cave, and Mark’s first. The cave was carved by water runoff from Jackass Flat, and there was evidence of a large flash flood since the last time I was there. Flood debris on the cave walls reached about five feet high. This time I checked out the middle section of the cave where large sections have fallen out of the roof. I found, at perhaps the highest point in the center of the cave, a hand print that baffled me. It was on the ceiling, in a spot not too difficult to reach but hidden from view unless you looked at it from below at the right angle. I climbed up to look at it, at first thinking it was drawn with charcoal. Instead, it appeared to be some dark pigment applied directly from somebody’s hand, almost like a thin, dark mud, but it didn’t rub off like mud should. I didn’t get a good photo of it because I left my camera on the tripod while I climbed up to see the hand print, and now I regret not bringing it up there with me. I know I’ll eventually go back to see it again. Mark and I left the cave and reached the truck where we had cold beverages waiting for us. It felt great after eight hours and about 10.5 miles of hiking.

Late last year I got an e-mail from Listorama (Dave) asking if I’d be interested in a hike in the San Rafael Reef sometime in April or May. I’d met up with Dave once four years ago for a little hiking, and checking out the Reef with him sounded like fun. He got in touch again in mid-April and we made plans to meet last weekend. I drove down to our planned camp spot near Spring Canyon (that’s the unofficial official name of the canyon) after work on Friday afternoon. I was there by 4:30 but hadn’t planned on Dave arriving ’til around 5:00 or 6:00, so I thought I’d take a short hike up the canyon to the dryfall and pool. I only got a couple hundred yards from the truck when I turned around to take a photo and saw Dave near where I’d parked. I walked back and we decided on a spot to camp. It was a little windy so I put off setting up my tent until it was almost dark, but the wind never let up–it kept me from sleeping through the night, but by morning things were calm and perfect for hiking.

We were awake by 7:00 on Saturday morning. We ate breakfast and I took down my camp, and we started hiking at 8:30. I had been twice to the point on top of the Reef to which Dave wanted to hike, once in 2004 and again in 2006. I still had my GPS tracklog from the 2006 hike, and I uploaded a few key waypoints into my GPS for this trip to help us find our way past the difficult-to-navigate sections in case Dave wanted to follow my route. We did just that, but there was one spot where we had to sit on a ledge and slide on our butts down to the bottom in order to get into the correct canyon. Dave wasn’t comfortable doing it, but he did anyway with the caveat that we not return that way. I was all for that because I wanted to see some different terrain on the way down the Reef.

After some steady climbing–some on broken terrain and some on enormous smooth slabs of sandstone–we reached a very pleasant valley formed around a large fault in the sandstone. I’d been there before but didn’t remember it being this nice. We reached the edge of the San Rafael Reef, though there were cliffs separating us from a higher point on the Reef to the northeast. We broke for lunch in the valley, then lied down for a bit and I almost fell asleep. The cool breeze was offset by the occasional calm that let me absorb warmth from the sun. After a nice rest we separated and each explored on our own for a bit. Dave checked out the lower edge of the cliffs on the west side of the valley while I scrambled around both sides of the fault crack in the center of the valley trying to get a better view into a large canyon to the south. After meeting back up where we’d stopped for lunch, we headed back down the valley in search for a route to the higher point on the Reef to the northeast.

We only backtracked less than a quarter-mile before finding an easy break in the cliffs to walk up and reach a higher point at the top of the Reef. We enjoyed the view from a slightly higher vantage point, then started our descent back to the vehicles. We didn’t follow my GPS tracklog on the way down and ran into a couple of obstacles that required a little backtracking to get past. We got to within a quarter of a mile of the ledge that Dave didn’t want to reascend and started following a route that Dave had discovered on previous trips. His route was less technical but more strenuous, requiring us to ascend and descend slopes across two canyons before being able to exit the Reef toward our vehicles. I enjoyed taking a different way out, but my body was starting to overheat a little bit with the added exertion. It was a relief when we could see our vehicles and knew it was an easy walk back to them. We said goodbye and I felt great as I started the drive home. We’d hiked 7.5 miles and gained/lost 1,600 feet of elevation between the vehicles and the top of the Reef (much more when you consider all the ups and downs along the way). During the drive back to Price, though, I got a migraine, probably from some slight heat exhaustion. When I got home I took some ibuprofen and went to bed at 8:00PM and slept for 12 hours. It was the first time in quite a while that I felt sore after a hike, but it was a good kind of sore.

