thomashikes: Grand Staircase Escalante Sundry Hikes III

With my Hayduke completion having come to an untimely end, I had some time to kill before my trip home. I used the time for some shorter trips in the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. While the monument is safe for the moment, I fear it's for the moment only. The forces that were gnawing at it in the late 2010's, will want to sink their teeth in again when they have the opportunity. Much of Utah, like much of the mountain West appears what one would call in Pakistan an ungovernable tribal region. There are many engaged residents, but they are outnumbered by the many in pursuit of the almighty short-term buck or the opportunity to foul the backcountry from their OHV/ATV's. It is telling that the ubiquitous bear cans adorning the roadsides are conspicuously absent from the areas that single-tracks run through. Most hikers, backpackers specifically, are way too weight conscious to carry large cans of beer, even though the thought of having one after a long day on the trail or off of it is never far away.

Cottonwood Canyon

It is a pretty drive from Cannonville to highway 89 west of Kanab past Grosvenor Arch that can be done with a regular vehicle if one is careful in a few spots. I explored the Cottonwood slot canyon, the Paria Box canyon and Yellow Mountain. I also walked up Lower Hackberry canyon to do a loop via Stone Donkey and Hogback canyon.

Along Cottonwood Rd. Entry to slot canyon at the bottom of the dip in the road

Cottonwood Slot canyon

There are two trailheads right on Cottonwood road from which one can access the slot canyon. Coming from Cannonville I started at Cottonwood Narrows North TH After descending from the road I first walked up the slot in a northerly direction until the slot started to widen. I then turned around and headed South. It's an easy and worthwhile walk, even if the the slot is maybe not as impressive as some of the others I have walked. If a ten or twenty mile hike of, say, the Paria slot is not quite your cup of tea, this might be for you. The hike of the slot takes maybe 90 min and then you may have to walk along the Cottonwood road for another 45 min back to your car if you can't have a second vehicle waiting for you at the end.

Some shots:

Upper Cottonwood slot canyon

Rockfall in Lower Cottonwood slot canyon

Lower Cottonwood slot canyon

As I exited at the bottom of the slot canyon at the Cottonwood Narrows South TH I saw a rancher on horseback driving a few cows and calves up the road. Once he noticed me he stopped and told me to just pass by his cows while he was turning around to get back to his truck and trailer. The sneaky bastard made me drive his cattle! The cows would look back and see me still following them, so they would trot up the road, stop and look back, still see me coming up the road, probably thinking "I can't believe he is still following us!" and the cycle would repeat until I reached my car at the Upper Trailhead. I never passed the cows, nor did they ever get off the road to let me pass.

Lower Hackberry canyon - Stone Donkey canyon - Hogback canyon - Paria canyon Loop

In 2019 during my WASU hike I had come down Upper Hackberry canyon from Grosvenor Arch/Round Valley Draw. I had then followed a suggestion by Jamal on Across Utah.com to hike up Stone Donkey canyon, cross over to Pollock Arch and reach the Paria river via Hogback canyon. By following this suggestion I had not hiked all of Hackberry canyon and now was the time to see lower Hackberry and to revisit Stone Donkey and Hogback canyons.

I entered Hackberry at the eponymous trailhead where the canyon debouches into Cottonwood canyon. Within a couple of hundred yards it slots up and you navigate around the creek running in the bottom, crossing it innumerable times. There is some noteworthy geology, noteworthy to me as a non-connaisseur at least.

I camped at the junction with Sam Pollock canyon canyon leading to Pollock Arch and next morning continued up Hackberry canyon. While there had been cattle in the lower portion of the canyon, upstream of the narrows, I did not encounter cattle upstream of Sam Pollock canyon, although there was the occasional cow pie. Between Sam Pollock canyon and the entry to Stone Donkey canyon Hackberry canyon is often brushy and narrow, but progress was good on a very cold and windy morning.

The French have a saying that the more things change the more they stay the same. Between Spring 2019 and Spring 2022 there had been a significant change: 2019 had been a very wet Spring in the Southwest while 2022 had seen severe drought. And things did not stay the same! At all! In 2019 both Stone Donkey and Hogback canyons had had great water flowing, and lots of it. This year there was a little bit of flow at the lower ends of both canyons, but it was pretty disgusting. Luckily I had filled up at Hackberry sufficiently to make it through both canyons and Lower Death Hollow, the mesa separating the two. Luckily also, the Paria had much better water than it had had in 2019 when it had been rather murky and difficult to filter.

