Escalante River Backpack Trip, 4-1-89

This was a route put together by Frank and Buddy, as I don’t have any recollection of how the route was chosen. Escalante would be my first trip in the canyons of the southwest, excluding my geology field camp segment at Lake Powell, while Buddy and Frank had already started exploring the region. Our plan was to do a weeklong hike down the river using a shuttle on the Hole in the Rock Road. We’d originally planned for a longer route but ended up starting from Early Weed Bench, and finishing at Hurricane Wash. Essentially all of the hiking would be off trail, and we hoped to have plenty of time for exploring in the side canyons.

Though our hike followed the Escalante River, little of the route was in what would become the Bureau of Land Management’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in 1996. This is the monument famously gutted by the Trump administration in 2017, and then restored by the Biden Administration in 2021. Except for the strip along the Hole in the Rock Road, which is now in the monument, the trip was instead within the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area .For the story of the Hole in the Rock Road look here: (NPS Hole in the Rock).

For the hike I had the USGS quads for the route. Once onsite, I bought a copy of the Rudi Lambrechtse guidebook “Hiking the Escalante”. Much later, I’d pick up a copy of the 1:70,000 Trails Illustrated map for the Monument.

Stevens Arch.

3-31-89, Drive to Utah

I left Lead, SD Friday at 1PM, presumably after working half a shift at the mine. At 7:45 I reached a place called the Observatory in Evergreen, CO, where I was to meet the group. The drive went well, it was 6:30 to Denver and only a little snow on the road near Lusk, WY. The group was Buddy, Frank Weber, John Cauthen, and Gary Wheeler. I’d hiked with John in ’88 in the Wind Rivers, but this was my first time meeting Frank and his friend Gary. Frank was a good friend of Buddy’s from the Koonce’s time living in Denver.

From Evergreen we drove west on I-70 through a blizzard with near zero visibility around Vail Pass. We crossed into Utah around 2AM and slept in a rest area just over the state line. I’d had to make a number of stops to wait on the other truck. I was exhausted.

4-1-89 To Twentyfive Mile Wash, 2 miles

We were up at 6:30, and ate breakfast in Green River, UT. There were three restaurants, and the town had gas and groceries, our last chance for supplies. We next stopped at the Visitor Center for Capital Reef National Park where I got my guidebook and map. I didn’t want to add any extra miles to this already epic drive, but we ended up driving 10 miles into Capital Reef to the Golden Gate. The trails in the park seemed geared for short trips.

Then we had the long winding drive over Boulder Mountain to the town of Escalante. There were great views from the road of the mountains above, still holding skiable snow. There were minimal supplies in Escalante, but it had a restaurant and BLM office with a helpful ranger.

The last driving stretches were the wash-boarded Hole in the Rock Road, and then the marked side road to Early Weed Bench. There had been intermittent showers all day, and finally a heavy rain. At the turnoff we repacked, and then shuttled my truck 10 miles down to Hurricane Wash, returned to the junction, and took the rough road the final five miles to Early Weed.

Escalante River from Fox Canyon.

The start of the hiked sounded challenging from the guidebook description, so we’d have no chance to ease into things before facing some navigation challenges. The guide described the top of the unmarked route as hard to find, but the directions were clear, and we found the drop off into Fox Canyon (an informal name used by our guidebook). The key spot turned out to descend at a meander in the canyon that looked from above like a confluence. It took a lot of discussion to make the right choice, but doing so gave us a boost in confidence. The bottom of Fox Canyon was rough and brushy.

We camped on a sandbar near the junction with Twentyfive Mile Wash. We’d arrived about 7PM, so set up and dinner went fast. We were all exhausted from the drive and fell quickly asleep. I slept under a small alcove, but the other guys slept out on the sandbar and were covered by heavy dew in the morning.

4-2-89, To the Escalante River, 6 miles

A good night’s sleep did wonders after two frantic travel days. The morning was cool, but not chilly enough to keep us in the sleeping bags. Camp chores would take about 90 minutes, a time that would remain standard for most of my backpacking career. By the time the sun reached the canyon floor the air was warm and dry.

