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Halls Wagon Road to Halls Crossing, More or Less…

Friday – Sunday, November 1-3, 2024

I started this weekend trip off with two main goals in mind as I headed west into Utah on Friday. The first one was to drive The V Road in the Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument before it’s closed to motorized vehicles in December, and the second one was to finally take a ride on the Charles Hall Ferry across Lake Powell while it’s open and there is still enough water for it to be in operation. Although these two goals might seem like they can’t possibly be connected in any way, there is a historic route which was known as the Halls Wagon Road, Hall Road or Halls Trail, that went from Escalante to Halls Crossing and does kind of tie these two areas together. So even though I never followed any part of the actual Halls Wagon Road on this particular trip, I did roughly parallel the route on modern day roads the entire way. Plus, I have already hiked a couple sections of the historic route including Silver Falls Creek, Muley Twist Canyon and Halls Creek, and I hope to do more sections in the future. I had all of this information on my mind as I left from work on Friday and made my way over to the Escalante River Country near Harris Wash.

Exploring Desert Stone: Harts Draw to Indian Creek

Tracing the Historic Route of the 1859 Macomb Expedition, Part II
Friday – Sunday, October 27-29, 2023

It’s now been almost an entire year since I started my quest to follow and explore the historic route of the 1859 Macomb Expedition, also known as the San Juan Exploring Expedition, which contained a small detachment of men who were quite possibly the first non-native Americans to view and describe what is now Canyonlands National Park. During that trip I followed the Old Spanish Trail across Dry Valley from Cañon Pintado (East Canyon) to Casa Colorado and then steadily climbed up Hatch Point until I was at the edge of the rim overlooking Cañon Colorado (Harts Draw) and the greater Canyonlands region. That point was roughly in the same area where Captain Macomb and his men would have had their first view of the region that would later become known as The Needles and where they would most likely have begun their descent to the canyons below in search of The Confluence of the Green and Grand Rivers. This weekend I set out to continue following their historic route as it descended from the rim of Hatch Point into Harts Draw and then I would continue downstream into Labyrinth Cañon (Indian Creek Canyon). Although I had hoped to follow the route segments in order, except that I had planned to start hiking from the bottom of Harts Draw up to the rim since I thought route-finding would be easier in that direction, but stormy weather on Saturday altered my plans a bit and I ended up hiking the segments out of order.

Canyons of the Escalante: Silver Falls Creek

Following Another Segment of the Historic Halls Road
Friday – Sunday, May 8-10, 2020

This weekend Diane and I headed into the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area so that we could continue my Canyons of the Escalante series by hiking down Silver Falls Creek to the Escalante River and back. With warmer temperatures in the desert lately, I was looking for an easy overnight backpacking trip where we could camp near water to cool off during the heat of the day. Plus, with seemingly more people out on our public lands right now, I was also looking for a more out-of-the-way location that’s not very popular where we would hopefully not run into many other people in the backcountry. Silver Falls Creek seemed to fit the bill perfectly. I had actually planned on hiking down Silver Falls Creek Canyon last October with Jared after we hiked through Little Death Hollow and Wolverine Canyon, but after that hike we decided to end our week-long trip a day early and instead went on a short hike along Pleasant Creek in Capitol Reef National Park, so I was looking forward to finally visiting this canyon. As an added bonus, this would be another segment of the historic Halls Road that we would be able to check out after hiking down Lower Muley Twist Canyon back in March.

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The Boulder Mail Trail

Canyons of the Escalante | Southern Utah Wanderings in a Sandstone Wilderness
Tuesday, October 1, 2019

The Old Boulder Mail Trail is a 15 mile trail that was originally established in 1902 as a mail route that linked the isolated towns of Escalante and Boulder Town and was traversed by pack mules twice-weekly to carry mail, medicine and occasional travelers. In 1911 a telephone line was strung between trees, rocks and poles along the route by the Forest Service to connect the ranger stations in both towns. The ranger in Boulder even let the townspeople tie in with their own lines. Some of the glass insulators can still be seen in the treetops along the trail today. The line was used until 1955 when a microwave system replaced it. When Utah Highway 12 was completed in 1940 the Boulder Mail Trail fell into disuse.

Mojave National Preserve

Tour of the Deserts | Honeymoon Adventure
Friday – Sunday, March 10-12, 2017

After leaving Death Valley on Friday afternoon we headed south to the end (the beginning for us) of the Mojave Road, which starts just outside of the Mojave National Preserve near Camp Cady, which isn’t too far off of I-15 east of Barstow. I had planned and hoped to drive the entire Mojave Road this trip, but again, thanks to the recent rains, that would prove to be impossible. By the end of the weekend we would end up driving most of the road in different segments, but not the entire route. That just means I will have to plan another trip here in the future!

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Tag: historic route

Halls Wagon Road to Halls Crossing, More or Less…

Exploring Desert Stone: Harts Draw to Indian Creek

Canyons of the Escalante: Silver Falls Creek

The Boulder Mail Trail

Mojave National Preserve