Once again, we needed to cover lots of ground in a short amount of time to get to the trail head, so I was at the wheel. This dirt road was much wider and smoother, so I upped our fastest offroad speed to 60 mph. Then we hit 70 on the way back out. It sure is nice to have a big ‘ol V8 in that thing!
After packing up and stowing all of the bikes inside the van, we were off down Coyote Gulch. Where in Great Basin they recommended staying on the trail, here they just said good luck, there may be some sort of trail if you’re lucky. We even bought some topo maps and took the GPS, both of which came in handy. The terrain there was remarkably different from anything else we had seen so far. Outside the wash was vast desert, which farther down turned into slickrock (petrified sand dunes). Inside the wash there was green grass, trees and bushes galore. The basic theme for the trail was to get down the wash by any means necessary; this meant multiple stream crossings, bushwhacking and searching for some semblance of a trail. While it made for slower going, it sure was fun. Where the bushes were too thick, we just jumped into the stream and walked right on down.
The first day we saw some interesting stuff, but the second day was when we found out why this is the most popular trail in Escalante. Three arches, one natural bridge, waterfalls and views from the top of the Escalante River winding its way down towards Lake Powell. A third of the way down we took a detour up and out of the wash for some cross country adventure. Getting out involved climbing up a steep slick rock face hauling our heavy packs. It wasn’t so steep that you had to use your hands to get up, but it sure helped. Once out, the plan was to head towards the end of the canyon following a penciled-in dotted line on the topo map. With a little luck and some help from the electronics, we found our way to one of the coolest parts of the whole hike: Crack in the Wall. Right at the end of Coyote Gulch, part of the rock wall had peeled off just enough to fill with sand. The way down into the gulch, which was clearly marked on the maps, was to climb down into the crack and shimmy across and down to the exit. It was narrow enough that we had to take off our packs, hold them above our heads and shuffle sideways just to get through. Just the fact that this was the recommended (and only) route down made it even better. Needless to say, we took a ton of pictures, but I’ll only post a few so as not to bore everyone.
After a quick lunch back at the bottom, we started heading back up towards the car. We made it all the way back up to the first arch we saw that day, Jacob Hamblin arch. We camped in full view of the arch; at dusk we watched the full moon rise through it. Where the moonlight came through, it was as bright as day. Two feet away in the shadows it was totally black.
The next morning we were up early for the hike out; Nate had a doctor appointment to get to and I was going to spend some time with my aunt and uncle in Midway, Utah.