Buddy in Twentyfive Mile Wash.

Twentyfive Mile was mostly a dry wash, and the walking was wonderful. We’d seen few tracks in Fox, but Twentyfive Mile had enough tracks to almost form a trail. We speculated that we might have been hiking just after a relative glut of spring break backpackers. The water was only a few inches deep, so despite numerous crossings it was easy to keep our feet dry. The Escalante River end of the wash got tighter and gave us the first glimpse of the side canyons that would prove to be the exceptionally scenic areas.

After 2 ½ hours of walking we reached the Escalante River. John had a bad headache,  and Gary was just recovering from a cold, so we decided to camp at the confluence. I was hoping to make a little more progress to put some distance in the bank. But we had already shortened our planned route, and it was important to get everyone feeling healthy. Instead, Buddy, Frank, and I walked upstream to the next canyon on the north, an unnamed drainage between Baker and East Baker benches. The canyon boxed out before the map showed a fork.

It was fun to see all the sedimentary features in the Navajo Sandstone. There was lots of cross bedding, some ironstone, and green silty layers. The hiking was hot, and I was concerned about sunburn. But in the shade, it was still cool. Back in camp we took a “swim” in the river. The river water was cold, but comfortable, and too shallow for more than just a flop in the water. Potentially a canoe could have made the trip.

The evening came warm and dry, and I felt strong and rested. The rest break had helped both John and Gary. I suspected if the weather held for the rest of the trip, we’d have little trouble getting out on time, but I still hoped to get some decent mileage down river on the next day’s hike.

4-3-89 To south of Moody Creek, 9 miles

We hiked 4-4 ½ hours to Moody Wash. John and I walked in the river essentially all the way. There were too many river crossings to bother staying dry, and too many willow thickets to be able to follow the riverbank. It was quickly obvious that we wouldn’t be able to link up enough sand bars to avoid the river and willows. Buddy, Frank, and Gary started off on a bench above our camp.

John hiking in the Escalante River.

The river water was cold and bothered my feet at the start, but then I either got used to it or my feet went numb. The river was very silty, and therefore hard to read. Some areas had soft sand, and in others there were large slippery boulders. I fell off one large rock into the hole on its upstream side. I got my chest and part of my pack (my old Kelty Tioga frame pack) wet. John helped pull me out, but I was in the water long enough to drench myself, get cold, and lose my walking stick.

We found walking sticks critical for the river walking, both for balance and to probe the river bottom ahead. Wearing dark glasses and using a cane, I felt a bit like a blind man gone hiking. John would use the same stick for almost all of the hike. He grew attached enough to it that he gave it to me at the end of the trip to take back home (knowing it wouldn’t fit in his luggage). I’d keep it in my garage until I moved from Lead in 1993. On my relocation trip to Knoxville, I stopped off in Nashville and gave the stick to Buddy, who returned it to John.

John and I met up with the other three at Moody Canyon and then again at East Moody, all of us surprised at how slow we were going. But given the conditions we were likely doing OK. John and I were nervous about our lack of progress, while Frank seemed interested primarily in the side trips (which I think may have been Frank’s permanent state). My philosophy was always to get out ahead, then use the extra time for extra exploring. The canyon was very narrow around Moody, and we knew that our camping options for the next night would be limited, as we would be going through a section the guidebook called the narrows.

John near Moody Canyon.

I was starting to understand why the feel of the canyons didn’t come through in the material I’d read beforehand. Walking through the cold river at the bottom of the baking, steep sided canyon is just hard to imagine. By afternoon it was hot enough to make cutting meanders out in the sun unpleasant. But we did have a bit of a trail most of the way between Moody Canyon and the rincon.

Despite the effort, John and I still waited for the others for about an hour. We ended up staying just past a prominent “V” canyon. I was beat. It was a lot of work pushing heavy hiking boots (likely Vasque Sundowners) through the river and soft mud. My calves were sunburned from my sunscreen being washed off, and were slightly shredded by the willow thickets. Otherwise, it seems perfect for walking with ideal weather and a nearly level trail.

