Tour of the West: Slot Canyons Part 2 -- Medium

Slot Canyons Par 2: Medium (I say medium, but this one was relatively easy as well, given that we stopped before the section buried in sticky mud.)

Wire Pass into Buckskin Gulch

AKA the consolation prize for not getting a permit in the lottery for the Wave

One of the places we had wanted to hike was to a rock formation known as "The Wave" in Vermillion Cliffs National Monument.  Despite the fact that the hike is across the backcountry, lacking a real trail, the formation is exceedingly photogenic and has gotten quite a bit of press in recent years, so the BLM limits the number of people per day into the area to 20.  Ten of these are allocated four months ahead of time by an online lottery; the other ten via an in-person lottery the day before.   So many people try to get permits that your chance of success is reportedly only about 5%.

I tried the online lottery.   Fail.  Bummer.

When we got into the area, it was exceedingly hot, and I figured we oughtta try the walk-in lottery because, after all, how many people want to do backcountry route-finding in the hundred-plus degree heat?  

At 8:30 am (the appointed hour), the walk-in lottery room was packed.  Standing room only.  At least a hundred people.  Even after the rangers spent half an hour talking about the hazards of the area, pointing out that they don't patrol to rescue people, there is no water, and basically saying it would be stupid to be out there in the heat of the day when it was forecast to be 105, everyone still put their applications in.  

Needless to say, the odds were against us, and we didn't get a permit.  Bummer.  But it was going to be bloody hot the next day, so maybe it was just as well.

Fortunately, I had a backup hike in the same area scoped out -- there is a short slot canyon (Wire Pass) that connects into Buckskin Gulch, alleged to be the longest slot canyon in the world.  I figured we would enjoy the narrows in Wire Pass, and then explore as much of Buckskin Gulch as we felt like before heading back out to our air-conditioned motel room and the pool (oooh-- a splurge!).   And while it was going to be hot, there was no sign of rain anywhere upstream, so we didn't have to worry about flash floods.

Because it was going to be so hot, we took lots of water with us (a gallon per person!), and left the motel in Kanab while it was still dark, so as to get to the trailhead and start the hike right around sunrise.  We also knew it would be considerably cooler in the shade of the canyon than out on the bare rock up top.

Trailhead in the desert.

Long shadows attest to the early starting hour.

The light is awfully nice at this time of day.

Chad, near the beginning of the first short set of narrows.

I love this stuff!

 It opened up,

but soon enough got narrow and interesting again.

It's very fun to come around a corner to find another chasm.

There are petroglyphs at the confluence of Wire Pass with Buckskin Gulch.

We headed into Buckskin Gulch,

where we found the fun-to-play-with mud mentioned in an earlier post.

Eventually, as the sun got higher in the sky, we headed back into the Wire Pass drainage to head back to the car.

The biggest obstacle we encountered was a minor chokestone that created a five-to-six-foot barrier.  Not too difficult, as Nimue demonstrates:

First, hand pack up to Dad. (notice her pack is small; Chad and I had the extra water...)

Try to stem.

 Is there a good handhold here?

 Try that stem again.

Oh, here's a handhold!

No, I don't need help!

I...will..do...it...myself...

Patented tummy smear.

I'd love to do the whole multi-day Buckskin Gulch backpacking trip sometime, as it looks to be every bit as jolly as the Tonto Canyon trip I did back when I lived in AZ.  There are many other canyons in the area too.  Clearly this area needs more exploration.

Tour of the West: Slot Canyons Part 1 -- Easy

I was going to do just one slot canyon post, until I realized we had way too much fun, and therefore way too much material to confine it to just one post.  Lucky you, you get to look forward to:
Part 1: Easy.  Willis Creek
Part 2: Medium.  Wire Pass
Part 3: More Challenging.  Peekabo and Spooky Canyons
(Note that we did not do these in this order -- we actually started with the most adventurous one first., but I'm saving it for the last post as it was the most entertaining.)

Part 1:  Willis Creek
Also Known as "The Day Nimue was Grumpy"

Day 12 of her Captivity

Nimue was sick of being in the car.
Sick of there being no wi-fi.
Sick of being outside when it was a hundred degrees out.
Sick of dirty clothes.

To any parental attempt to drum up enthusiasm, she would reply "You're being too cheerful!"   In other words, she was doing a good job of being almost-thirteen.

Given the non-existence of the "Surly Teen Ranger Program" that my friend Sarah wishes existed for these situations, we chose to pull over to explore Willis Creek, a minor drainage off of Skutumpah Road in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

Note the small grumpy kid doing her best vulture impression while I climbed down into the drainage.

There was actually *water* in this drainage!  Yay.  It was as warm as bathwater, but seemed delightfully wet in the heat.

Grumpy Child decided she didn't want to get her feet wet.

The drainage wasn't particularly deep or narrow, but it was a jolly way to stretch out one's legs nonetheless.

So much so, that even though she tried to maintain the mood,

Nimue couldn't help but crack a smile.

Of course, it probably helped that I handed her the camera to make videos of her parents being dorky.  (ok, since there were no peers to witness....)

Canyons are fun.  Even mellow ones.  They make me silly and cheer up the kid :)

Playing in Washington

As a brief respite from the giant pile of road trip vacation photos, here are a few highlights from our recent trip to Washington.

As you may recall, I accidentally signed us up to ride RAMROD this year, so a couple of weeks ago, we flew up to WA to seem my parents, see my brother and his family, and do the ride.  Some pictoral highlights:

Nimue got to go to the lavender farm,

drive Murray the lawn tractor,

and play with her cousins.

We did the big ride around Mt. Rainier.  You will note 148 miles.  With big hills.  It was actually a well-supported, lovely ride, aside from the last 30 or so miles into a hot headwind at the end.  I might have counted the last big climb in the near-hundred-degree heat as a sufferfest too, but for the tube sock full of ice given to me to stuff down the back of my jersey halfway up.  Sheer brilliance.

I was planning on taking 14 hours, secretly hoping for 13.  We did it in 12!  As did the oldest rider on the course, at age 77 (we played leapfrog with him all day).  Sounds like a good strategy to emulate: Age stringy and tough rather than soft.

12 hours total including stops, a little less than ten and a half hours riding time.  Chad could have gone a lot faster, I'm sure, but he rode with me for much of it :)

If you want to get more of a flavor of the event, see pictures taken by a couple of the volunteers here and here, and a highlights video here.  Kudos to the Redmond Cycling Club for putting together a top-notch event!

Tour of the West: Mud!!

Even in the hot dry southwest, we found mud in the bottom of some of the slot canyons we played in.  Maybe it is the drought coloring my opinion, but mud is just fun stuff.

It dries into interesting patterns.

You can write messages in it.

You can pretend chunks are large cookies

while your kid looks on amused.

Best of all, the mud in this particular canyon on this particular day (Buckskin Gulch, near the confluence with Wire Pass, at the end of June) exhibited a range of viscosity that was just amusing when impacted with projectiles.  Crazy clay impact craters are fun!

Alas, certain parties didn't want other parties to get back into the truck fully encrusted with mud, so we stopped short of wading through the potentially waist-deep pools of the stuff.