Between A Rock And A Hard Place

Alrighty then…here we go. Another one of those epic experiences in life that will stick with you for all eternity and shapes the very entwined fabric of being that you are. It would prove to be part road trip, part relaxing car camping, part desert wanderings, part creep show and mostly pure adventure. You might want to get comfortable for this one…It has one epic story, four videos and darn near one hundred photos!

This was the trip I had been waiting for twenty four years. One of those trips that a parent dreams about happening but often never comes to fruition. A moment in time, when you are able to bond on a one on one level like never before. To open up your soul, share your hopes and dreams, successes and disappointments. And most of all, to share a passion for adventure and hope that it will all be looked back on with fond memories, by the apple that did not fall too far from the tree!

Thursday May 28th 2015:
I wake at home giddy with the knowledge that I will be spending the next four days on a grand adventure with my son Taylor. With the Jeep already packed with camping gear, I get showered, pack the cooler and grab my camera gear and head off to the Salt Lake City airport. The flight arrives as scheduled and we are off headed down I-15. After about a half hour I decide we should stop to check the air pressure in the tires as I remembered that the rear drivers side was almost flat a couple of weeks prior. Sure enough. that tire was about 20 lbs low. Mental note to myself…we are going to need to keep an eye on that one!

Being Thursday I had high hopes of securing a particular camp spot on a spur road off of the Spooky Gulch trailhead road. I had seen this site on my only other trip to the trailhead back in 2011. We made good time on the trip south and stopped at Subway in Torrey, UT to pick up some sandwiches that we would call dinner that evening.

Arriving in Escalante at about 3PM, we decided to stop by the ranger station and pick up the required camping permits for the Grand Staircase/Escalante National Monument. We inquired about the condition of the slot canyons. Particularly whether they had any reports on the amount of water being held in them. They said that Spooky and Peekaboo would be dry but that Zebra and of course Brimstone would be wet. Sounded pretty much like the conditions I had experienced back in 2011.

So off we headed down the old Hole In The Rock Road we headed. For those of you interested in the history of the Hole In The Rock Road,you can read a short NPS article here.

The Spooky Gulch traihead road breaks of the Hole Road at mile 26.5, and we continued to make good time reaching it at about 4:30. And much to my amazement, lo and behold, the site I had my hopes on was vacant. WooHoo! We settled into camp, pitched the camp condo and kicked back to enjoy our Subway dinner. Then spent the rest of the evening a-pickin’ and a-grinin’ on the Martin Backpacker guitar I had brought and exchanging stories of old. Anxious with anticipation of the following days adventure, we were nestled in our bags early enough to get a good nights rest.

Friday May 29th 2016:
Andrea gently wakes me at 5:00 AM… I dress myself, stumble out of the temt, grab my camera gear and scramble to the top of the nearby rocks and begin to capture the morning spectacle as the sun rises. When the pleasant color and light fades, I am back in camp brewing up some morning joe in my trusty old percolator and heating water for oatmeal. Then get Taylor up and organize the pack for the days adventure in the slots.

Our plan for the day was to hike the infamous triple header… Peekaboo Gulch, Spooky Gulch and then finish with Brimstone Gulch. I had done the three back in 2011 in one day, but felt I was probably in better shape at that time. Even then I found myself with a serious case of Dragin’ Butt by the time I got back to camp.

We got a good early start and were at the traihead before any others arrived. This would make for a great experience without being distracted by the presence of other hikers in the canyons. The hike to Peekaboo is a short mile or so and all down hill as the trail drops steeply into the canyons.

To get into Peekaboo requires a 20-25 foot climb on the sandstone. It is a relatively easy scramble except for the last six feet or so. This section gives you one down-sloping foothold on the sandstone and then a grab for the top. On my previous trip I had begun to peel off the rock when a guy at the top grabbed me by my pack and hauled me up. This time was not much difference except that it was Taylor at the top grabbing my hand and giving me the haul up.

Upon entering Peekaboo you are presented with a series of arch covered bowls that echo off ahead of you like looking into a repeating set of mirrors. You climb up out of one bowl, pass through the arch and drop into the next bowl…then repeat. Great fun scrambling through the natural artistic sculptures. Then comes the tighter slot requiring removal of the backpacks in order to squeeze through sideways. After about a half a mile or so, you begin to slowly rise out and the walls enclosing you get shorter and shorter until you pop out onto the desert above.

From here it is a mile or so across the desert to the south to reach the next drainage and follow that to the west to the entrance of the second slot canyon…appropriately named Spooky Gulch! Spooky get its name from how deep, dark and narrow it gets. At its tightest spots, it is a mere 8 inches wide…Not a place for the claustrophobic!

We enter the canyon easily meandering through the twisting and turning crack in the earth as it gradually narrows to the first of the difficulties. Easy progress through the canyon is blocked by many large boulders piled up. I recalled this section from the previous trip. We began to search for the small hole in the rocks that provided access down into the dark abyss below. After a brief look around the boulders, Taylor locates the doorway to the beyond. Being younger and more agile, Taylor leads the way into the darkness leaving his pack behind for me to lower down to him when he reaches the canyon floor. After another five to ten minutes of negotiating, I am able to lower myself into the cavern. Here is the video of that section.

Down on the canyon floor, under the boulders, we exit out through the backdoor and the the walls close in quickly narrowing to under a foot wide. With packs removed and held in our trailing hands, we squeeze through shuffling sideways. It gets darker and deeper to the point where you cannot see the top or the sky above. I stop frequently, trying to brace myself against the walls to steady the camera…necessary for the long exposures to photograph in the dark.