Lower Hackberry canyon wall

Not exactly aqua fina in Lower Hackberry

Frank Wilhoit cabin, now a BLM site, but originally the home of a Hackberry canyon settler

This time I followed Stone Donkey canyon all the way to the slot canyon at the end. One can only go up the slot for 20 yards before it gets too narrow to even slide up sideways.

I returned to mid-canyon where I climbed out on the left bank through a series of dryfalls and, once up, following cattle trails through the soil crusts. In 2019 I had passed behind Cottonwood peak to avoid walking above the Stone Donkey slot canyon, a walk described by Jamal as "sketchy". With more miles in Utah under my belt, I wanted to see what the "sketchy" part was all about, all the more so as my route in 2019 had had a sketchy section as well.

I followed the cattle trails across some washes and then reached the slickrock bench above the slot. The bench is slanted towards the slot canyon, but it is not any worse than walking the benches above Stevens canyon. In fact one can see a seam-like structure from some way away and it provides a very nice, narrow terrace, about a foot width wide, that one can walk on. There are a few sections where this has eroded away for a few feet, but it is entirely straightforward to walk.

An almost dryfall in Stone Donkey canyon

Nearing the back of Stone Donkey canyon

Stone Donkey slot canyon

Above the Stone Donkey slot canyon

Slickrock bench above Stone Donkey slot canyon. The horizontal line in the upper right quarter of the picture indicates the ledge that one can walk on

Beginning of Stone Donkey slot canyon

I then crossed towards the West above the slot and worked my way across Lower Death Hollow to the entry to Hogback canyon. As I had written in my WASU trip report, the upper canyon has a curveball waiting for you. Specifically, at the top you will involuntarily end up walking a dry stream bed as that gets you around most of the brush and trees. If you follow this stream bed too far down you end up on a slickrock bench with cliffs that will prevent you from getting down. What one has to know, or learn the hard way, is that there is a cleft running the length of upper Hogback and one has to be to the left of this cleft (LDC). One must leave the stream bed and make ones way over to the left (LDC) at an altitude higher than 1740 m, which is where the cleft begins or runs out.

The critical slot at the back of Hogeye canyon from below

The cleft in Hogeye canyon viewed from below.

View of the cleft from the "wrong" side, the cliff side from my 2019 hike

I had blissfully forgotten how steep and loose the back of Hogback is. I do not think this is suitable for a group to descend, a two- or threesome would be ok. A larger group would be really badly slowed down if it followed the proper procedures to avoid hitting persons lower down with rocks loosened by those higher up.

Last time I had walked to an obvious chimney rock and descended to its right immediately above the cleft. I did so again this time, but then chose to explore the chute at the very left. NO! Very loose in the upper part and then comes a vertical section I did not see how one would get down. So I retreated, with some difficulty, to higher ground and then climbed through the dryfall as I had done three years earlier. Once you exit the dryfall you must stay high and contour on the left flank across some rather steep and loose slopes until you can see your path to the bottom of the wash.

Middle and lower Hogback canyon was not as magical as I remembered it. This was likely due to the lack of water. The little water that was there was brown and frothy and hardly flowed. The walking itself was mostly easy and I encountered only one obstacle, the major rockfall near the bottom that took a little bit of scouting to get over/around/through. I must have manged to somehow avoid the second obstacle that I had encountered three years earlier, a major logjam. Maybe it had been cleared out by a flood.

I camped at the junction of the Paria and Hogback canyon, filtered some Paria water which was very good. Next morning I followed the Paria towards Cottonwood canyon. There were ATV and truck treads in the water apparently from people loading/unloading horses. And downstream there were cows and calves, lots of them. The Paria wash is very wide, brushy in places and has many cattle trails on the banks on either side. One can walk pretty efficiently. I should add that you may want to collect water from the Paria near the junction with Hogback as the water is rather murky past the junction with Kitchen Canyon Creek.

I had a good time and can recommend the hike if you are up for the off-trail bits in Hogeye.

