I looked to my right and dejectedly stared at what I saw. Needlessly, I looked at my watch. Nope, don't even think about it, Brah. You're in deep enough as it is, no need to start stacking up any more misery. You'll get back here again some day.... Yeah, how do you know? What if this is my only chance? Don't be ridiculous. You know that you can get back here, besides, don't you need to start thinking about finding a place to set up camp? We're getting a wee bit late in the day. Oh shut up!!
Knowing that the day's plans had been shot to hell many hours earlier, made the disappointment a tad easier to take. A very small tad. Very reluctantly, taking heed of my good conscience, I plodded on. Thankfully, the disappointment was ephemeral, as around the corner, was the spectacular!!
Bianca and I had been in Paria Canyon on the first day of our four day thru hike of the Paria River Canyon. I knew that we'd likely have a chance to check out Buckskin Gulch, which is a tributary canyon of Paria, as we'd pass right by it on our trip. It is reputed to be the narrowest and longest slot canyon in the area and quite picturesque. I'd errantly thought that we'd make it to the confluence of Paria and Buckskin much earlier in the day and be able to spend a couple of hours going down Buckskin and exploring. Typically we backpack at about 2-3 miles per hour, but as we'd spent the entire day hiking in a river and in thick mud, we'd been much slower and had struggled to maintain a 1-1.5 mph pace. Additionally, we'd stopped to take a lot of pics. At that time, I vowed that we'd get back and spend a trip just exploring Buckskin.
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Fast forward to July 1st of 2021. I was once again prepared to strike quickly, at noon, in order to secure a weekend permit to explore Buckskin. Thankfully, I was successful and was able to snag a permit before they sold out. Redemption!! This time, we'd be going in October, versus November. We could expect slightly warmer temps, and maybe some better scenery, as more foliage would be in prime conditions.
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Well, shit. That's certainly less than ideal, I thought as I read the email. It was early October and just a couple of weeks away from our trip. I'd reached out to our shuttle service to confirm our ride. The shuttle company advised me to be prepared for a lot of mud, and floating debris. The area had been inundated with rain, with more in the coming week forecasted. The area doesn't dry out rapidly due to the extremely narrow nature of the 15 mile long canyon. Very little sunlight reaches the bottom, thus there are always pools of nasty water present, dubbed the "Cesspools" They are typically knee to waist deep and are concentrated over a mile or so in the deepest part of the canyon. During times of extreme rain, they can be chest deep. Definitely unappealing. One has to hold one's backpack over their head, lest it soak in the muck. I'd definitely be keeping my fingers crossed that the area would dry as much as possible between now and the next couple of weeks. Perhaps it might be wise to keep some of these details to myself, I thought. No need to unnecessarily worry Bianca. I owe her that much........
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Finally, the day was here! We got on the road around 1:00 in the afternoon on Friday. As far as I could tell there hadn't been any rain in the area we were headed for a couple of weeks. My fingers were crossed that the area had dried out some and that we wouldn't have as much weather related misery to deal with.
I'd spent weeks planning for the trip and it became apparent that we'd want to go as light as possible. We (I) decided to skip the stove, camp chairs, camp shoes, warmer sleeping bag, extra clothes, and any other comfort items. I also brought a minimal first aid kit. I'd read that there were lots of places where you had to remove your pack to get around some sketchy areas and I also didn't want to hold a heavy pack over my head to wade through chest deep water for very long. We'd forgo some of the creature comforts, like hot coffee and hot food, as well as a place to sit, in order to be as light as possible.
We eventually pulled into Flagstaff to pick up some pizza and boneless wings, as well as a few pastries, which would all go into our packs to be our food for the trip. We grabbed some caffeine and made way for Page, AZ where we'd spend the night. After an awesome dinner at State 48 tavern in Page, we retired to our hotel room.
Though our destination was only 30 minutes away, we were headed to a small slice of Utah in which the time was an hour later, so we lost an hour of sleep. Well, crud!! Not ideal! Thankfully we were able to pick up some breakfast and hot coffee at a gas station along the way, the only place open at that early hour, in the area.
Our shuttle driver was waiting for us at White House trailhead as planned. We loaded our gear and began the drive to the Wire Pass trailhead. It was still pitch dark as we arrived. I wanted to get on the trail ASAP as I knew that we had a 15 mile hike through rough conditions and I really didn't want to deal with any of the known or unknown obstacles in the dark. Additionally, in an unfamiliar area, it's a real chore to find a place to camp in the dark.
As the sun peaked over the horizon, we set sail, at about 0645. It felt so great to finally be on the trail. The temperature was in the 50s. Perfect!
The trail starts out in Wirepass Canyon, which is fairly wide for the first mile or so. After a while it narrows dramatically. It gets so narrow, that you can't turn around with your pack on. It's just a few inches wider than shoulder width.
Shortly after entering the narrowest part of Wire Pass we came to our first obstacle. It's an 8-10 foot drop, due to a boulder jam. Typically there is an old hand crafted wooden ladder in place to downclimb, but it had been washed away in a recent flash flood. We actually saw it a bit further downcanyon wedged about 50 feet above the trail. There was a rope in place, but I'd heard that there was a bypass about 100 yards back. We elected not to tempt fate with an unknown rope and backtracked to where we thought the bypass was.