The walls, covered with these creepy wart like bumps, add to the aura the place and cause chills to shiver down your spine. Pinned in the now 8 inch fissure, Chest pressed up against the rock on one side and back against the other with my pot belly sucked in, I stop again trying to photograph the scene in front of me, when I see it…I call out to Taylor…”No, you have got to be kidding! Oh no! What the heck! This is sick!” On the walls next to my head, catching only the silhouettes from the dim light filtering down into the depths…My eyes catch movement on the rocks…Spiders! Many, many spiders! All crawling upwards…oh no, no this cannot be happening here and now!…I have got to get out of this place like right now! All playing on some of my greatest fears from deep within my subconscious!

Finally the crack begins to widen and it gets lighter as the walls lower nearing the end of Spooky Gulch. Here is another video as we near the end of Spooky.

We pop out the end of the canyon and find a place in the shade to hydrate and eat some lunch. After the short break we continue farther down Dry Fork canyon in search of the next drainage and the route to Brimstone Gulch. As appropriately named as is Spooky.

We near the entrance to Brimstone when we upset a Raven who squawks at us and disappears into a crack in the canyon wall. Reaching Brimstone, nearing the heat of the day, we enter the canyon and immediately are hit in the face with a cold breeze…an unearthly cold breeze…a kind of cold breeze that should not be found in the desert.

The walls of the canyon are blackened…the blackened kind of look as if having been exposed to intense flame like an incinerator. Brimstone gets dark very quickly as the walls are a couple hundred feet tall and little light reaches the canyon floor.

Inside the dark canyon we hear the cawing sounds of a raven…then the echoing sounds of its wings frantically beating against the narrow walls high above…and then catch a fleeting glimpse as it disappears into the darkness…Was this the same raven we had seen earlier?

Playing off more of the dark places deep in my mind, a poem first read back in high school came to mind. The poetic story by Edgar Allen Poe…The Raven. An eerie poem in which the raven is continually saying “Nevermore…nevermore”.

We reach the first water and decide to don our water shoes as to try and keep our others dry for the hike out. We enter the water and it is cold…very, very cold. It begins to deepen quickly and we turn back deciding to leave our packs behind. As I turn around, my eyes catch something in the water…is that a snake in the water? No, thankfully it is only a stick that looks like a snake…whew! Here is a video of that section.

Back to dry land we drop our packs and with camera in hand, we enter the icy water again. With Taylor leading he begins saying something about something floating in the water…with the darkness and my bad eyes I cannot see what he is talking about. He says he thinks somebody left a t-shirt behind and it is floating in the water and has brushed up against him. We continue on into the darkness and the ever deepening water. It gets to chest deep and has narrowed to the point where further progress is restricted. Ok, well we took it as far as we could get…lets turn around and get the heck out of this icy tomb… my nougans are frozen…painfully frozen! We reach the spot where Taylor had found the floating t-shirt when he says “Dad…I’ve got some bad news for you…It’s not a t-shirt…It’s a dead raven!” You have got be kidding! In my head I am thinking…”Nevermore…nevermore”. I try to take a couple of photos of it but there was not enough light to even focus the camera and all were unusable. Unbelievable! Was that the same raven as earlier? Nevermore.

We make our way out of Brimstone and find a dry boulder to re-hydrate and dry off on before making the hike back to the trailhead. Unfortunately we make a similar mistake to my previous trip here and do not find the correct route back out. After some more aimless desert wanderings, something I am getting quite experienced in, and an exhausting hike back up the rocks, we are back at the Jeep and had put about 12.5 miles behind us. It was a great day filled with more crazy macabre adventure than I had bargained for…One for story books. We spend another evening just a-pickin’ and a-grinin’ and turn in exhausted from the days travels and experience.

Saturday May 30th 2015:
The following morning we sleep in a bit longer as our itinerary for the day is not near as ambitious as the previous day. We head back down the Hole In The Rock about 15 miles to the trailhead at the cattle guard to make the hike out to Zebra Canyon. Another aptly named location by the stripes in the rock. Of all the slot canyons I have explored, Zebra is second in beauty only to the famous Antelope Canyons in Arizona.

The hike out to Zebra is several miles. Starting out on the flat sagebrush desert and the dropping down into the canyons and out into Harris Wash. Once reaching the slot canyon, the water begins immediately but is not near as deep or cold as Brimstone. There is much more light and the overall feeling is not ominous and much more positive. The sculpting and color is artistically fantastic! Here is a video of the first section of Zebra.

We travel to the end where a climb is necessary to pass some chokestones. I stay there and photograph while Taylor makes the climb up and out of sight to explore as far as he can get. We then take our time returning the way we came, and I enjoy the opportunity to capture some more photographs of this unique location.

After the hike back out to the trailhead, we spend the rest of the day exploring the hoodoos out at the Devils Garden. For those interested, my photos of this area from another trip can be found here.

The final evening is spent enjoying some barbecued bratwurst, canned green beans, a couple of cold ones and more a-pickin’ and a-grinin’. The nights rest was interrupted when some of the free range cattle decided to pay us a visit. I awoke to the sound of snorting and cud chewing right above my head! What the heck? The the cow then, with hoofs a clomping, walked right around the tent…thankfully did not get startled and run over the top of us!

Sunday May 31st, 2015:
We wake knowing that we have many miles to go to get back in time to get a little social time with the family before sending Taylor back on his flight home to Denver. As we organize our gear preparing to load up the Jeep, Taylor turns to me and says “Dad, I’ve got some bad news…The tire is flat!”. Alrighty then…we are a mere 30 miles off the nearest paved road and close to 35 miles from the nearest town! Thank goodness for a good spare! Guess we had to add one last element of surprise to our grand adventure!

And so ends another great trip to the Escalante wilderness…