On April 17th I drove down early for the semi-annual San Rafael geocaching event. I got off work that day at 1:00PM and got a few last-minute things ready just as Dave showed up so we could convoy to our campsite. I’d been having problems with the engine in the truck momentarily cutting out in the weeks before the event, but it always went away when the engine warmed up. During the drive south it cut out often and jerked violently each time due to the added drag from the camp trailer, but other than that it was an uneventful drive. We arrived at the planned campsite near the Temple Mountain Road/Goblin Valley Road junction, but there were three trailers already set up there. We parked our vehicles and walked over to the camp and spoke with the occupants for a while. They were “full-timers” from out of state who had been camped there for a week and said they’d be camped there for another week or more. I asked them if they’d send any geocacher traffic over the hill, then Dave and I drove west a short distance on the Temple Mountain Road to the large BLM campground, or, as it’s affectionately known, the “people pasture.” After we each set up camp, we went for an ATV ride to Taylor Flat to find a geocache whose coordinates were more than 20 miles off due to an error by the cache hider. I’d figured out roughly the correct coordinates and Dave and I found the cache pretty easily. We then returned to camp for dinner and turned in a bit early.

Dave drove in to Green River on Wednesday to find some oil because his ATV needed an oil change. I went for a hike up Wild Horse Creek to find some pictographs that I’d seen photos of online. I was planning a group hike up Wild Horse Creek on Saturday, but I wanted to find the rock art before the hike so I wasn’t fumbling around for it with a large group. The coordinates I’d estimated from looking at photos turned out to be dead-on. I had walked right past the rock art alcove five years ago without knowing it was there. The pictographs there were absolutely amazing. There were some large figures with interesting shapes and small figures with very fine details. I spent about half an hour there enjoying the rock art, then rode my ATV back to camp. Dave still hadn’t returned, so I hiked up and back down a small canyon near camp.

Dave was at camp when I returned from my short hike and I helped him a little bit with his oil change. We went for a ride to check out some pictographs I’d discovered a year and a half ago. Lighting conditions weren’t ideal for photographing the pictographs, and Dave and I split up to do a little hiking around the sandstone hills. Not long after we split up, I heard the sound of a snake rattling behind me. I swore under my breath. I was no more than a couple hundred feet from the place where I’d seen a rattlesnake a year and a half before, and Torrey was running loose this time as well. I called Torrey over to me and put her leash on, then walked about 20 feet to where I’d heard the snake. It was starting to crawl under a bush, and I got a single out-of-focus photo of it before it disappeared into the brush.

Late that afternoon I rode my ATV to Iron Wash and hiked up the canyon to look for some pictographs that I’d heard of from a couple of different people. It had become overcast and I could hear the wind roaring over the top of the canyon, but I was fairly well protected from it in the canyon’s bottom. I scrambled up to an alcove to check it out, but found nothing interesting there. A large group of dirt bikes passed by going down the canyon. I expected to see them again after they reached the fence at the WSA boundary because when I parked my ATV there I didn’t see a way around the fence. I found the pictographs just about where I thought they would be and spent only a few minutes there taking photos. I returned back down the canyon but never saw the motorcyclists, so when I got to the fence I looked for their tracks. Curiously enough, the tire tracks went right through the fence in the center of the drainage. I lifted the fence and realized that, even though it was freestanding, it could be lifted up about five feet–plenty to allow an ATV or motorcycle to pass under. On the ride back to camp I got hammered by cold, stinging, wind-blown rain. The short-lived storm was nearly gone when I got back to camp, though, and I was treated to a more sunny evening and a nice rainbow to the east. I returned to the pictographs where I’d seen the rattlesnake and got some photos with better lighting, then retired back to camp for the night.