We made it to the bypass which is a steep climb out and above the canyon. Once at the top a beautiful sight was upon us!
We quickly worked our way back down into the slot canyon. It would be another mile or so to get to where we'd make the turn to Buckskin Gulch.
As we neared the end of Wire Pass, we came upon some petroglyphs etched into the walls of the canyon. They were really impressive. I'm unable to say how old they are, or who made them. I'm assuming that it was a long time ago, and possibly by the Navajo?
Soon enough we came to the end of Wire Pass and made the right hand turn onto the Buckskin Gulch trail. We'd crossed a rubicon and were now committed.
In some parts of Buckskin the terrain was remarkably similar to Wire Pass, and we'd soon find out that it was incredibly different in other ways.
It was time to get wet, which would be the theme for a good portion of the rest of the weekend. Last year, we'd tried wearing Vermont's own Darn Tough wool socks on one day, and neoprene socks the next several. Our feet stayed warmer in the neoprene socks, though not necessarily "toasty" warm. This year we'd added SealSkin socks to our foot arsenal. My feet never got unbearably cold, but by the end of the day they were pretty numb. The takeaway seems to be that on these kinds of adventures, you're going to deal with cold feet. I sure hope we don't get cold feet at our wedding next month!! I digress!
The sights and scenery were spectacular and there was more around every corner.
It wasn't long until we came to our first "obstacle". We got to a big boulder jam and had to figure out how to safely negotiate it. We decided that removing our packs would be necessary. I down-climbed the sketchy jam and then Bianca lowered the packs down to me. I then helped her down. Sometimes you just gotta give each other a helping hand!
It's a nice treat when you find the rare spot where the sunlight actually makes it to the canyon floor. That was a rare occurrence on the first day. We soaked up the sun's rays for a few seconds and continued on. We had a long day ahead of us.
After getting wet a few more times, the hours began to blur together. There is no GPS signal, so you really have no idea where you are or how far you have to go. This can pose a bit of a mental challenge as the day wears on. You have to stay positive and just enjoy the moment, which we did!
My research had indicated that we'd have to complete an approximately 20' rappel in order to move forward once we reached a giant impassable rock fall, towards the end. I had brought some webbing and a rope and planned to rig up a quick rappel. As we made the approach, I soon realized that I didn't have nearly enough webbing to rig a proper anchor. My bad... There were several anchors and a rope in place, but who knows how long they'd been there and how solid they were. Not ideal!! It was tricky just to get to the rappel as you had to scale a slick rock and use an old tree section to be able to gain the spot necessary for the rap. I climbed up and thought, crud! No way Bianca will go for this. I gave the rope a few hard pulls and it did seem quite solid. I was momentarily nonplussed, and searched for any other way down. Alas, there were none. Bianca made her way up to the rap to check it out. She indicated that she thought she could do it. We really didn't have much of a choice. Turning around would have meant 14 grueling miles back to the trailhead, and most of them would be in the dark. Not fun.
She said that she'd do it and I told her to go for it. With a bit of trepidation, she made it. I then took my rope out and lowered all of our gear. Shortly thereafter I went down and we hammered on after a few deep breaths.
I knew that we couldn't be too far from where we'd camp. Daylight was fading and I wanted to find and set up camp in the daylight. After what seemed like an eternity, I turned a final corner and saw the canyon widen dramatically. There were fresh water springs all over. I actually saw a human being. We were stoked to have made it. We found a spot and had camp set up in just a few minutes.
Our spot was incredible. We were on packed sand with great views of the canyon and close by access to spring water. We really didn't need any water. We'd each brought 4 liters and had only consumed about 1.5L apiece.
It was at this point that we were really missing our camp chairs. Sitting on the ground when your body is pretty beat, isn't much fun. I sure did miss having that 1.5 lbs with me. We dug out the pizza and wings and had a proper feast! As darkness fell, we hopped into the tent and quickly fell asleep.
After a serviceable, but by no means grand, night of sleep we awoke around 7:00.We got on the trail around 0745 after a breakfast of cold coffee and pastries. Not bad. Within a half mile we were at the confluence of Buckskin and Paria. We turned left and prepared for a 7.5 mile hike to the car. We'd be in sunshine for a lot of the day as we emerged from the narrow slot canyon into a wider, but every bit as beautiful canyon. Immediately we encountered waist deep water again, as the Paria was much higher than I'd ever seen it. Love all of that rain!
The day flowed on and pretty soon we were in the wider part of the canyon. The sun felt great, though I'd wished I had shorts and a tee shirt to change into.
We got on the road and made a quick pitstop in Page for some food and drinks. After a stop in Flagstaff for a late lunch we began the final leg of the trek home. Thanks to a typical I-17 traffic jam, we were on the road until after 8 PM. A small price to pay for an epic adventure that we were very fortunate to share together!!
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