After some amazing stars at our illegal campsite (we were stranded so we had to camp), we woke up to find that the wash was pretty much dry and drivable. Which is good news because although we could last a couple of more days here, we don’t want to waste extra days here and miss out on other cool shit. This spot was neat though… I wouldn’t mind staying here the entire 2 weeks Kristi was here, but that would be lame. Moving on…
We started the drive out, but the flash flood moved some stuff around and made the drive out a bit more difficult than the drive in. It was fine though, just needed Kristi to get out and guide me over a few obstacles. But, at the end, success! We were back onto actual dirt roads and headed out of Capitol Reef and into Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. This monument is huge, and I’m very excited to be here. Mostly because it has a lot of exciting natural resources to explore, but also because Trump is an asshat who has been trying to drastically slim down this National Monument. There is supposedly oil, gas and coal under sections of this monument, and political figures have been trying to allow companies to come in and profit from extraction. This of course pisses me off immensely. As it should piss any American who relishes their natural resources. You can’t make more land… So don’t give our shit away to oil and gas companies!
That tangent will come up many more times in the next few blogs. So buckle up.
Anyway, where was I… Right finally at Staircase Escalante… We drive along the Burr Trail, which is an old route ranchers would lead cattle through this land before it was protected. We find a trailhead named simply “The Gulch,” park, and get ready for a hike. We want to find more slot canyons minus the flash flooding. We walk down the gulch and are confronted with cattle fences and cow poop. Of course this land has cattle grazing. The government bends over backwards to help individual ranchers make money.
Once we pass the cattle fence, the poop thins out and the scenery turns more natural. We follow the GPS into two different canyons to see if we can explore more slot canyons. The first one is a bit of a dud, but the second leads us on a wild goose chase. It starts looking slot-ish, then makes us climb a steep wall, starts to look slot-ish again, followed by wall…. You get the picture. The rock here is very crumbly, and the climbing is difficult yet rewarding. Eventually we decide this canyon will not be delivering the slots we so desperately want and decide to turn around. As I begin my walk down the first steep wall, I eat shit. Fall on my ass, slide down on my hip, and flop over like a dead fish. Kristi laughs, then offers to help me up. But she can’t because she is crippled.
Once down and out of this canyon, we hike back to the car and decide to go into the town of Escalante. There is food here, plus the visitor center for the monument. We decide to start at the visitor center, and I’m so glad we did. As we pull up, the weather turns for the worse. Hey, we weren’t in a slot canyon this time!! We get in and trap a National Park Ranger who is working the front desk. He is an older man, but a genuinely kind and gentle soul. He knows his shit, and Kristi pulls out her notebook with our written down interrogation questions. We’ve been waiting for someone who actually knows what they are talking about…
- Why is it called Grand Staircase Escalante? Well, it’s actually two properties, one called Grand Staircase and one called Escalante. The monument declaration joined multiple properties, hence Grand Staircase Escalante. The staircase portion is the “staircase” effect the geology shows. Starting low at the Grand Canyon, the geology “steps up” all the way to Bryce Canyon at 9,000ft. This is the staircase they are talking about. There is no single feature that looks like a staircase or anything like that.
- Why is Trump shrinking the monument and who is the land going to? Well, the areas that are proposed to be removed from the monument are where the coal and natural gas reserves are. The land is being transferred from the National Park Service to BLM, so still owned by the federal government. But, BLM allows a lot more uses on their land, including drilling and fracking. It’s allllll is starting to make sense now.
- Where are the slot canyons, and is there any difference between the terms slot canyon, narrows, and gulch? He hands us a map with a multitude of slot canyons, and tells us that all of those terms basically mean the same thing. Erosion of rock by water that creates a narrow passage.
Satisfied with all of our answers, we thank this ranger profusely and head out to the car. We need food, beverages, and to find a place to camp. We ended up visiting the cutest little grocery store and buying more food than we needed. When checking out, we ask the girl what the deal is with liquor sales, and where we can find actual booze. Ok here’s the lowdown, you can sell normal alcohol content beer and liquor from state sanctioned liquor stores. But, it just so happens to be pioneer day, so all of the liquor stores should be closed. Dammit…. But, this chick tells us to hold on, lemme make a phone call. She calls the outfitter down the street to see if his liquor closet is open. Hold on a second time… Liquor closet? Yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like. A legit closet that can be locked shut, state sanctioned to sell booze. The sign outside his closet says it’s closed, but this guy doesn’t give a fuck. He’ll sell us liquor.
Sweet! So we head to this outfitter’s liquor closet. This place turns out is super cute. Independent outdoor supplier with booze. We instantly fall in love. He even has cider??? Win! I buy IPA, cider and some vodka for us to indulge in. When checking out, we notice “Save Grand Staircase Escalante” stickers at the counter, and throw 2 in our pile to buy. He tells us they are free…This is when Kristi starts asking questions about the monument and why the government is giving away property. This gets the guy, who turns out to be the owner, going on a rant. His business relies on tourism, and no one in the government gives a shit about his business or his economic impact. They just want to make the big oil companies happy. The worst part of it is that it’s not currently financially feasible to extract oil and gas from these super remote areas. Yet. Just businesses looking to make money in the future when it does become feasible.