Thursday was an awesome day. I wanted to ride my ATV and cross over to the east side of Highway 24 to look for some rock art near Crow’s Nest Spring and Cottonwood Wash. Getting there wasn’t easy. The official travel map shows a legal route through Temple Wash starting at a gravel pit near the Temple Mountain/Goblin Valley junction and going east to UT-24. From there there’s a short jog along the highway to a dirt road on the east side that would eventually lead us along the rim of Cottonwood Wash and to Crow’s Nest Spring. As Dave and I rode east through Temple Wash we came upon a fence at some private property. Frustrated by the BLM’s map issues, we rode cross-country to reach the paved Temple Mountain Road and continued east to Highway 24. After a short ride south, we turned east and finally made it to the other side of the highway. Since we’d had to alter our route, it took a long, roundabout route to the south, then east, north, and finally back to the west to reach Cottonwood Wash. The terrain along the way was mostly flat and uninteresting, but we did stop at Rattlesnake Butte and found some names carved into the sandstone from the early 1900s.

We reached Cottonwood Wash but since I didn’t know where to even start looking for the rumored rock art, we just checked out the spring and an old corral, then moved along to Crow’s Nest Spring. We parked the ATVs below the spring near the lone Cottonwood tree and hiked up to look into the three small canyons that merge just above the spring. I assumed the rock art would be in one of those three canyons because I couldn’t see any after a cursory look near the spring. We hiked up the more easily accessed left fork first. It was shallow and narrow and quite interesting, but there was no rock art. We reached the top of the canyon where Dave turned around and returned to the spring while I crossed over into the middle fork. I had to walk the rim up-canyon for a while before I found a spot to drop into the canyon, then I followed it back to the spring. The middle fork was longer and more interesting than the left, and a light rain fell as I walked along the easy bottom. I got back to the confluence of the three canyons and found Dave at the top of a slope looking at a cliff–he’d found the rock art! There were several small petroglyph snakes that appeared to be emerging from natural holes in the cliff, one large snake petroglyph, a few interesting pinkish-orange pictograph figures, and a rake figure that was lightly scratched into the rock. After a pretty thorough check of the cliffs to make sure I wasn’t missing any rock art, we took a much shorter and direct (though still not completely legal) route back to camp. We returned to find a few people had joined us at camp, and spent a nice evening around the fire with some old and new friends.

On Friday morning I went for a short two-mile hike just north of our camp. I was just wandering around hoping to find some rock art or anything else of interest. There were chert flakes littering the ground all along the sandy bottoms of the cliffs in the area, so I spent much of the time with my eyes on the ground. I saw one flint flake half-buried in the sand and flicked it with my finger, and it turned out to be a nice arrowhead! I normally like to take an in-situ photo of arrowheads before I pick them up, but I had to move this one to even realize what it was. What’s surprising is that there were plenty of footprints in the wash–many people had walked right past it without realizing it was there. I turned around when I reached an impassible canyon just south of Temple Wash, but it looked interesting enough that I made a mental note to return another day and hike up the canyon from the east. I got back to camp and found Dave and his wife getting ready for an ATV ride. They invited me along, and Dave’s wife borrowed Traci’s ATV and we rode up North Temple Wash. We went as far as the old cabin on the east side of Temple Mountain, then returned to camp the same way we’d come in. On the way I was very surprised to spot some pictographs in North Temple. I’d been past that spot a few times without noticing it. We got back to camp and found even more people there. Traci showed up with the kids that afternoon, and slowly the rest of the group trickled in that night until quite late. I spun some steel wool on the Temple Mountain Road after sunset, had some drinks, and hung out around the fire until well into the morning.

