PHred & BG road trip to canyon country (part 1)

In early September I hit the road and headed out to Boise to pick up PHred and we headed south to canyon country in Utah's Grand Staircase Escalante national monument. We'd been there before a few years back and spent a week hiking down Coyote Gulch to the big river and back. This time we were a little less ambitious - owing in part to my inability to find the water filter and bringing the wrong parts to the stove (I'm blaming it all on the remodel).

After an uneventful drive through Nevada made it to canyon country and started our tour of gulches and arches along the backroads of the Escalante...



We started out with Buckskin gultch. A moderate slot canyon that's typically impassable without floats except in the driest months. We dropped in here at White Pass...



Where the going immediately got narrow...



Once in Buckskin gultch, it got narrower still and as the sun climbed overhead it lit up like a paper lantern. Boy was it gorgeous! And quiet. An occasional raven flew through the slot above our heads - we could hear the woosh of air under every beat of its wings...



The water got chest-high in places and none too warm. We were happy to have only brought day packs as our full rigs would've gotten soaked...



The canyon widened out at this lovely bench that would have been just right for camping. The bench was about 20 feet up, just higher than a massive log jam we passed under upstream. A spooky reminder that flash floods are real hazards in the narrows and it's always worth noting exit routes and safe havens such as this...

this is the first post in a series on the canyon country road trip
click the title of this post for a link to more road trip photos