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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.

The Upper Escalante River & Lower Death Hollow

Canyons of the Escalante | Southern Utah Wanderings in a Sandstone Wilderness
Sunday & Monday, September 29-30, 2019

After spending Saturday hiking through Phipps Wash and Deer Canyon, we were ready to begin our overnight backpacking trip through the Escalante River Gorge on Sunday morning. The previous night we had found a campsite on Big Spencer Flats and had done our best to prepare for the high winds and storms that were forecasted overnight. It did stay pretty windy out for much of the night and there was a little on and off rain, but not enough that anything was still wet in the morning. It was still pretty windy out when we got up shortly before sunrise, but there were plenty of nice clouds in the sky and the sunrise was looking good, so we grabbed our cameras and took a few photos around camp.

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Big Wash

Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Recently I’ve been trying to get out on more hikes in the evening after work before the days start getting too short for that. Today I was looking for something close to home without too much elevation gain and settled on hiking up Big Wash which is located a short distance up Plateau Creek from I-70 along the Grand Mesa Scenic Byway. Big Wash drains part of the west side of the Grand Mesa starting up near Chalk Mountain and joins Plateau Creek just upstream from the Colorado River. It turned out to be a nice easy canyon hike with a trickle of water flowing through the canyon. While the water was nice to listen to as I hiked, it made for some very slick mud. I had to hop across rocks through many parts of the canyon to avoid the slippery mud. There were a couple of easy obstacles to scramble up and bypass, I just had to make sure to avoid the poison ivy at one of the bypasses. The hike ended at an overhanging waterfall inside a large wet alcove. I didn’t see a way around it so I turned around and headed back down. Here are a few photos from the short hike.

Red Rock to Black Canyon

Backpacking Red Rock Canyon
Saturday & Sunday, June 7-8, 2014

Deep, Steep and Narrow. That’s how the National Park Service describes the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, and it’s pretty accurate. The Black Canyon is comprised of some of the steepest cliffs, oldest rock, and craggiest spires in North America. I’ve wanted to hike down into the Black Canyon of the Gunnison for quite a while now and thought I would try Red Rock Canyon, the easiest route, for my first time. This trail is about 3.5 miles in length and only drops 1330 feet to the river. Compared to the other routes down to the Gunnison, this one is definitely the least steep.