Hanksville and Little Wild Horse Canyon

Saturday October 22^nd we got up, made breakfast, and headed right back in to Natural Bridges. We had a plan! I was going to run the 3-mile trail from Sipapu Bridge to Kachina Bridge. Michael’s plan was to put the 40-lb sandbag into his ruck, hike down to Sipapu Bridge, do a CrossFit-style sandbag workout (3RFT: 10 pushup/squat clean/thruster complex, 10 sandbag shoulder lunges, 10 side-to-side sandbag drags), and then load that sandbag back into his ruck and hike back out.

Have I mentioned that sometimes I think he’s crazy?

The run was fabulous, and the only lousy part was this family that I passed on the way down to Sipapu Bridge. It was during that portion of the trail that is super-steep ( it descends 500 feet in just over ½ mile). There were maybe 6 of them,  think. And it’s not like I had to ask them if I could pass. They either heard or saw me coming up behind them and stepped off the trail for me. I thanked each of them.

That I thanked them is important to note (for me, anyway) because the leader of this little clan was an old dinosaur who would not stop giving me a hard time. Asking me what my hurry was, what’s the rush, etc. He must have been saving the zinger for when I reached him: “what, is there a sale at the bottom?”

“That’s harsh, man,” is all I said. It was the most polite thing I could think of.

“Well, what are you doing?” he demanded.

“I’m running over to the next bridge,” I said as I hurried away. He relayed that to the rest of his group in a loud voice. As if it mattered.

Michael told me later that the old fart grilled him about my “rude behavior” as well. I guess he’d never heard of trail running? And somehow my thanking each member of his party for letting me pass was considered rude.

Whatever. Like I said, the trail was fabulous and I had a great run. And I managed to finish just 5 minutes after Michael arrived at the Kachina Bridge parking lot to pick me up.

Moving on, we headed west on Hwy 95 (which actually goes south, and then north, but hey, the highway signs themselves say westbound) for the scenic drive to Hanksville.

 

OK, not all of it was scenic. What the heck this guy was actually doing as a scenic pullout I have no idea. I guess he really wanted to work on his tan?

 

 

 

For the most part, then, the drive was incredibly scenic. Hanksville was not. Did I mention we expected to restock in there? Well, shit. Hanksville consists of 3 gas stations and a “market” that was completely devoid of fresh vegetables. We even drove around a bit, trying to figure out if the actual main drag was off the highway or something. Nope. This place was desolate. We decided we had enough food to get us through a couple more days and headed out towards Goblin Valley.

Finding a campsite was easy – and ours even had a stack of firewood next to a well-used fire ring. It was a lovely evening. No wind, not too cold, lots of stars. Sometimes I wonder what I will do when I can’t see the Milky Way every single night.

I was so excited to get to Little Wild Horse Canyon on Sunday the 23^rd that I could barely contain myself. We stopped by Goblin Valley State Park for information (I didn’t even know how long the hike was, we went on a recommendation from my friend Kevin Slick). But we were able to check the weather and get all the pertinent info. Goblin Valley is a black hole for cell reception.

I’d never hiked a slot canyon before, and now I’m afraid this experience has gone and spoiled me. So. Much. Fun! Scrambling and crawling over (sometimes under) rocks, twisty passages, route finding… this place had it all.

The hike starts out through a wide, sandy wash. Then things start to get narrower…

And narrower…

Sometimes we had to get creative to move forward.

At one point, we actually ended up in front of a pool. I couldn’t tell how deep it was, or if there was a way up on the other side. It looked like a dead end and we decided we must have missed a turnoff somewhere, and started backtracking until we found it. It was pretty obvious, don’t you think?

We ran into a couple of other hikers later on who said that the pool wasn’t that deep and that yes, there was a way to climb out on the other side.

 

Anyway, the trail wasn’t all super narrow. There were several sections that opened up wide:

 

 

We saw the mud do some pretty strange stuff.

 

 

 

 

 

We wanted to spend another night in Goblin Valley. But the forecast we saw… was for rain. Now, the camping areas are well away from any slot canyons. But the roads out there are all deep sand, or red clay, and either way that stuff that becomes impassible when wet, even for 4WDs. If we’d had a full pantry I think we would have been willing to hang out. But the larder was bare. Not the first time we’ve had to change plans due to weather, but it still sucks.

We pinned our hopes on Loa, Utah, and headed out. Along the way we passed some crazy scenery. Utah is a strange state. After all the red of Goblin Valley, passing by Factory Buttes was a shock.

It was like a volcano spewed ash all over the landscape. Things turned red again as we passed through Capitol Reef National Monument, and we looked forward to Loa. It was a bigger town than Hanksville. Maybe it even had a Wal-Mart?

HA! Loa did not have a Wal-Mart. Although they did have a grocery store. Which was closed because it was Sunday.

Ah, Utah. You’re driving me crazy right now.