Return to Cedar Mesa, Highway 95, Utah

About 2 miles south of the intersection of Highways 95 and 276 (the latter which goes south to the Bullfrog Marina) are four slot canyons known collectively as the Irish Canyons. They are, from north to south, Lucky Charms, Shillelagh, Blarney and Leprechaun. We set up camp just south of Leprechaun in a BLM area at the foot of another, but much more technical canyon, Sandthrax Canyon (sounds ominous, doesn't it?). One day of rain for us produces more snow on the Henry Mountains to our northwest. Beautiful, isn't it?

Blarney Canyon

Okay, Blarney is just a super fun canyon to explore - no blarney! We actually hike this canyon before we even know which one it was. We just see cars parked here all the time and decide to explore. Most people do the canyon top down - they are usually real climbers and they rappel down the drops which are waterfalls when water is running. These folks are called canyoneers. We do not consider ourselves canyoneers as we don't carry the gear - helmets, harness, carabiners, etc. and we don't rappel or do any of the other "technical" stuff. We do carry a rope, just in case we get stuck, but we've never used it. But this day, we become canyoneers. No rappelling, but we do have to do some stemming, or chimneying, to climb up and over chokestones. I know this doesn't look high, but some of the obstacles we have to climb up are over my head.

Me in the middle of chokestones! This is a bit trickier. We have to crawl under the boulder right behind me, pop up in this small hole, then climb over the rest of the boulders. Going back down was even more fun.

It's about one mile to this dryfall with a rope hanging. Brad actually gets almost half way up, but we are just being silly as we have no intention of actually climbing this. It would be almost impossible anyway. This is what clues me into the fact the true canyoneers start at the top and come down the canyon.

No photo here, I just want to explain what constitutes a very bad day for me. Before we do Leprechaun Canyon, we decide to hike Butler Canyon just a couple of miles down the road. Now, remember I said how rainy it's been this summer and fall in Utah? Well these canyons are still a bit wet, which isn't too much of a problem as most creeks are only a few inches deep if they're running at all. As we start hiking up the canyon from the highway, fallen trees and debris carried downstream by flood waters block our path everywhere, and we have to scramble over and around them. As we get deeper into the canyon where the walls close in a bit and are forced to walk in the creek, which is flowing, we discover quicksand frequently. We're walking on solid sand one minute and in the next step our feet sink several inches. Quicksand can be common here because of the sand/clay mixture, and once it's saturated, it becomes quicksand. Twice, my foot is sucked in up to my laces and I get a soaker. After about one hour of inching our way around the quicksand and through the debris, the canyon still has not slotted up as we expected. We turn around and head back, realizing that this year is too wet to be exploring some of these canyons, especially this one. After lunch back at the trailer, we decide not to waste the rest of this gorgeous day (not a cloud in the sky and about 50F or 10C), so we decide to hike Shillelagh Canyon. Remember my boots are wet inside, so I wear a pair of nice, expensive hiking shoes which I bought about 12 years ago for a trip to the UK with my sisters. I've hardly worn these shoes since. Well, Shillelagh isn't a pleasant bottom-up canyon stroll like Blarney. The bottom of this canyon has a series of dryfalls totalling about 100 feet high. We scale the slickrock (smoothed, sandstone rock) to the side and find what we think is an easy place to drop down into a slot canyon, which turns out to be another dryfall of about 50 feet. So we climb back up the steep slickrock and as we are, the top half of the rubber tread on the bottom of my right shoe rips half off! I cling to the rockface as I start sliding downwards a little. "Turn around and sit on your bum," Brad yells. I do manage to, but now I'm just pissed off. I tear off the rubber tread, but now I'm vulnerable. My shoe is very slippery even on the sandstone (which is like sandpaper), but I manage to make it back up the slope. I'm done. Today is not meant to be. But I still have to climb back down, and as we are doing this, the bottom half on the heel rips too. I yank it off, throw it in my backpack, and finish my climb down. Arrgghh! Get me to tomorrow! But the moral of the story? A bad day hiking in Utah is still better than a good day at work!