It took everyone a while to get going the next morning, but several of us set up a vehicle shuttle for the hike up Wild Horse Creek, then a large group of more than 20 of us started up the canyon. There were all different ages and hiking abilities represented in the group, so naturally we were strung out all along the canyon. I stayed somewhere around the middle most of the time, trying to keep an eye on my kids ahead of me while making sure nobody fell too far behind. There were three somewhat technical sections along the way that were easily bypassed, but several people chose the challenge of climbing up them. The first two weren’t too difficult–I was able to lift Torrey up each of them and then haul myself up. The third was the most difficult. Traci took Torrey around, and I think Chris and I were the only ones to climb it ourselves, though Chris helped a few of the kids up it. Torrey was also happy to find a couple of water-filled potholes in the canyon. We reached the top of the canyon after about three and a half hours. After making sure everybody was accounted for, we drove back to camp.

That afternoon Chris found a wheel missing from his Element with a note attached to one of the lugnuts. Jeremy had taken the wheel and hidden it, leaving GPS coordinates in its place. Chris and I rode ATVs over to the coordinates and found nothing but some reflective tacks in a wooden fencepost. Well played, Jeremy. We had to return at night with flashlights to follow a series of reflectors until we found more coordinates written on a fencepost, and those led us to the tire. We retired around the campfire, but most everyone turned in relatively early (meaning, after midnight).

Most people had a longer drive home and pulled out of camp on Sunday morning. Chris and I went for a quick ATV ride toward Goblin Valley to check out Molly’s Castle. I’d never been there and wanted to see what it was like, but it turns out I wasn’t missing much. I was hoping to see a way to scramble to the top of the formation, but the cliffs looked pretty vertical around the top. We hiked around the base of the main formation for a while, and Torrey managed to catch a lizard. We rode back to camp and Chris headed home while Traci and I got the trailer packed up. She followed me home just in case I had any major problems with the truck, though besides the occasional sputtering it never completely died on me.

Yep–another trip to the San Rafael Reef, and my fifth since Christmas. In typical fashion, after my last trip there I learned of some rock art in the same area that I wasn’t aware of at the time. A very knowledgeable friend read my last blog post and generously offered up some waypoints to visit the next time I’m in the area. With Traci being out of town this weekend I didn’t want to spend it lounging around the house, so Michael and Bradley and I set out on an overnighter to visit some of this rock art. The low temperature was forecast to be 46° on Friday night, so even though the kids don’t have good cold-weather sleeping gear, I was sure they’d be comfortable at night. On the way to camp at Garvin’s Chimney at the mouth of Old Woman Wash, we stopped at two pictograph panels. I’d been close to both of them on several occasions and never knew it. The first one had some historic names painted and scratched into the canyon wall. The pictographs consisted of several hand prints and figures and many, many lines. The interesting thing about the hand prints is that they were made by child-sized hands–very cool! The second set of pictographs were in a small alcove that was partially buried in sand, hence the name Buried Site. Some of the figures had been buried further by sand since the photos I’d seen of the panel were taken, and I didn’t try digging any of it away.

Those were the only rock art sites I planned to visit that evening, so we moved on to our planned camp spot. It was fairly windy, so much so that I didn’t want to try setting up the tent until it calmed down. After lazily sitting in the bed of the truck while the kids ate a snack, I realized it was foolish to just sit there waiting for the wind to subside when there was some beautiful country nearby begging to be explored! We started up Old Woman Wash but quickly took a side canyon and started scrambling up the slickrock. I started seeing a lot of lithic flakes, and Bradley began collecting them as we hiked. We passed a pothole full of water that had two thick iron bars embedded into the sandstone just above it. I’m not sure what the iron bars were put there for, but I assume it had something to do with the old mining activity farther up the main canyon. Later we also saw a couple of 4-inch pipes embedded in the sandstone. One was sticking up out of a pothole full of water, and both had iron caps screwed on tightly so I couldn’t tell how deep they went. We hiked until after the sun went down, about a mile and a half overall, and when we returned to camp the breeze was calm enough to start a camp fire and pitch the tent. The fire burned down to coals while we set up camp, then we threw some ham, turkey, and cheese wraps, wrapped in foil, into the fire for our dinner. It was 8:30 by the time we ate, and we stayed up another hour and a half before turning in for the night.

