Escalante: Day 3

After another rough night sleeping (sort of) I got up today ready for our journey into Coyote Gultch. I could tell the boys were ready to go as well, since we were packed and headed out by around 9 am. The day before no one even moved before 10 am! We packed up all the gear and headed out for the Grand Staircase Monument.


It was a fairly rough road to get to our drop off location, but we managed to get to the trailhead about noon and we were off. To get into the canyon you've got to cross about 3 miles of pretty much desert, with a little slick rock mixed in for good measure. It was a good time to get familiar with your backpack. We went into the canyon through an area called the crack in the rock. Very appropriate name since you had to climb down through a crack in the rock. It was too tight to get through with your pack on, so we needed to lower each one down separately with a rope. I'm glad that no one got hurt - speaking of the backpacks of course. Once we were through the crack, it was another mile or so down into the actual gultch.

Here's where things started to get interesting. We decided to take the right fork from the crack. It seemed like a no-brainer since that was the direction of the water and there was a pretty established trail. One problem, the trail ended with about a 150 foot drop and no where else to go. After some deliberation, we back-tracked a few hundred yards and found a path that hooked up with the left fork. We added about an hour to our hike, but we found the right way into the canyon.

After playing in the water for about an hour, we decided it was time to head up stream and find a camp site for the night. As we were leaving our rest stop, we noticed an interesting landmark from a previous visitor. I don't know what to make of a man with only one shoe and the complete essays of Montaigne, but he can't be all bad. Anyway, we hiked for about another mile and then pitched camp underneath a really cool alcove for the evening. Freeze dried food, here I come!!