Leprechaun Canyon

Looking into the Subway going up-canyon Leprechaun Canyon is described as "the jewel of the Irish Canyons", so we're pretty excited to hike it (going up canyon again). Within a mile of hiking in the creek and pushing our way through willows, we come to the "Subway".

Me, the blue dot in the middle. Looking down-canyon. Just beyond the subway, the canyon slots up forming a straight crack open to the sky above our heads of only about one foot wide. Unfortunately, on the ground, a deep, slippery clay bottom pool blocks our path. The water is ice cold and the temperature inside the canyon is probably just above freezing (we're actually wearing fleece jackets and gloves), so wading through barefoot is not an option. Again, the wet season has struck us down. But that's okay; it just means we have so much to look forward to next time.

Comb Wash and Comb Ridge

We move about 80 miles southeast on Highway 95 to a campsite in Comb Wash under Comb Ridge, which is one of three major monoclines in Utah, the other two being the Waterpocket Fold in Capitol Reef National Park and the Cockscomb near Kanab.

Comb Ridge spans about 100 miles from north to south, with deep cuts for the highway here and further south on Highway 163. The white dot in the valley (far left, half-way up the photo) is our trailer.

Mule Canyon and House on Fire

Creek-cracking! Cedar Mesa has numerous ancient Indian ruins. One of the most beautiful and popular is a granary known as House on Fire. At about 6,000 feet, Cedar Mesa is cold, and there IS snow on the ground and ice in the creek.

You can see how House on Fire gets its name. Okay, okay, I played with this one to really make it look like it's on fire!

A short one-mile hike in Mule Canyon takes us to this magnificent structure under the overhanging cliffs. The rock ceiling has eroded away in striped chunks, leaving the different coloured sandstone layers revealed.

The end of the overhang.

Besides the snow on the nearby Abajo (a-BAH-ho) Mountains, there is a dusting of snow on the ground on top of Cedar Mesa. Luckily, we are camped in the valley, but it's still very cold at night, down to 25F (-4C?), although thanks to the beautiful sun, daytime temps are around 55F (about 12C) which is very comfortable for hiking with such dry air. So our plan is to head to lower elevations, making our next stop in Page, Arizona to stock up on supplies (we haven't been near a Walmart in over 6 weeks!!!) before going to St. George, Utah where temps are about 20F warmer. It'll be like the tropics! An aside ... We asked a maintenance guy at the Glen Canyon Rec Area at Bullfrog where they go for groceries, and he said Grand Junction, which is 3 hours away in Colorado! Six hours of driving to get groceries? Wow! We really are in the boonies!

Jeremiah and other Bullfrogs, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Lake Powell, Utah

Lake Powell - Taking the Ferry from Halls Crossing to Bullfrog

For no particular reason other than fun and the experience, we take the ferry across Lake Powell from Halls Crossing to Bullfrog, two marinas in the northern arm of the lake. It's only about a 20 minute ride and we are the only passengers except for one other person, an attorney from New Mexico, with whom we chat about our love of the American Southwest. She too was smitten with the southwest after a visit and moved from her birthplace of New York City to settle in Santa Fe.

Our campsite just outside of the Glen Canyon Rec Area has a view of the Waterpocket Fold to the west and the Henry Mountains and the Little Rockies to the northeast. This photo of Mt. Ellsworth was taken at sunset after two and a half days of rain. There is snow on each of the peaks, which melts after a couple of days of sun.

In the Henry Mountains, Mt. Hillers has a lot of snow which looks beautiful - from the valley.

The Waterpocket Fold, Capitol Reef National Park

It is near Bullfrog on Lake Powell that one of our favourite geological formations begins: the Waterpocket Fold in Capitol Reef National Park. We drive in from the southern entrance which is a beautiful drive on a good dirt road (The Burr Trail), with a wet crossing of Bullfrog Creek. Here, Brad and I have climbed up one of the sandstone mounds just in front of the Fold, to get a picture of its length to the north. Really, the only way to photograph this feature well is from the air, but I left my plane at home.

