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Willow Gulch & Fortymile Gulch

Canyons of the Escalante | Friday, October 16, 2026

After hiking into Fiftymile Creek on Thursday we planned to return to Willow Gulch on Friday since we hadn’t been back there since our 2010 trip and I was interested in returning. Originally, I was thinking about doing a loop with Willow Gulch and Fortymile Gulch, but I know there can be some deep water in Fortymile Gulch and figured with all the recent rain that that might not be the best idea at this time, so we decided to hike each of them separately instead. That turned out to be a good choice since the recent storms had flooded the canyons which made the hiking a bit more challenging, plus we would have had a difficult time finding our way out for Fortymile Gulch near the end of the loop. So after another good night of sleep we were up just before the sunrise on Friday morning and then headed over to the nearby trailhead for Willow Gulch shortly after.

Cave Point to Fiftymile Creek

Canyons of the Escalante | Thursday, October 15, 2026

After a very wet start to the week, we finally made it out the Hole-in-the-Rock Road to the Sooner Rocks late on Wednesday afternoon, ate our dinners and then went to bed after dark. I got a great night of sleep and we both woke up shortly before sunrise on Thursday morning so we could spend the day hiking into Fiftymile Creek. We had been planning to hike into Fiftymile Creek back in 2022 after our hike into Davis Gulch, but I got sick on that day and headed home early instead, so I was really looking forward to getting back and finally getting to go on this hike!

Hole-In-The-Rock Road to Sooner Rocks

Canyons of the Escalante | Wednesday, October 14, 2026

While there was a small chance for rain in the forecast overnight, Jared and I didn’t think it would amount to very much and we planned to head down the Hole-in-the-Rock (HITR) Road first thing in the morning. Boy, was that forecast way off! It ended up raining pretty heavily for much of the night which made us reconsider those plans since the HITR Road would be thoroughly soaked. Instead, we returned to Escalante for breakfast and waited around for a little while to give the road a chance to start drying out. Eventually we decided to drive down to the Devils Garden to see what shape the road was in and then we wandered around the hoodoos for the second time this week to kill even more time.

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Sandstone Sojourn: Ladder Canyon & Milagro Passage

Canyons of the Escalante | Tuesday, October 13, 2026

We woke up on Tuesday morning with high hopes of driving down towards the far end of the Hole-in-the-Rock Road, but then we checked the latest weather forecast and saw that there was yet another full day of rain in store for us, so we made the reluctant decision to stay closer to town for one more day. All this rain was really beginning to put a damper on our trip and I was getting anxious to get back to our regularly scheduled program! The weather for the rest of the week was looking dry, so we were pretty sure that we would be heading out first thing on Wednesday morning. Until then we needed to find another hike for today. We wanted to do something a little longer this time, so we went on another sandstone sojourn- this time from the end of the Old Sheffield Road to the Escalante River following the rim of Spencer Canyon to Ladder Canyon. Then we were thinking about hiking up and through the Milagro Passage, depending on how our legs were feeling by then…

Avoiding Rain Around the Canyons of the Escalante

Canyons of the Escalante | Saturday – Monday, October 10-12, 2026

After spending most of the day exploring the interesting sandstone of Concretion Wash on Saturday, the remnants of Tropical Storm Rachel finally arrived and the weather forecast was calling for quite a bit of rain to fall across the landscape over the next few days. We decided that it would probably not be a good idea to drive out to the end of the Hole-in-the-Rock Road until the storm passed, so now we would need to spend the next few days trying to avoid the rain by finding shorter hikes that are closer to good all-weather roads and not located in narrow canyons where flash-flooding is possible. Over the course of the next two days we would stay closer to town and hike a few new trails and routes while also revisiting some places that we hadn’t been back to in quite some time.

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ADVENTR.co Posts

Willow Gulch & Fortymile Gulch

Cave Point to Fiftymile Creek

Hole-In-The-Rock Road to Sooner Rocks

Sandstone Sojourn: Ladder Canyon & Milagro Passage

Avoiding Rain Around the Canyons of the Escalante