My final lesson for the day was that since John and I discovered we couldn’t lead by hiking in the front, I wasn’t going to miss any of the side canyons on the rest of the trip.

4-4-89, South of Scorpion Gulch, 8 miles

From our camp it was a three hour walk south to Scorpion Gulch. Though it was very cold overnight, things seemed to warm up quickly in the mornings. We seemed to be making better time, partly the result of more experience picking our way downstream, but also the product of trying to stay out of the river. We were gradually cutting down section through the Kayenta Sandstone, so there were lots of talus slopes on the insides of the bends.

At Scorpion Gulch.

We stopped at the mouth of Scorpion for a break and decided to go on a brief (three hour) exploration. We hiked upstream to the “h” in “Gulch” on the topo map. Here we found a route up through the Navajo Sandstone to the Carmel Formation. It was a tough scramble over one cliffy layer of Carmel, but we made it up to a large bench with views of both Scorpion Gulch and the Escalante River. Frank and Gary caught up to us here, and we decided to hike down via a bench of Entrada Sandstone. The scale of the cross bedding in the Entrada is 10’s of feet. It weathers to soft brown knobs and hummocks. The views overlooking the river were fantastic. We could see downstream at least four oxbows, back to the Straight Cliffs, and across the river to another set of ridges. To steal a phrase from Buddy, it seemed you really needed to climb out of the canyon to get a sense of scale and perspective. This was the type of day hike I’d looked for, and I hoped that the trip would present many more.

The Escalante Canyon from above Scorpion Gulch.

From Scorpion, we walked past one more rincon to a small bench between two small tributaries. Across the river from us was another minor draw, this one filling with sand from a point on the downstream side. If we’d had a lot more energy, the sand would have led us up to the Carmel bench. But I was just tired enough to plan a sunset picture.

This was a trip where we rotated responsibility for one person cooking dinner for the whole group. This was an efficient way to feed all of us, but wasn’t fair for those whose turn to cook came late in the trip. They’d carry a group dinner for almost a week while the first cook carried their dinner only for a day. This was Frank’s turn to cook. He made a great pasta dinner, and topped it off with a bottle of wine. Even split five ways, there was enough to give each of us a slight buzz. Frank would fill the bottle with the bright red Utah sand, carry it out to the trucks, and bring it home as his reminder of the trip.

4-5-89, To Fools Canyon, 15 miles

We got an early start, which probably contributed to our having our best wildlife viewing of the trip. We saw a mule deer, and Frank and John saw a beaver. We’d been seeing a lot of their tracks, which look like small dog prints. The beaver had been cutting a lot of trees and branches, which we were using for walking sticks. This was day five of the trip, and we were yet to see any other people. I speculated that this might have been the longest I’d gone without seeing people outside my group. But there were still a lot of tracks ahead of us, including a few heading upstream.

This was the longest haul of the trip, probably about 15 miles. It was enough for us to finally clear the Moody Creek 15’ quad, and just about clear the King Mesa 7.5’ quad. We could feel the miles. Despite having plenty of water, we were all a bit dehydrated by the time we made camp in the afternoon. My journal has few notes on where we got water, but most likely we tanked up on the small flows from the side canyons. The silty river would have quickly clogged any attempt to filter. Temperatures weren’t necessarily high, but the direct sun was intense. Much of the time we were forcing crossings just to walk in the cool river water. We were also stopping a lot in the afternoon, just for shade and rest. I needed stops a couple times a day just to rinse the sand and silt out of my boots. The sand would build up on the top of my ankles and start to rub.

Buddy and Frank above the Escalante River.

We tried a few meander cut offs along the way. I missed the first of these climbs, but made about the same time, and the perspective gave me the chance for a group photo. We camped for the night at the mouth of Fools Canyon, and I refreshed myself with a cool swim. We didn’t know the origin of the canyon’s name, and hoped we wouldn’t find out.

John hiking through the Kayenta Formation.

