We are excited to announce our new partnership, ArcheoHike, with Anasazi State Park. Park Archeologist, Don Montoya, and ECO are working together to provide experiential education programs in the 2007 season. Programs will include:

*day hikes to local archeological sites
*pre trip orientation at the Anasazi State Park
*field visits on our multi day canyon trips

Keep an eye on our schedule for the day hikes.

We have completely re-worked our Wingate Canyons trip with new trail head, separate routes into and out of camp, new camp location and a new name, Wingate Canyons II.
The hiking will include narrows, Anasazi ruins and rock art, summits 1500 feet above the river, canyon bottom walking, ancient trails and, as always, lots of red slickrock.

We finished out the 2006 season with the reminder that the key to our success is flexibilty in the wilderness!

In the first two weeks of October we received an unprecedented 6î of rainfall. Several years ago our yearly total was 4î and we consider 10" in 52 weeks a good year. Half of that rain fell just before our Sunday October 8th departure to Glen Canyon One. By late afternoon on Saturday (Grantís day to head out and make camp) we discovered that culverts on every dirt road had been washed out.
Plan A was, of course, Glen Canyon One. That idea was abandoned by about 2 pm. The road to our Narrows and Kayenta Passages trips (Plan B) was gone. The road to Escalante River Gorge and the Corridors was impassible. Strike Plan C. Plan D, Waterpocket Fold, was ruled out because both the Burr Trail and State Highway 24 were also washed out!
By nightfall it was obvious that virtually every dirt road in the country had become impassable. Then we put our heads together and remembered the trips we used to run in the slickrock country below our place. It was a revelation; a place we knew really well but had not explored in years. So we loaded up and off we went. These slickrock canyons were so full of pockets of fresh rainwater we dubbed it the ìLake District," aka Plan Z.

(Field report by Grant Johnson)

Saturday night before our Sunday departure I poured over the maps of the area south of our home. I had a pretty good idea of where we would make camp having explored this area many times in the last 30 years. What I didnít realize was there could be so many pools! We found hundreds of pools, some hundreds of feet in diameter with deep blue water. We set up a beautiful camp in the sand and slickrock on the ridge right under a 500 foot pinnacle.
With our first sunrise in camp we were sold on the above-the-canyon camp; the sun popped up on the horizon and under lit a sky full of clouds making them bright pink. Thunder rumbled from a storm hitting the slickrock between us and Boulder Mountain.

After breakfast we hiked down one of many canyons past pool after pool between pockets of Ponderosa Pine. When we got to a creek the water was ten feet deep between the constricted walls of the gorge. Then it started to rain. It poured hard and the already saturated slickrock turned silver, then water began to run. A myriad of tiny waterfalls joined to become massive falls that joined and filled the washes. Unable to cross the water, we followed the flood that shot off the cliff into the narrows; the sound was deafening. Mist filled the air.

A couple of days later while watching another spectacular sunrise over coffee I noticed an area of purple domes. Between them ran a deep canyon. We chose that area for exploring. We dropped into a red rock canyon with a drainage that starts at 11,000 feet on Boulder Mountain and includes many square miles of slickrock. The storm and flash flood of a few days before had left a high watermark over our heads; dead trees were piled up like spilled toothpicks. The creek was still too swollen to cross so we made a bridge out of the flood debris, then climbed up onto a south facing ledge with several alcoves full of cultural artifacts (lithics, corncobs, potsherds) and two mud granaries. We sat in the warm sun and ate lunch. Suddenly we heard thunder. Eric went around the corner to investigate, came back and said, ìYou have got to see this sky!î We all followed Eric around the corner to see an extremely black sky and rain. Lightning struck followed by an immediate clap of thunder. We hid under the overhang while it rained briefly then continued hiking around the ledge and found a way into the narrow canyon.

The canyon was full of large Cottonwoods and had a small intermittent stream running over the impermeable mud stone beds of the Kayenta formation. The red walls of the canyon were in the bottom of the Navajo formation, a very porous sandstone. Water seeps through the Navajo and when it reaches the Kayenta Formation, emerges. In the lower Navajo and upper Kayenta are fresh water limestone and mud stone layers, respectively, that force the water to move laterally creating springs.
During the early Jurassic times, 180 million years ago, these impermeable layers created oases in the sahara-like Navajo sand dunes. Dinosaurs frequented these oases and left many tracks in the soft mud. The group was skeptical as I searched for prints but after about 15 minutes found several of different sizes.

For the last two trips of the season the road to Waterpocket Fold remained impassable. We stayed in this high desert camp for two more weeks. It was a good thing; the rain kept coming and our exploration continued.

We ask for feedback from all of our guests. Here are a couple of examples from the October Plan Z trips.

"I loved every aspect of the trip. I was astonished by the nature. Grant & Doug were brilliant guides. They were terrific company. Knowledgeable about geology, history & knew the area inch by inch. I canít imagine anyone better. Plus they enabled me to climb places I never could have imagined climbing. It was a privilege to go on a trip that was so wonderful. One rarely encounters excellence like that." J.H., New York

"(I enjoyed) The different hikes each day-good variety. The ëcanyoneeringí in narrow cracks was great fun, kind of a mix of rock climbing, scrambling and hiking. I liked that there were options each day to come back earlier or go later. The people-Grant is amazing. It goes without saying. His passion for this lights him up and just being around that is a huge treat. Tina and Mary both, so accommodating. And, it was great fun meeting the variety of people, loved that." A.A., Texas

The new Boulder Community Alliance (BCA), a local grassroots nonprofit, is currently focused on travel plans and ATV use on public lands. Many of us on the east side of Garfield County are not aligned with our County's promotion of ATV use and prefer the silence we find in the wilderness.

"There are increasing threats of commercialism which could rapidly compromise the unique qualities of this region and our local economy, the most alarming of which is the widespread promotion of motorized recreation. We seek to work collaboratively to evolve a tourism policy that focuses on the quieter forms of recreation which have thus far defined our region, and shaped our local businesses." Read the entire article ATV Challenge.

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