Phipps Canyon and Arch

Last time I had visited Phipps Arch I had come up from the Escalante. In the intervening years I have car camped along the Spencer Rd and had looked down from the escarpment that the road runs across into Phipps canyon and thought that that might be an interesting canyon to follow to the arch. This year was the year this was actually going to happen.

There is a way that one climb down from the Spencer Rd to the bottom of Phipps canyon, but one would miss out on the upper portion of the canyon. I therefore walked the highway down to where it bottoms out and scouted a way to get into Phipps canyon. There is a slight kink towards the South in the road and right there is a way to get in. The walls of the canyon are very steep further West, I doubt that there is a way down starting near the highway.

It is a mixture of slickrock and deep sand that one walks on first with a few major dryfalls that one can easily walk around. There were actually some potholes with water, even in dry 2022. As you move further South the sand gets deeper and deeper and walking harder and harder. There are some great dryfalls down there as well as cliffs with desert varnish.

Deep pothole in slickrock in Phipps canyon

A walk-around of a 15-20 ft dryfall in Phipps canyon

The Phipps canyon major dryfall, some 50 ft in height. The pool at the bottom one can see on Google Earth.

You can see how large the pool is in normal year, several thousand gallons I would guess

Another major dryfall in a side canyon of Phipps canyon

Next comes a brushy section but there is a use trail that makes it easy to make it through. There is some stagnant water the color of long-steeped tea. You then come to the junction with the use trail going up the arch. This is not a straightforward climb, in other words there is no trail that you can follow all the way up. there are bits and pieces of trail and then you have to pick your poison with respect to which slickrock bench you want to climb up. There was a young couple with a big dog, but doggie was not having any of it.

Up at the arch there was peace and quiet, unlike the first time I had been there in 2019. There were three canyoneers and a couple about my age and everybody stayed out of each others way.

Phipps Arch

I then walked up to the highway bridge across the Paria on the use trail on the right bank and headed up along the highway in direction of Spencer road and my camp. The last few miles the couple I had met at the arch gave me a ride, which I was thankful for as the traffic was kind of fast and the visibility on the curvy road not great, either for me or the drivers.

This was a fun and worthwhile day hike.

Upper Muley Twist canyon

I had first hiked this canyon as part of my 2019 WASU route, but have been itching to get back there and hike at a more leisurely pace. This spring my opportunity came knocking.

I parked at the first parking spot off the Burr road. One can drive further to second parking near the Strike-Valley overlook. However, the road is rather rough in places and I don't mind walking. I can also look around much more when I am walking rather than driving.

The Canyonland NP write-up for Upper Muley Twist Canyon recommends to do the loop hike in a clockwise direction for reasons that are not entirely clear to me. For my money I find it easier to ascend the two slickrock slabs one has to scramble over than descending them, although I have never actually descended them, so it's just, like, my opinion, man.

Once you pass the parking spot below Strike Valley Overlook you walk in the wash bottom until the trail to the crest leaves to the right. There is a sign there, but it's a bit higher up and not in the drainage bottom, so you have to pay attention. The trail climbs through some convoluted terrain and then reaches a slickrock bench overlooking Grand Gulch. It's a gorgeous view on a clear day. I then headed North on a cairned trail over slickrock. Towards the Northern end the trail runs along either side of the steep ridge and you cross back and forth. There is some mild exposure, but nothing scary. From the ridge there are also magnificent views into the Upper Muley Twist drainage and over to the western wall of the canyon and lands beyond further West.

A small arch high up near the entry to Upper Muley Twist canyon.

Upper Muley Twist Arch

A view North along Grand Gulch/Halls creek in Canyonlands NP

A view across to the East, the Henry mountains and Manitou mountain

A look towards the East on Tarantula mesa which I had crossed as part of the Hayduke route

A look South along the axis of Grand Gulch/Halls Creek in Canyonlands NP

A view South over the Circle cliffs

A view North over the Oyster Shell Reef

Once you reach the Northern terminus you climb down on somewhat convoluted trail to reach the wash bottom where I camped in a little nook that provided some shielding from the fierce wind. Next morning I hiked along the wash, climbed out to the left bank to get around dryfalls and eventually returned to the wash bottom for the hike back out to the car.

It had been a glorious two days with great views and I appreciated having a bit more time to linger and gaze than I had afforded myself three years earlier while on the "mission" to cross Utah.