San Rafael Swell

Howdy all! This weekend Cassie and I headed out to the desert to get in some hiking before it gets too hot. We've been wanting to explore the San Rafael Swell so we picked a couple of things to do around there. In case you don't know the San Rafael Swell is one of the least known areas and yet probably one of the best places to explore in Utah. It's BLM land so camping is free and there's pretty much no one around unless you go to Little Wild Horse canyon (an extremely popular slot canyon for good reason). We decided to explore the west side of the Swell and were rewarded with some fantastic views. After taking my Chem test on saturday we tore down to the Swell and managed to get a short hike in to the Rochester Pictograph panel that comes highly recommended (from our guidebook). It was only a half mile hike to the panel and wow was it worth it. The panel was fairly large with more pictographs in one place than I've ever seen. All kinds of things were drawn on it; lizards, people, deer, snakes and interesting graphics that we couldn't understand. As usual there was a little vandalism. I have to wonder what kind of person thinks people would think anything but bad things of him/her if they put their initials on top of ancient art? After enjoying the panel we headed east towards Eagle Canyon. The suby performed admirably on the dirt road that lead to the mouth of the canyon. We had some close spots but made it to our campsite for the night without any trouble. Indian food was on the menu and we scarfed it down while talking about our world roadtrip that we've been planning for about a year or two. That night was a perfect desert night. No wind and when I woke up in the middle of the night was greeted by one of the most spectacular skies i've ever seen (and that includes skies with the aurora shimmering away in Alaska). The next morning we woke up and ate our favorite breakfast food; Croissants from the French bakery Elaine's. Living in Provo can leave one's palate feeling a bit parched for good cuisine, but eat just one chocolate almond croissant and things are right with the world. We headed down the road to find the start of the canyon and were hiking a bit after 9. The entrance to the canyon is a wash that narrows down over the course of about 4 miles. It was cool as we started hiking up the sandy riverbed. Gradually the sun began to shine it's full force and we (or at least I) was feeling a bit warm as we wound around the snake-like wash. We enjoyed the hike as much as one can hiking in soft sand. Just imagine trying to hike on a beach for four miles and you can imagine it gets a bit old after a while. We saw interesting side canyons and cool huge old trees that have managed to eek out a living in a place where flash floods provide the water for live. Mojo by this time had figured out that staying near the edge of the wash allowed him to stay in the shade so he was mostly happy though his tongue showed he was hot by hanging so far out of his head I thought he might lose it. We arrived at the narrow part of the canyon by about noon and found that it was going to be difficult to get mojo up. One plan almost ended with mojo taking a 15 foot fall to the bottom of the canyon so we decided the old-fashioned way would probably be best. A few hundred more yards of hiking and we were at the dry-fall (that supposedly has water perennially according to the book). We had a bite to eat and headed back down the canyon to explore another cool canyon that the book says is one of the best in the whole Swell (and when you're talking about 2 million acres that's saying something). We found Forgotten Canyon easily and decided to take turns exploring since the rock jams that confronted us were too large and challenging for Mojo. It was definitely worth the extra effort to explore this side canyon because it was quite narrow and beautifully sculpted.

The walls went up for hundreds of feet and the water had eroded the sandstone in wonderful waves. After getting our fill we started trudging back to the car. After that we drove back to Sundance talked to our Mom's on the phones; Happy Mothers Day Dottie and Zsa!!! and found out that tomorrow we are supposedly getting 3-5 inches of Snow!!! Ah Utah, what a wonderfully weird place. Not to many places in the US can you go hiking in a slot canyon with temps in the 80s then go back to the mountains where it might be snowing. On top of that we didn't see a single person for a whole day which is just perfect.