As we settled into our sleeping bags we heard coyotes yipping in the distance. Michael and Bradley didn’t seem concerned by the sounds, which I was glad for. It’s such a common occurrence and I actually enjoy the sounds of coyotes while camping, but I didn’t want the kids to be afraid during the night. It got a bit colder than the forecast, down to 38&deg outside and only 42° inside the tent. With two sleeping bags each the boys stayed plenty warm, and I was comfortable in my single bag this time–all my previous trips this year I needed both my sleeping bags to keep warm. Having gone to bed early, I was awake well before sunrise. I kept watch on the light hitting the east side of the tent, and when it was sufficiently bright I got up and went outside for a few photos as the sun broke the horizon. The boys were awake shortly after me, and we had a breakfast of oatmeal and pop tarts, with hot chocolate for them and coffee for me. We took down camp and packed everything into the truck, filled up our hydration packs, and drove up the road to our first canyon hike of the day.

There were again many lithic flakes in the canyon. We stuck to and scanned the north side of the canyon just in case there was rock art which I wasn’t aware of, but I didn’t see anything before coming to the first set of petroglyphs. The rock art here was different in style than most in the area, though both sites in this canyon were similar. On the way to the second set of coordinates, about 600′ past the first, I first heard then smelled (but never saw) a skunk at a spot where some trees would have forced us through a choke point between some trees and a few small alcoves. We gave that area a wide berth and came back to the canyon wall at the second set of petroglyphs. A rock rolled out from under Michael’s foot while he scrambled up the steep canyon wall and he hurt his knee, so while he sat in the shade and waited for the pain to subside, Bradley and I checked out the rest of the cliff face. Finding nothing, we gathered Michael on our way back to the truck.

It wasn’t a long drive to the next canyon I wanted to hike. The canyon itself was very interesting, with dozens of water-filled potholes that Torrey enjoyed thoroughly. The few petroglyphs weren’t terribly interesting. The kids wanted to stay near the rock art and play in the pools while I hiked another third of a mile up the canyon just to check it out. I’m glad we didn’t simply turn around at the rock art because I found an arrowhead lying in the bottom of the wash. Even more interesting is that there was one set of very recent (probably less than a week old) footprints heading down the canyon, and their maker stepped right over the arrowhead apparently without seeing it.

We’d seen all the rock art that I knew of in the immediate vicinity. We ate lunch at the truck then got back on Highway 24 for a few miles before exiting on another dirt road to check out one last pictograph panel. I’d ambitiously wanted to see this panel plus a few more in Straight Wash, but by this point I knew we didn’t have time for the latter. On the way in, and after a couple of rough and sandy stretches of road, there was a car parked just before a really rough spot. It was an older Corolla (I think) with Colorado plates, and I admired the owner(s) for making it that far and presumably hiking farther toward the San Rafael Reef. I parked the truck near the drainage that contained the Rey Lloyd Hatt pictograph site, and just before we started hiking, an attractive woman in a white Explorer pulled up and asked if there was any good hiking in the area. I told her about a nearby canyoneering route we were planning on checking out after the rock art, but for some reason I didn’t think to tell her about Straight Wash and Eardley Canyon which were also not too far away. She thanked me and drove off, then the kids and I hiked down the wash. It was a short jaunt to the pictograph site. The rock art was amazing! There were two beautiful figures side-by-side on one side of the canyon, and many other figures and lines on the other side.