Buddy and I walked 1-1 ½ miles up Fools Canyon in the evening. It was a great walk and fun to do without the heavy backpacks. Back at camp we built a fire and finished off our whiskey. The site had a lot of bats, swooping about to clean up the bugs for us. One of the sicks I’d gathered for the fire had a grass basket attached to the end. Because of the intricate attachment we thought it perhaps an artifact from Navajo or Anasazi, rather than something recent.

4-6-89, To Coyote Creek, 10 miles

We walked about 2 ¼ hours down to the second drainage below Fools Canyon. The morning walk was easy, and mostly on the right side of the river with no tough crossings. We were a little worried about this section which the guide describes as ‘the narrows”, but it wasn’t really any tougher than the rest of the Escalante Canyon. The main feature was massive Stevens Arch.

Frank hiking in the Escalante River.

The afternoon walk also went quickly. Just before reaching Stevens Canyon, we saw our first other hikers of the trip. The meeting was odd, because I first saw their tracks ahead of us going downstream, but we knew no one was ahead of us, and that no one had passed us. It turned out the group had been hiking upstream, and thought that they were in Coyote Gulch. With Stevens Arch in the Escalante, and the series of arches along Coyote Creek, it was hard to see how that was possible. They met Buddy first, and he told them they were headed the wrong way. They argued some with Buddy, even after he told them this was day six of his trip. Finally, they pulled out their map, and it was literally a hand drawn sketch on a bar napkin. Buddy got them turned around and headed the right way, which is how I first saw their tracks going down stream. When I first spotted them they were huddled together walking about two feet apart, like they were afraid to get separated from the group.

Gary, Frank, Buddy, and John

Just before Stevens Canyon we also started to do a lot of walking in the river, and continued to do so until Coyote Creek. I thought that when Lake Powell was high the Escalante would drop a lot of its sediment here, and then flush it out during higher flows.

We took a noon walk up Stevens Creek, and it was fantastic. The canyon is mostly a dry sandstone bottom with colossal overhangs. Sometimes the undercut banks from one side will overlap the stream on the opposite side in other places the banks will overlap each other. At one point, there was an oxbow with an overhang above the outside of the oxbow. As impressive as the main canyon is, the side canyons have much more surprises of their own.

Stevens Arch.

We found a tremendous campsite about a quarter mile above the confluence of the Coyote Creek and the Escalante. There is a beautiful sandy beach below an overhang in the Wingate Formation. We could see the start of the Crack In The Rock Trail across from our campsite. We’d gotten into camp early, mostly to get out of the sun. I’d fried my calves, and some patches on my arms. The day before we were out of the water a lot, and I didn’t put any lotion on my calves. My water filter was about silted up. The silt from the river would clog up the prefilter every gallon or so and some had gotten into the main filter. For the afternoon I was content to sit and rest in the shade.

Frank in the Crack in Rock.

After dinner we hiked up to Crack in Rock, a direct route to the canyon rim. The trail appeared well travelled from below, and not as difficult as depicted in the guidebook. We were finding the guidebook unhelpful, except in detailing which canyons were passable, and which would box out. We couldn’t see Lake Powell from the rim, but the view from the rim above included the Henry Mountains, Stevens Arch, the Straight Cliffs and basically a hell of a long way off in any direction.

Above Crack in Rock, looking toward Navajo Mountain.

4-7-89, Out via Hurricane Wash, 12 miles

In the morning we left the Escalante River and turned up Coyote Creek. It was a shady two hour walk to Coyote Natural Bridge along a shallow sandy creek bottom. I saw the same three hikers from yesterday, and more of their group. Beyond the bridge, the gulch changed rapidly. There were a lot of small amphitheaters similar to those in Fools Canyon.

Lower Coyote Gulch.

There’s a lot the guidebook can’t tell you that’s distinctive about the canyon country; the feel and sound of the dry upper layer of sand as you step and compact it, the drag of the current as you walk upriver, or the snapping of the willows as you fight a way through the thickets.

Lower Coyote Gulch

I stopped for lunch at Jacob Hamblin Arch. It differed from the other bridge types we’d seen as it resembled an overhang with the backside fallen out. But it is bigger than the others we’ve seen, and perhaps all these arches look unique once you get to know them.

