In keeping with the topsy-turvy nature of 2020, this post begins with an outing that happened almost a month ago and finishes up with one almost two weeks ago now. There have been some in between and since, but I like to put things in tidy little packages if possible, and that means strict chronological order is being kicked to the curb for the time being. These three hikes are grouped together because they share the characteristic of being perfectly decent and worth a go, but not memory-burners.
Squirrel Canyon
On our drive in to the Water Canyon trail last month, we passed the sign for this one.
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| Taking sign-pointing to the next level by adding interpretive facial expressions. |
We researched the hike and decided to do it anyway. I say this because all descriptions will tell you that the very sandy first mile+ is an aggravating struggle.
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| They do not lie. |
Other than the initial drop down to Short Creek, the sandy part was flat with sections of shade. That’s always better than walking uphill through sand in full sun but not much.
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| Peekaboo views from an OHV road. |
Once you’ve endured the sand, the trail is more pleasant and lush for awhile.
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| Green and boggy. |
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| Lots of shady trees but no squirrels except us in the canyon. |
But then bad things happen. Things worse than deep sand. Like it becomes a narrow, cliff-hugging, rolling-rock climb — a trifecta of my hates. I really wanted to quit, but I really didn’t want to quit. TBG was neutral, letting me work out my angst. I really didn’t quit. Brava!
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| A horse of different color. |
After the angsty portion, new problems presented themselves, as seen above. This part of the trail goes straight up that rock face, with the long drop into the canyon off to the right of this photo. See those white marks on the rocks? Those are where the metal shoes of a horse scraped over them. A horse. With metal shoes. On steep rock. That hurts my brain.
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| Yay, plateau! Boo, more sand! |
On the plateau, the trail intersects with an old Jeep road, and is a natural resting or turnaround point. We did both.
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| Plateau for two, please. |
It is possible to head west from this point across the expanse of slickrock and connect to the Water Canyon trail for a loop, but it’s a long way in complete exposure and thus not hard for us to have dismissed.
The way down was neither as scary nor hard as it promised to be on the way up (but still seemingly impossible for a steel-shod equine.) We saw only a few notable sites.
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| Identify that snake! (because I couldn’t) Clues: not a garter, about 4′ long |
Not surprisingly, we saw no one else on the trail, and that goes a long way toward improving an otherwise mediocre hike.
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| Just one segment of the multi-hued prickly pear. |
Near the start/finish of the trail, grew the most prickly pear we’d ever seen in one place, and they bloomed in every single color prickly pear come in. We’ve seen all the colors before, but never all together like that.
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| Piñons! |
On the way home, we patronized this local fellow’s Pine Nut Mobile because pine nuts make me very, very happy, and local merchants are cool characters.
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Eagle Crags
The road up to this hike was an adventure in itself, being a narrow-ish gravel road that carved its way up, up, up along the hillside out of Rockville and then became very rugged in the last half-mile or so.
Like at Squirrel Canyon, we were the first and would be the only car in the lot.
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| Parking with a view of the crags. |
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| TBG makes a point of signing in. |
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| Smooth beginning. |
As with so many of our hikes, this one began nice and level. Few, if any, remain that way for their entirety, and this one was no exception. Before long, we were on the up and up maneuvering through some switchbacks.
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| Leading the Snake Patrol. |
Some of the trail traveled through overgrown scrub, and that is always a bit nerve-wracking in a snake sense, but we were happy not to encounter any this time out. The hillside provided a pretty darn nice view for our efforts.
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| Zion Canyon on the left and Parunuweap Canyon beyond Short Creek Reservoir |
Not too long after rounding the corner, turning away from this view, the trail begins to descend and fade significantly. Before it does that, there is some nice shade over several boulders, and that’s where we called it good and refueled for the return.
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Crystal Springs
Now that it’s July and temps routinely top 100°, we have employed the heat-beatin’ strategy of going up high to take advantage of the cool elevation, often a 30° difference. That creates its own problem with altitude hiking at 8000’+ for which we are not completely acclimated, but we allow extra time to hike slowly and take plenty of supplies to be out all day if necessary.
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| Shy point (there were witnesses.) |
Another very rugged access road terminated at a nice parking area. Behind me as I took the above photo, a wilderness wedding was being set up. TBG asked one of the setter-uppers if parking would be a problem, fearing we’d be blocked in upon our return, but he assured us only a small celebratory gathering was planned. I flirted with the idea of ducking into the Honeybucket placed for the wedding guests’ use, but didn’t think they’d appreciate that.
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So, which way would you go? |
The left fork, right? That’s what we did. It was a good reminder that, even when there are signs seemingly clearly showing the way, checking your GPS is still a good idea.
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| There you are! Please tell your friends there’s an ant problem on the West Rim Trail. Thanks. |
If we’d taken the right fork, we would not have seen this prickly little mascot, so, in my estimation, it was impossible to have made a mistake.