We moved along to our final stop, a hike up Zero G Canyon. Just as we were starting to hike, the woman in the Explorer came back down the road heading toward the highway. I guess she didn’t find any worthwhile hiking. We waved at each other, then the boys and I continued up Zero G. The canyon was first rocky, then sandy, then finally just bare slickrock. After three quarters of a mile of hiking we reached the end of the canyon at a huge pool, pouroff, and tree. There’s an interesting canyoneering route above the pouroff that I’m hoping to do this year, but we couldn’t visit it this time because it required either a longer hike or a drive on a closed road, neither of which I wanted to do right then. We spent some time admiring the box canyon and pool of spring water. It was a beautiful spot to relax after a warm spring day of hiking. We hiked back to the truck and played around a bit, hopping over pools of water and catching lizards. I loaded the kids up with snacks and we started the drive home. Just before reaching the car parked near the rough spot in the road I encountered a younger couple walking along the road. They were coming back from Straight Wash, and I inquired about the water situation there because of the mild and dry winter, and they said it was plenty wet still. That gave me hope that it could be a nice destination for the next time the kids want to go camping and hiking.

I had hoped to make this past weekend epic by spending a couple of nights along the San Rafael Reef and hiking more than 15 miles over the course of two days, but it didn’t turn out as I’d wanted. My plan was to camp Friday and Saturday nights about half a mile east of Mormon Tanks, and spend Saturday hiking a nearby canyon, then pack up camp Sunday morning and spend that day returning to the Ekker rock art panel and seeking out some rock art I’d missed on my last trip to that area. I headed down Friday after work, and stopped in Iron Wash during the drive in and did a short hike starting at the barricade at the WSA boundary. I saw the J.A. Watt inscription from 1894 that I was expecting to see, but what I didn’t expect were some grinding marks and sharpening grooves in a nearby shallow cave. I arrived near my intended camp spot and ended up having to camp about a quarter-mile south of there at the nearest smooth and level ground. I had a nice dinner of country-style pork ribs and vegetables cooked in foil over a camp fire, then spent the evening reading a book near the fire and taking some night photos of the stars and the waning full moon. It was a boring evening, and it was all I could do to stay up as late as my normal bedtime.

I slept well that night–perhaps the best night I ever spent in a tent–and got up just after sunrise. By 8:00AM I’d finished my breakfast of oatmeal and coffee and I was hiking along the road to the start of the canyon I wanted to hike up. I chose this canyon because it went a fair distance up the San Rafael Reef, and from the satellite imagery it appeared to be full of potholes that would hold water and, hence, attract the native Americans who would have inhabited this region hundreds of years ago. I’d hoped it would be a successful rock art hunting expedition. Early on, parts of the canyon were shrouded in darkness because of the sun still being low in the sky. I didn’t see any rock art in the lower canyon, but I found a couple of shallow caves that had evidence of habitation–soot on the ceiling and old charcoal on the floor. After passing up several promising cliff faces and finding no rock art, I mostly gave up any hope of finding any.

Farther up the canyon I encountered several pools full of water. Torrey was using her new dog pack and carrying enough food and water for a moderate day-hike, but with all the water in the canyon she probably didn’t need any of the water she was carrying. I eventually came to a large but mostly empty pool that was full of ice covered in sand. Beyond the pool was a dryfall that looked difficult or impossible to climb, but I found a way around it on the right side that I had to shove Torrey up. Beyond that was a pretty side canyon that slotted up and was full of water, but I couldn’t go far up it because of the water. In the main canyon there was one pothole and dryfall that I could climb around, but past that was another that just couldn’t be bypassed. I tried to get Torrey to climb out of the canyon with me up a very steep sandstone slope, but it was almost too much for me and certainly too much for her, so I reversed my route down the canyon and looked for another way out to the rim.

While I was backtracking down the canyon, I found an arrowhead that was only a few feet from where I’d passed by on my way up the canyon. That’s pretty typical of me when I’m hiking–I keep my eyes on the canyon walls when in a new area, but I watch the ground when covering a familiar route. After backtracking more than half a mile down from the dryfall, I found a place to scramble out of the canyon to the north and worked my way into an adjacent canyon. This canyon held some promise for rock art as well, but despite sticking to the north canyon wall and even climbing some rock fall to check out some cliffs, I didn’t find any.