Anyway, we leave with our booze and stickers and head to a campsite on BLM property. This is a very open camp spot with little cover and almost no firewood, but Kristi is a scavenger, so we come up with plenty of burnable material. We had a fantastic fire and too much to drink. It kind of was a good thing because we had to pee multiple times in the night, and the stars were again fantastic.
The next morning we woke up early and headed down to where the park ranger pointed out multiple slot canyons. We were excited to try out our novice canyoneering skills… A 40-minute drive down washboard roads finally brings us to a parking lot for three slot canyons, Peek-a-boo, spooky and dry fork. We take our map and head down to the trail heads.
We decide to start with peek-a-boo, which promises difficult climbs and some tight squeezes. It starts out with a 15 foot rock climb up a sheer wall. Hmmm. We analyze the hand holds, and I start the climb first as I’m taller and can reach the holds easier. Once up, Kristi starts, and I grab her hand and pull her up the last few feet.
Ok this is where shit went wrong. In the process of pulling her up the wall, she tweaked her neck really, really bad. Like, almost needing to throw up it hurt so bad. She can’t hold her head up, and the pain is intense. But, we’ve just started our slot canyon adventure, so there’s no way she’s backing out now.
We continue on through Peek-a-boo, climbing up smaller walls and squeezing through tight areas. There’s another family in front of us (French maybe?) so we stop a few times while hiking to let them get in front of us. As we reach the end of the canyon, we turn around to walk back through the slot. The French family tells us that the back of this canyon connects on to spooky gulch, just a mile away. We contemplate doing this, following the family, but decide we’d rather do the canyon again because it was cool. We don’t mind walking and retracing our steps. Plus going downhill through the canyon will be way easier than going uphill.
After getting down off the 15ft ledge through tactical sliding, we head over to spooky gulch, just a half mile walk away. We read that you should “go as far as you can” through spooky gulch but we have no idea what this means. As we continue on, we start to understand. The walls get narrower and narrower, eventually just big enough to shuffle through sideways while holding your bag in one hand. It feels like the Star Wars scene where Luke is caught in the trash compactor and the walls start closing in…
We climb rocks and shimmy through tight spaces until we eventually make it to an area that has had a recent rockslide. We can’t get around or over this rock trap, so we decide to turn around. At this moment, we see our French family friends pop through on top of the canyon. They are looking for a way down… Kristi and I help the young boy get down, and then talk the husband and wife through a different climb. Man I’m glad we didn’t follow them. I would have been scared to squeeze through recently fallen rocks…
Once they were down, we started our climb back to the entrance of spooky. I made the mistake of throwing my bag in front of me at one point. I couldn’t carry it through a narrow drop, so I lightly tossed it down a 10ish foot drop that I needed to slide down. What I didn’t expect was my water bladder to burst open inside of my pack, leaving a huge pee spot at the bottom of the drop. Shit. I needed that water…So now I have no water to hike back to the car and Kristi is a damn cripple that can’t straighten her head upright. We are a sight to see. We finally exit spooky gulch and head over to the last, least exciting narrow of Dry Fork.
While hiking to Dry Fork, we see some thunderclouds forming. The park ranger we previously interrogated had given us some tips on how to avoid future flash floods. When you see thunderheads forming anywhere in the general vicinity, it’s time to leave the slot canyons and dry washes. We notice the clouds, take a quick gander inside Dry Fork, then high tail it to the car. We were not ready to encounter another flood just yet.
Back at the car, the washboard roads royally fuck with Kristi’s neck. But there’s nothing I can do expect feed her Ibuprofen and Tylenol. We take one detour to the devil’s garden, take a few pics, then head out of Staircase Escalante. It’s starting to rain now. So glad we aren’t in a shitty location again! With Kristi’s neck still giving her serious pain, we try and get her some muscle relaxers to help with her comfort level. She calls her sister in law to have a script called into the nearest drug store that’s open, which happens to be in Panguitch, UT. This small town is an hour and a half away and is only open for another 2 hours. We get gas, snacks, and race over to Panguitch to get Kristi relief.
We get there in plenty of time, stroll in, and see that the damn drug counter is closed!! The store is open, which was very misleading for our online search. Apparently, the drug counter closed at noon…. We buy every type of topical pain relief available and check out disappointed. Here we are at a destination we don’t want to be because of a misleading online store hours. Jerks. We try to make the best of our drive by doing laundry at a nearby RV park. Kristi even takes a shower to try and warm up and stretch her neck. We find a campsite online at neighboring Dixie National Forest and drive into the woods.
Our camp spot ended up being amazing. Secluded with views and no artificial lights anywhere close. This provided some amazing star gazing opportunities. Plus, ample firewood allowed us to have constant fires. We like this spot quite a bit, and it’s only a few minutes away from Bryce Canyon NP. Our next stop on the Utah tour.
