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This photo of kitchen on the river shows how
comfortable camp
can be when packing with horses. We supply all the
communal
elements needed for a 5 or 6 day hiking trip:
chairs, serving tables, tents, cookware, oven & stove,
etc. We also supply the latest sleeping pads made by
one of our favorite gear companies, Thermarest.
Guests on our trips bring personal footwear and
clothing that is appropriate to the trip and time of
year. For example, in the summer we spend more time
wading in the river so wading shoes are especially
important. In the cooler months we keep wading to a
minimum.
We asked trip
leader Grant Johnson to name five things that he
could not live without on the Escalante River and
here's what he came up
with:
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This exciting new trip is possible only because of
the low level of Lake Powell. We will explore the
incredible gorge that we call a fragment of the lost
Glen Canyon as it so resembles Glen Canyon: huge
overhangs, wet winding narrows, hanging gardens and
a clear stream with a slickrock bottom. Waterpocket
Fold was aptly named by John Wesley Powell because
of the thousands of pools that stair step in each
steep wash. These pools create springs that flow
into a creek where we camp under ancient cottonwood
trees.
For a detailed view of the trip and to see some
images from this area, click on the link below.
As always, if you have any questions about any
aspect of our trips, give us a call.
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Note: The following story is a narrative by trip
leader, Grant Johnson, about a day hike on the Glen
Canyon One trip in the fall of 2005.
A fork in the canyon presented a couple of choices;
my typical impulse was to see something new. I
wanted to turn right, upstream, instead of the left
that would take us downstream and to a place I knew
well. Although I had been up the canyon on several
occasions, it had been 20 years, and I couldn't
remember details; just an impression that it was
brushy and hard to move through. Downstream:
colosseum sized alcoves, hanging gardens, narrows,
amazing beauty. Upstream: hard to say, uncharted. A
group discussion decided the direction. We'd head
upstream, into the unknown, unprepared for what we'd
find that day.
Within the first quarter mile we were blocked by
deep pools behind beaver dams and thickets with
sharp stumps of oak and willow, some freshly cut,
some older, showing that dam builders had been at
work for years. The canyon walls curved over the
canyon floor and the near vertical north faces were
crusted with vibrant yellow-orange and green lichen.
The sandstone was a light buff with an undertone of
orange.
At one point, forced against the wall by a pool of
water, we ducked under oaks and water birch and came
face to face with a row of painted figures. The
ancient artist had given them headdresses of red,
white and greenish-blue. Pictographs that looked
similar to many Fremont Indian figures further
upstream, but different. In the Escalante, all rock
art seems to vary showing artistic independence
within a cultural affiliation.
We were walking on old soil deposits (alluvium) 20
feet above the stream bed. Overgrazing and the
resulting erosion in the late 1880's had lowered the
water table and left banks of alluvium, such as the
one we were walking on, in all side canyons of the
Escalante River and the river itself. This canyon
was different from the others; it was transforming.
Grazing had stopped many years ago and the canyon
had been in an accelerated level of recovery unlike
anything I had seen.
As we bushwhacked upstream, the dirt banks of the
eroded alluvium grew higher and the stream bed
widened into a sea of reed grass that was nearly
impossible to cross. Frogs, visible everywhere,
croaked and birds chirped fluttering all around us.
A herd of deer crashed ahead until they could
double back behind. We were blocked by thick reeds
in water forcing us to follow the banks until we
could find a beaver dam to cross. The dams were
mostly made of reed grass with a few willows and
cottonwood suckers which grew from their stumps like
an inverted broom. The water table was rising to the
point that many old oak stumps isolated on the
alluvium sprouted with renewed vigor. Reed grass
was even beginning to poke out of the old dry layer
in places. On one bend it looked as if the old dirt
layer, now thirty feet above the stream, blocked the
entire canyon. As we neared, a giant room at least
100 feet deep with the stream inside became visible.
We entered the massive chamber and found a sand bank
against the back wall to sit on and lunch. The
stream bed was braided and full of freshly deposited
sand from recent flooding; an illustration of how
plant growth and beaver action rebuilt the alluvium.