A nice ramp along the north side of the canyon diverged from the floor, and I followed the ramp up to the canyon’s rim. I stuck to the canyon rim as much as possible, but the canyon’s upper drainage was small and I crossed it without realizing it. After routefinding and bushwhacking through some fins and cracks, I found myself at a nice spot overlooking the canyon that I’d originally started hiking up that morning. I took a break there and ate lunch while soaking in the view. I’m not sure why, but after lunch I didn’t feel like continuing the 2.5 miles farther up to the top of the Reef. Instead, I skirted a little farther up the ridge I’d been following, then circled around to a smaller drainage that led back down the Reef.

Despite having a GPS telling me exactly which direction to go, I kept feeling like west was south. I ended up following some fins nearly to the rim of Iron Wash once, but got turned in the right direction and crossed my previous tracks while following a slightly different route back down the San Rafael Reef. Once I hit the bottom of the canyon that I’d used to access this part of the Reef, I followed it all the way back to the road, then hiked along the road to where my camp was set up. I was all funned out for the weekend, so I packed up camp and headed home. I’m not sure whether it was the thought of spending another lonely night in the same spot, or just being disappointed in not finding any rock art, but I was glad to be on my way home. The Reef will be there the next time I return.

Southern Utah – Day 1 – Zion National Park
Southern Utah – Day 2 – Tri-State Corner

The third and final day of our Southern Utah trip was the most fun for me. We slept in (past 7:00, even!) and ate breakfast while waiting for Chris and Karin to arrive. Once the group was together, Traci and I piled into the Jeep with Eric and Sherie while Chris and Karin followed in the Element. Chris surprised us again by taking his car where we only saw lifted 4x4s and ATVs driving. We drove up the west rim of Sand Mountain, and when some tall sandstone ledges kept Chris from going any further in his car, everyone piled into the Jeep while Chris and I stood on the side rails. We arrived at an area filled with sandstone fins which we’d scoped out in Google Maps the previous evening, and we started hiking and scrambling around looking for a place to rappel and place a difficult-to-reach geocache.

We found a fin with a nice vertical face on one side and an easily-climbable spot on the other side. There was nowhere to anchor the rope on top, so Eric and I found a boulder on the bottom of one side and tied his rope to it. I climbed up top and threw a rope down to tie his rope bag to, then hauled it up. After Eric threw his rope down the other side of the fin, we had a nice rappelling setup. We took several turns rappelling down the cliff, and placed a geocache in a hole in the vertical face. We got buzzed by two airplanes, one at a very low altitude (like, 50 feet) and another several hundred feet above–I wish I’d had my camera out for the first plane. We all got our fill of rappelling, then packed up our gear and drove back to Hurricane. After lunch at Eric and Sherie’s house, Traci and I said our goodbyes and reluctantly started the drive home.

Southern Utah – Day 1 – Zion National Park
Southern Utah – Day 3 – Sand Mountain

On the second day of our Southern Utah trip, we actually spent quite a bit of time in Arizona and Nevada. We awoke somewhat early and left Hurricane for St. George where the breakfast event with other geocachers was held. After the ritualistic hanging out in the parking lot and breakfast at Golden Corral, a group of us convoyed south on I-15 into Arizona. There were mostly Jeeps in the group, plus my truck, Chris’ Element, and Ken’s Suburban. We left the pavement near Littlefield and made a beeline to the tri-state corner where the borders of Utah, Arizona, and Nevada meet. We found three geocaches nearby, including one that required a short hike onto Initial Mesa.

After spending some time at the tri-state corner, we slowly worked our way back toward the pavement while stopping often for many of the geocaches that we’d passed up on our way in. The most notable places we stopped were the degree confluence at N 37° W 114° and the lowest point in Utah, which were both in Beaver Dam Wash. The road leading down off the mesa toward Beaver Dam Wash was very steep, and I left my truck at the top of the mesa while hitching a ride down in Eric’s Jeep. Traci didn’t want to ride down the hill in any vehicle, so she and Sherie remained on the top of the hill to take photos of everyone else driving up and down the hill. We made quick work of the two geocaches in the wash, then made the steep climb back up the mesa. After seeing everyone drive up it, I’m sure my truck could have made it, but better safe than sorry. As we worked our way back toward civilization, we leap-frogged a series of geocaches along a dirt by splitting up into groups, with each group stopping for about five of the caches.