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| Looks like a nice way to go to me! |
We came through a field of beautiful wildflowers and paused at an old cattle gate where TBG checked his GPS and declared that we were on the completely wrong trail, we might not be able to connect to the right one, and would possibly have to turn our loop hike into an out-n-back. It looked as though the trail we were on might make the connection, but we were taking a chance by continuing.
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| Take a chance on me! |
We had a lot more down to go from here, but as we traveled, it became clear that the trails would join up. We briefly met up with a couple who had taken off just ahead of us from the parking lot as they were retracing their steps, thinking they wouldn’t be able to close the loop. TBG, savvy navigator that he is, showed them the map and how to connect, and we waved them on their merry way.
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| There needs to be a sign pointing to the sign. |
We caught up to them again near this marker that was well off the trail, which was at that point a dirt road, and which we only spotted by happenstance. The loop trail proper was in the tree line and not very visible from the roadway unless you’re really tall like someone with whom I have the good fortune to hike. It was roughly the halfway point in the hike, and we had our lunch here.
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| Tearin’ it up like a sloth. |
Most of the time up until this point, we were moving along fairly well, but I seem to be a human altimeter, and almost exactly as we again reached the 8000′ level, it felt like I was chewing on my heart. We took a shady break, and refreshed, we continued on at a painfully slow pace.
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| An easy place to catch your breath. |
It was almost equally mentally and physically difficult to force ourselves to go so slowly, especially when we reached level sections that we’d normally jam through without even trying. We had plenty of time, though, to really appreciate the birdsong and flowers, particularly Utah’s state flower, the Sego lily (pictured below.)
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| Home stretch on the right fork. |
Had we gone right at the fork, this is where we would’ve started. Given the topography, we were glad we went the “wrong” way as the climbing was less extreme. Even though the going was a struggle at times, we were happy to have pushed through, completing the loop.
A few days ago, I was finally able to get some fresh basil in my grocery order to go with those piñons. I will again ignore my self-imposed-no-food-pictures (hi Laurel!) to bring you a big bowl of pasta. Grab a virtual fork, Faithful Readers, and gather round.
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| Presto, pesto! |
As ever, thank you for stopping by. Be well!
COMMENTS
Glad you were able to find several new hikes to check out in the area, even if they weren’t the most exciting ones you have done. I certainly enjoyed the photos, especially the breathtaking vista over the plains to multiple canyons.
I don’t think we could ever exhaust the hiking options around here, fortunately, but now it’s just a matter of balancing driving distance/heat. Plenty to do around home/town, too, so no one to blame but ourselves if we get bored!
Hiking at those altitudes will certainly give your lungs a workout, but I can imagine how nice it is to exit your car to a 30 degree drop in temps. At least you guys have relatively easy access to those altitudes.
I love your pasta picture at the end. And now I want a giant bowl of pesto. Hmmmm. Might have to make that happen….
The cooler temps are absolutely worth the altitude struggles. The drives up, whichever way we’re going, are beautiful in themselves. Now we’re just trying to decide that if we settle here someday, do we want to live where it’s colder but can travel to the heat, or live where it’s hot but can travel to the cool? Such difficult decisions!!
I also knew you’d like the pasta pic 😀 Did you have some pesto? I wonder if I should start including recipes? Hmmmm…
Now Since moving to Texas I have done little hiking unlike when I guided hunts in Alaska but I have still managed to
come to need new foot gear. For decades I have always bought the same boot by Timberland because they last and are
off the chart comfortable… so TBG whats your choice of foot gear?
Also you mention of scoring some fresh basil well I have a need for roasted garlic and it is not easy to get
but I have now come to order bags of it from SavorySpiceShop.com and they have always provided an excellent product.
They are the Salomon Quest 4D 3 GTX model. I did a 500 mile review of them on Youtube, https://youtu.be/DfLADy5tWkc
If you have additional questions please drop us a line and I’ll get you my number if you want to talk.
Thank you for the pasta with homemade pesto photo. 🙂 I would definitely have stopped for that roadside van selling pine nuts! It’s rare to find local pine nuts because almost all of them now are imported from China. We gathered bags of pinon pine cones many years ago in Great Basin National Park (legally) and tried to extricate the seeds. It’s was SO much work! No wonder they’re so expensive.
It was Great Basin Nat’l Park where we had big dreams of collecting our three gunny sacks of pine cones, too! We never did end up gathering them, though, because we quickly realized what a monumental and unrewarding task it was going to be to process them. One of the rangers there told us that if we saw someone selling them by the roadside to buy them there. It did make me appreciate and never complain about the high price! Jeez, I hope these roadside folks aren’t re-packaging China nuts and passing them off as local. Gah, I hate to be such a cynic! 😐
Thank you for hiking for us 🙂 and getting the pain from those sandy trails…ugh, i hate those.
Those are cool boots with that colorful bandana around it 🙂
I saw those snakes you’ve been growing in your garden. They’ll keep the rodents from ruining your crops, just be sure to beat the bushes before you harvest!
Our hiking is slowing down now here both from heat and running out of new places to go without driving too far (and getting tired of driving.) Time to be creative!