SFR Took another hike

It began about 20 years ago with day hikes on my first visit to southern Utah. Maybe it's the dramatic contrast with my native PNW, but for whatever reason, the SW desert country has taken a hold on me. I thought it would be fun to go backpacking in the desert canyon country, but having long ago read Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire, I'm mildly paranoid about having water while hiking in the desert. One area I keep coming back to is the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. It's 200 million acres of desert wilderness canyons and plateaus, full of slot canyons, cliffs, hoo doos, arches, natural bridges - what I often refer to as a geological freak show.

Four years ago, in 2022 my oldest daughter and I signed up with an outfitter for a group hike in the area, largely to alleviate my paranoia regarding water. She liked it so well that she's gone back each spring since, doing more aggressive canyoneering style trips that include rapelling into water filled slot canyons and wading or swimming out. Much as I'd love to do that kind of trekking also, I'm smart enough to know that window of experience has closed for me. I'm sticking to scrambling and mild boulder hopping, along with some off-trail route finding. I solo hiked in 2023 into Coyote Gulch, a well known hike that has a perennial stream, so water supply is assured.

I signed up again this spring to join a group hike in the Escalante area. I admit that I like having a guide when I don't know where the water is. This was a fun group that I dubbed "Team Geritol." You'd have to be of a certain age to have any idea what that means. The youngest person in the group was a 64 year old woman from Kansas. Like my last group hike, I was again the oldest, this time at 77. In addition to Kansas, I met hikers from Connecticut, Ohio, Iowa, and Oregon. Our route included the larger part of a route that has interested me for the past year or so, the old Boulder Mail Trail, an actual historical route through the mountains over which mail was hauled, on a mule or donkey, I suppose, between the towns of Escalante and Boulder, UT.

Here's Team Geritol just starting out:


Sometimes uphill,


The route sometimes marked by cairns, as seen on the right of this photo:


Strange rock formations are normal around these parts:


Mild climbing was involved:


An old telegraph wire remains as evidence of this old mail route:


To be continued . . .

 

[Mossback]

Nice pics....

 

[Jim F.]

Wow - you're doing great, SG! I have days when sidewalk hopping is challenging.

 

[Salmo_g]

My campsite for cowboy camping under the stars:



Lunch break along the small creek that runs through Death Hollow:

After descending Death Hollow for 6 miles, we connected back to the Escalante River, which is merely a trickle upstream of Death Hollow. Along the way is this 400' alcove. Inside it were some native pictographs, some unfortunately damaged by vandalism.


Some pictographs:


And some native artifacts:


It was a good place for a rest break in the shade:


Back on route, heading up the mostly dry Escalante River toward the trail head to complete the loop.


To be continued . . .

 

[Salmo_g]

After Escalante, I drove across Nevada on America's "loneliest highway" Hwy 50. Must be 5 or 6 passes through desert mountains. Wish I had pictures of the vast nothingness. Except it's not really nothing, not counting endless sagebrush. The reason for driving this route was to get to S. Lake Tahoe to visit kids and grandkids. Got to see my 7 year old grandson play a couple baseball games. As 3rd baseman, he made a single hand double play by fielding the ball, tagging the runner coming off 3rd base, and stepping on the base to force out the runner coming from second base. I don't know how much of that was serendipity or how much he actually knew what he was doing, but it sure seemed like a cool play in the moment. He throws and hits pretty well for a 7-year old, so we'll see how far this goes.

I labeled this thread "Sorta'" fishing related, so here goes. I stopped overnight in Redding on my way home. I've long wanted to fish the Sacramento River, so for a change I actually planned in advance and reserved a fishing guide through the Fly Shop in Redding. It's sorta' unreal, launching a drift boat in downtown Redding, a town of 89,000 people. We floated along Interstate 5, then the suburbs with some very high rent homes along the river bank, and then a rural riverbank south of town. The river flow had been increased from 8,000 cfs the day before to 9,000, which can put a damper on fishing. But, being trout, they want to feed. There are reportedly larger trout, but I caught several at 17" down to about 12" and a couple dinks that I shook off.



They are nice, fat, well conditioned trout. Notice that the spotting is more similar to that of a westslope cutthroat trout than most rainbow trout strains. I'm glad I did it, but think I might prefer to fish some other waters in the region, like the upper Sacramento above Shasta Dam and Lake, or the McCloud River, or even tiny Hat Creek. After leaving the river, I made it as far as Medford and spent the night before resuming the drive north to Olympia.

 

[Robert Engleheart]

Definitely not typical coloring for a Sac fish, they are usually more heavily spotted and less silvery, as well as bigger . 9K cfs is not ideal conditions, I’ve been told around 4K is ideal and never had much luck after a flow bump so you did well. Egg bite in September- October is good with lower flows and wadeable around Sundial bridge and other locations.