It was late afternoon/early evening when the convoy got back on I-15 and started north toward Utah. Most of us met back up in St. George for dinner at Five Guys. Then it was off to find a night cache along the road to Warner Valley. The moon was bright enough to hike without a flashlight, but we needed lights to find the reflectors that guided us to the geocache. While we were at the geocache signing the logbook, another couple of geocachers who’d been at the event that morning showed up and needed some guidance to get to the cache. Six of us–me and Traci, Eric and Sherie, and Chris and Karin–retired to Eric and Sherie’s house for some cocktails and some planning for our final day in Southern Utah.

Southern Utah – Day 2 – Tri-State Corner
Southern Utah – Day 3 – Sand Mountain

This past weekend Traci and I went to our fourth geocaching event in St. George. The first one we attended was in 2006, when we didn’t take full advantage of all that the area had to offer. In 2010 and 2011, however, we found a lot of great things to do outdoors. The geocaching event itself isn’t a huge draw for me, but getting together with other like-minded people and heading out into the back country after the event always proves to be a good time. This year, like the last, we stayed with Eric and Sherie, who are excellent hosts and whose friendship I’m grateful for.

I took Friday off work, and as soon as we got the kids on the bus to school and dropped Torrey off at my mom’s house, Traci and I started the long drive south. We ran snow going over Salina Canyon, then again going over the pass before reaching Cove Fort. We stopped in Cedar City for lunch and arrived in Hurricane around mid-afternoon. Eric and Sherie acted as our tour guides as we piled into their truck and visited Zion National Park for the first time.

We drove through the park and made a couple of stops to see some points of interest, then parked in the lot near Temple of Sinawava and walked the Riverside Walk trail along the North Fork of the Virgin River. The tall, narrow canyon runs generally north-south, and this time of year I think the window of direct sunlight is very short. It was dark and cold in the bottom of the canyon, but the setting sun was shining warmly on the cliffs high above us. Traci and I got a nice taste of what Zion has to offer, and, for me at least, a desire to return and hike some of the trails there. After reaching the end of the trail and returning to the truck, we stopped briefly at Weeping Rock. There was a nearly tame fox in the parking lot that let me get close enough for a couple of nice photos. After leaving Zion we ate dinner at Oscar’s Cafe. I enjoyed the atmosphere of the place and would definitely go there again. We returned to Eric and Sherie’s house and spent the rest of the evening hanging out and chatting while figuring out some plans for the following day.

I spent most of this weekend at home hanging out with my family and cleaning the house a little, but by this afternoon I needed to get outside. I went for a mountain bike ride on the trails north of Price, riding for about two hours and covering 5.7 miles. I was expecting most of the snow to be gone and the trails to be dry, which they were on the southern end of the trails closer to town. I started by riding up Knot Pete’s Rim, where there was a lot of recent foot traffic but very few mountain bike tracks on the trail. The dirt was soft and made for more strenuous riding, which got worse as I traveled north. Once I crossed over the gravel road between Knot Pete’s and the Smo Joe’s trail, there were no tracks at all. I plowed through the soft dirt and crusty snow, getting bogged down often and having to dismount to keep from falling.

I almost bailed out of the trail a couple of times when I was close enough to a dirt or gravel road, but I’m glad I stuck with it. At the top of Smo Joe’s, I took the cutoff trail over to Luke’s Trail. There was still plenty of snow on upper Luke’s, but it was mostly downhill and it was easier going. Once I got to the Labyrinth, the trail was well-traveled by both foot and bike traffic. It was much more enjoyable after that and I was able to maintain some speed, though Torrey got quite worn out running alongside during the faster downhill portion. The last quarter of the ride made the rest of it worth it.