Friday May 24th we drove to the town of Escalante, Utah. I rode with Roger, Debbie rode with Randy. We stayed at the Escalante campground across from visitor center. We had dinner at Circle D restaurant.
Saturday we drove to Egypt trailhead. Amazingly, someone volunteered to carry two loads down the hill for us!! We walked down, but got off trail, and ended up in canyon, when we should have been on the ridge. Debbie and I dropped our packs at 2/3 point, headed back to the trailhead, and ran shuttle. We both had awful heavy packs on the way down; I arrived at camp at dusk, exhausted. Everyone was tired, so we did no cooking.
Sunday AM we packed boats, got on the water about 11:30. Randy and Debbie experimented with loading their packrafts. The river was nice, with some scraping and maneuvering. We made the short hike to the Golden Cathedral in Neon canyon. We camped on the bar across from 25 mile canyon.
Randy, Roger, and Debbie |
Monday. The weather was nice at first, then hard rain and wind. We saw many waterfalls. I started to get hypothermia by Baker canyon, shivering, so we stopped and set up my tent. I should have brought my dry suit; the inflatable kayak is a colder and wetter boat than my canoe. The side creek ran high. The rain stopped in the evening.
Scorpion Rapid |
Wednesday the river was down a few inches, and we scraped a lot. Sometimes it felt like we were the ball in pinball. The mandatory portage was a lot of work, perhaps 75 yards. We camped across from Fools canyon, a good camp, but not a good takeout. We made 10 miles.
Steven's Arch |
Thursday. The weather was warmer and drier. The river was down a little more. We got on the river earlier. There was some running aground, and pinballing off rocks. We got to Coyote Canyon about 1 PM, and walked up the stream bed to camp, 5 minutes up the canyon. I scouted the route out; to get out of the canyon involves scrambling on downsloping rock and sand, with significant exposure.
Another party hauling packs at the crack |
Friday. We left camp around 8. On the rock section, I ended up shuttling everyone's pack. The hike to Crack in the Wall was brutal, heavy loads, multiple carries, uphill on sand, the hottest day of the trip, and we ran out of water. Crack in the wall was a bit of a social event, groups cooperating to move loads through that section, including ropes.
Richard in crack |
Looking down from Crack in Wall |
We left much of the gear at the top of the canyon, to be carried the next day. We all agreed that it was the hardest day we could remember. Everyone was exhausted. We spent 11 hours hauling gear, and camped in the parking lot.
Tha last part of the hike out |
Sunday - We had breakfast at the Circle D, and drove home without incident.
After the trip, there did not seem to be much enthusiasm for pack rafting, partly because we would all need new ultralight gear, in order to be able to haul in a single load. The double hauls mean that you have to travel three times the distance. People liked the river, but would not come back if we had to hike in and hike out.
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