The Fold is a monocline, having been forced up from deep in the earth, so that it is tilting on about a 30-45 degree angle. This exposes the ancient layers of sediments that have been deposited over millions of years. This closeup shows the exposure of the different layers, the top red layer seeming to rise in peaks thanks to the erosion process.

We hike through part of Headquarters Canyon, the entrance shown here, which narrows into a nice slot for a few hundred yards. There are many such canyons on the east side of the Fold, although only a few are accessible to entry.

This is inside Surprise Canyon. It's interesting to see how the light plays tricks on the colours. The upper rocks are very orange although they are not in the sun. They are receiving light relected off the rocks opposite, which are also dark orange and in the direct sunlight. The purple rock is actually a very dark greyish pink but looks purple with the reflecting light.

Halls Creek Overlook and Brimhall Bridge

The Waterpocket Fold looking south from the Halls Creek Overlook with a view of the canyon entrance to Brimhall Bridge. From the paved Burr Trail, we follow a BLM sign and take this 4x4 road (which is not identified as requiring 4 wheel drive or high clearance, but definitely should be) onto Big Thompson Mesa to the Halls Creek Overlook.

Starting the hike down to Halls Creek, but enjoying a view north along the Waterpocket Fold first.

Can you spot me climbing up the rock ladder? The first obstacle in the canyon to the bridge. Someone has stacked these rocks to form a ladder of sorts, and surprisingly it is very sturdy. I make it to the top, but then get stuck as I would have to climb the rest of the steep wall somehow. I suddenly get very nervous. My brain is screaming "Get down you idiot! If you fall, you'll break both legs!," so I eventually comply. Brad does manage to scale the wall, but is stopped only a few hundred yards further by a deep water hole and a chokestone that block the passage. I think we need to try in a very drier year.

Wolverine Canyon

We make a crazy decision to drive up to the Wolverine Petrified Wood Area on the Wolverine Loop Road. We rise and leave early hoping to get an early start on the hike, but it takes us two and a half hours to get to the Canyon. Part of the Wolverine Loop Road is so bad, we can't average speeds of more than 3-4 miles per hour! So it's after 10am when we start off on the hike, thinking we'll only go far enough to see some good petrified wood. But the canyon is so beautiful, we keep going.

This natural amphitheatre is HUGE! It's probably almost impossible to see him, but Brad is standing bottom middle next to the rounded boulder lit by the sun. He looks like a white dot. The canyon walls really echoed here, and we act like kids making howling sounds.

We are getting tired, having hiked almost 4 miles (but stopping every 50 feet to look at the pieces of petrified wood in the creek bed), but I press on determined to find out if the canyon narrows, and we are rewarded with this beautiful slot. It isn't overly long, but the walls are beautifully striated and coloured.

At the end of the hike, on our way back in the near-darkness, we are rewarded with this fantastic petrified log. It is the largest we've seen all day. We make it back to the truck just as it's dark at 6pm, after hiking 9.5 miles. Yup! Pretty tired.

As usual, that's not the end of the story. As silly and naive as we are, and knowing how slow the Wolverine Loop Road is, we decide to make an effort to find the "Cutoff Road" on our map which cuts half-way across the loop and will return us to the paved road much more quickly. NOT! At one point, the Cutoff Road disappears - we finally realize into a wash (dry creek bed). In the dark (the reason there are no photos!), we can't really see the previous tire tracks well. This happens numerous times, the road going in and out of the wash, and at times, I have to get out of the truck (btw, it's really cold out now) with a flashlight to find the tracks to follow. At one point, we can barely get our truck tires between a huge boulder in the wash and the embankment. And the road goes on FOREVER! But obviously, since I'm writing this account of events, we do make it out safely with no mishaps. However, the "Cutoff Road" is not a "shortcut". It takes us longer to get home than it did to get to our destination this morning. Home to an angry and very hungry kitty!