I’d been walking strong all day. I had cruised right by Cliff Arch without seeing it, and had sped from Coyote Natural Bridge to Hamblin in only 45 minutes. It’s all so peaceful that returning to work will be quite a shock. I supposed the long drove to Lead will help with the transition. I thought about future trips; Buddy’s wife Ellen was pregnant then with Hannah, and I knew that would change his priorities. But I had a long list of trips I wanted to do and far less responsibilities.

Coyote Natural Bridge.

I spent about two hours waiting on the rest of the group. I hiked up to the inside of the arch. When we finally did leave, Frank was trying to reach the top of the arch from the inside meander, and it looked like he would make it. But his route had too much exposure for me, and I started hiking back up Coyote Gulch.

Coyote Natural Bridge.

We’d planned to camp at either the junction with Hurricane Wash, or slightly further up Hurricane where the map showed a spring. But Buddy found a nice spot on a bench just up from the confluence and we settled in, even marking the spot on my topo map. But when Frank showed up he suggested we hike out to the truck and drive that night to the Hole in the Rock. Since this seemed like the only way for us to see Lake Powell we all went along. To cool off, and get some rest, we cooked dinner while we were at Buddy’s site.

Approaching Hole in Rock Road.

It was a long hike out, probably five miles, and the longest single pull we’d taken on the trip. Our target spring was not impressive and probably wouldn’t have given us enough water to camp. Just after the spring, the trail left the canyon and was a monotonous slog up the rest of the wash. We were walking right into the evening sun and with the lingering heat I sweat more than on any other section of the hike, The last of the walk was an old jeep road so we made some good time. It was a Friday and we saw two groups hiking in, and three cars at the trailhead.

Frank, Buddy, and I drove my truck ten miles to the Early Weed TH and another five to the Fox Canyon Trailhead to pick up Frank’s truck. We split one extremely warm can of Ranier Beer on the way. Back at Hurricane Wash we loaded up John and Gary for the drive out to Hole in the Rock. Once we were off the BLM land, the road got bad. If Frank had not been driving ahead of me I probably would have stopped. Much of the road was over bare sandstone, and this was especially tough to follow at night. The extra drive took 1 ½ hours to cover around 23 miles, and we were so tired we went to sleep immediately.

4-7-89

Unfortunately, the extra driving wasn’t worth the effort. With a clear sky the sunrise wasn’t impressive and the view of Lake Powell much less expansive than the photos I’d seen. What we could see of the lake still had the same unnatural appearance I remembered from field camp. There’s just no way there should be a lake in that place. I thought Edward Abbey might be right, and that we should just blow the whole place up.

The drive back to Escalante took 2:25, we had burgers and shakes at the Circle D before resuming the drive.

Amazingly (with all the driving still ahead of us), we stopped at Anasazi State Park in Boulder for a quick tour. For a small site they had an interesting place. There were a few exhibits and a trails through an excavation of an old village. I’d thought of the Anasazi as cliff dwellers, but their towns were also in other inaccessible places, much of which were destroyed by later settlers and visitors.

We next stopped at Glenwood Springs for a badly needed chance to wash the silt and grime away, and to loosen up some badly overused muscles in my legs. Except for snow on Vail Pass and a quick stop for beers, the drive to Frank’s place in Evergreen was long, but uneventful.

4-9-89

It snowed about six inches overnight in Evergreen. Combined with only three hours sleep that did not make an easy drive to Stapleton Airport to drop off Buddy and Gary. I never liked splitting up at the end of trip, knowing that the next one would be a long way off. I finally made it back to Lead about 4:30PM.

I’d come back to the canyon country in 1992 on an eighteen day trip, while I was between jobs. But the next time I’d visit the canyons with Buddy and Frank would be our 1994 float trip through Canyonlands NP down Stillwater Canyon on the Green River. (Green River Float)

For more reading on exploring this area “The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons” is the classic John Wesley Powell account of his pioneering expeditions down the Green and Colorado Rivers.

Consolidated route map for Escalante River backpack.