High on the wall of the alcove, at the elevation of
the old alluvium layer, was a thick black line. We
were lucky to have a scientist/naturalist on the
trip who explained that when the alluvium was in its
deposition cycle, long before the canyon was grazed
by livestock, it was saturated and the water and air
line allowed bacteria to create a mineral deposit of
manganese and iron similar to desert varnish. Below
it, there were dimmer horizontal black lines that
indicated other stable periods. After lunch, we
continued upstream but were blocked by thickets and
water forcing us to retreat to where we could cross
to the dirt banks to keep moving upstream.
A deer trail full of fresh tracks led us up to the
old canyon bottom layer that was now 40 feet
above the stream bed. Native bunch grasses were
taking over the sage and cheat grass, although the
latter, an exotic, was still dominant. Groves of
large oak were all around and as the cut bank led us
to the side, a huge alcove taking up the entire 500
foot wall came into view and beyond it another. A
pile of rubble lay against the wall in the first.
As we neared, an electric shock shot up my spine!
There was a large red figure, probably eight feet
tall that was a bird of some sort. It had a large
round body, two rake shaped wings sticking straight
out, a long neck and a head. Next to it was a couple
of smaller feet-like figures and next to that
something that looked like a huge faint cow figure
at least 15 feet long. After admiring those, we
continued on to enter the next huge alcove to find
two figures painted in red. The man, with feet
pointing in one direction, faced the woman who
floated somewhat above. She had Hopi hair bobs and
no legs. In the center of the alcove was a conical
pile of rubble 100 feet high with a large flat slab
of rock perched on top, suitable for an oratory or a
seat to view the entire canyon bottom. On the far
side of that we found a depression next to the wall
that had more pictographs of what appeared to be a
front view of sheep heads along with other images. I
have never seen any artwork that looked like the
ones we saw this day.
Further, upstream it looked like the canyon ended
but as we approached the ridge in front of us the
stream emerged from the side of the canyon. We
entered a colossal room glowing red in the shape of
a half moon with a ceiling hundreds of feet high.
The flat sand floor was carpeted with only a
delicate succulent plant that grew an inch or two
high and several inches apart with an undulating
stream that appeared red in the light reflected from
the ceiling. The scene compelled us into silence.
This was our turnaround point.
We returned on a different path. Opposite our
canyon lunch spot, we noticed a huge alcove facing
south with constructed walls up high in the back.
Keeping our distance from the site, we climbed to
look at the ruins of several rooms and a granery.
The camp was nearly two hours away but dark just an
hour and a half. We walked back to camp through
domes of orange slickrock and over grassy patches of
red sand inadvertently following huge buck tracks. The
light was fading. Our heads were filled with
exciting images of the day. Up ahead, between two
knobs of sandstone, stood the buck. He turned his
head in our direction, displayed his massive
antlers, then disappeared.
A note from Grant: When I got home, I researched
the site we had found and noted the following
interesting comments by James Gunnerson who
excavated this site in 1957:
"The gulch once contained a deep bed of sandy,
alluvial fill which is now extensively eroded,
leaving a terrace in many places. Prior to this
cutting cycle, the valley floor in front of the site
would have been about 100 yards width of probably
fair farmland. A clear spring-fed stream now flows
over bedrock below a 20 foot high terrace."
This demonstrates that the canyon is truly filling
in again. Not only is no bedrock visible, but also
a swamp is capturing all the sand brought in by
floods. Fresh sand bars in the pond behind the
beaver dam are evidence of this.
Gunnerson also said that there were at least 3
rooms, a granary and a Kiva. The Kiva was found to
have a vent shaft for the fire leading from the
outside rubble, a niche and seven loom anchors for
weaving. Other interesting finds were, cotton cloth,
yucca sandals. Wooden cups and pottery that were
Kayenta Anasazi style showing affiliation with the
culture from the southeast near Navajo Mountain.
Kayenta Anasazi were the people who settled in Boulder,
UT and built a village, presently the location of
the Anasazi State Park.
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Again, thank you for opting into our newsletter. Please let us know if there is something you'd like to read about in the future. If you have any questions about our trips, please feel free to call. I am happy to answer your questions.
Regards,
Sue Fearon
Escalante Canyon Outfitters
email:
info@ecohike.com
phone:
888-326-4453
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