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Hole-in-the-Rock Adventure | Day 3

Saturday, April 10, 2010

After a near perfect night camping, we were up early again so that Dave and I could hike down to Cottonwood Hill from the end of the 4×4 trail. On our way down we passed a number of grooves carved into the rock from the cables used to drag the wagons up the hills. (I later learned that these were actually created by the early Jeeps driving this route.)

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View of Aladdin’s Lamp along the way.
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The Hole-in-the-Rock in the distance, beyond Lake Powell. Cottonwood Canyon below.
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The trail down into Cottonwood Canyon. This is where we stopped and turned around.
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Nice scenery along the way
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Another trail marker
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You can see the trail cut up the side of Cottonwood Hill. The hike back up was not as easy as it was on the way down.
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The Hole-in-the-Rock in the distance.
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As close-up as I could get a photo of the Hole-in-the-Rock. When the pioneers encountered the cliffs down to the river from the other side, this cleft in the rock was the only way down they could find. They managed to blast a very steep wagon road from the top down to the river. This ordeal is where the name Hole-in-the-Rock expedition came from, though they encountered numerous obstacles in the terrain along the way.

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Back near the top again.
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Rob & Jared back at camp
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Navajo Mountain towers above as we start the trek back. Our goal was to take it slow on the way back and stop for a few more hikes.

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A few slickrock fins to climb and descend.
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Parked near the bottom of ‘The Chute’ to go on our next hike of the day.
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On our way…
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Jeeps below us.
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Oasis in the canyon.
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There were a number of large potholes filled with water we had to go around.
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Finally, we reached our destination: Old Settler Natural Bridge

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Dave on the steep slickrock
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Fun with reflections
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Can you spot Jared high above?
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Back at the Jeeps….another reflection
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Our next obstacle….The Chute…straight ahead
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Going up!
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Ledge at the top of ‘The Chute’
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Back up on the mesa! Heading towards the Henry Mountains
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Our next hike would take us down The Rincon trail a little ways. We wanted to try and find a high undercut pouroff into Iceberg Canyon.

After about a mile and a half, we were staring down into Iceberg Canyon, but not at the right location. We wanted to get to the pouroff directly across the canyon from this viewpoint.

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Photo of me
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Soon we were scrambling up and over some steep slickrock domes to reach the other viewpoint. We did finally make it!

Long way down
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Apparently, men are required to throw rocks from high ledges, so we abode…

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Even got video to prove it

Great scenery along the hike as well
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Once we made it back to our vehicles, we were back on the trail again.

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Headed down from Grey Mesa

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When it started getting late again, we found a large area of slickrock to camp for the night.

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We were treated to a colorful sunset.
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Checking out our videos from earlier in the day before turning in for the night.
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It was another long and very fun day! I’ll have great memories from this day 🙂

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