October 27 and 28: Denver is beseiged by a huge snow storm. I don't like snow, so I stay home from work and work on this very involved trip report. It took a day to write it, and another full day to post it on SP. There were lots of photos, links and "attractions" to arrange, and a tone to achieve. I believe it's done. Thanks for your patience. Enjoy! ---AJ
In our lives, we are constantly presented with choices. Doors to pass through, secret passages to explore, long roads to travel. Our choice to follow that road, to take the trail less traveled, to open that mysterious door, seems at most times insignificant. Sometimes that insignificant choice turns out to be a life altering event, although we wouldn’t know it at the time. Sometimes after such events, we must believe the incident happened for no other reason than fate.
This report examines such incidents in this SP member’s life. Appropriately, the backdrop is set against my visits to two of the more strange and unique destinations in my many travels. I’m a lover of volcanoes and the phenomena connected to them, so it was with much excitement that on our list of 2009 destinations was a visit to Lassen Volcanic National Park in California. After many years of planning and anticipation, we finally made it to Escalante, Utah to close out our stupendous hiking season.
Both of these trips ended up being oddly connected by a strange series of events that can only be attributed to fate. Given the odd nature of these events, this report has been written in a style not typical for this writer. It’s a break from tradition both in style and presentation (except that it’s another long winded tome). Hopefully it’s interesting enough to keep the reader intrigued. These events and the landscapes that provide the setting are right out of the Twilight Zone. Although presented at the end of the report, the end of the story is actually in the middle of our trip to Escalante. I hope the time line isn’t too confusing.
One is compelled to wonder why these things happen the way they do. After a while, it gets so mind boggling that you have to let it go and chalk it up to fate. If Rod Serling were alive and was to read this report, he would be grinning with much satisfaction.
In 2002, SP’s owner, Josh, asked me to become a volunteer administrator for SummitPost. To this day I occasionally wonder about the wisdom of his decision to make the offer, and my decision to accept it. For the most part, it’s been a very rewarding experience, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The greatest aspect of this position has been working with SP’s fabulous members on the web site, and more importantly, meeting them in person. I have met some of the finest and most interesting people I have ever known because of SummitPost.
Some of those people have also been challenges in my role as a staff member at SP. Most folks will immediately recall Climbwild, known affectionately to some of us as Henry. The source of much controversy (which can be read about elsewhere), Henry had a parting of the ways with SP. Through our many emails we had become friends, and we expressed hope that we would one day meet in person.
In 1994 I created a game called Cathode Raytube Land (which we affectionately call CRT). Through initial word-of-mouth, and later through various media, CRT became a living thing (and if you’re interested, you can read about it here). 15 successful years pass and we flash back to SP in 2009. A link on my SP profile page to CRT’s website was investigated by long time SP member Dragger. Dragger and I had exchanged many emails, forum posts and PMs over the years sharing our enthusiasm for movies and music.
One day I got an odd PM from Dragger asking about CRT. I did my best to explain it (a difficult task to be sure). She responded that she and SP’s HandjammasterC (also known as Craig Peer) wanted to play CRT, if it was possible. This is not unusual. We’ve had folks from all over the nation (as well as Japan) play CRT, but we’ve never had folks come to Colorado specifically for that reason, yet this was the case with these two fun loving people.
SP members at CRT
SP members at CRT
Dragger (Carolyn) and HandjammasterC (Craig) played CRT twice in January 2009 (and plan to return for CRT’s 16th season). What a great time! These two were loads of fun, and with our planned trip to Lassen Volcanic, it only made sense to spend more time with them during the trip. Plans were made well in advance, and soon it seemed time flew by and September had arrived. We were going to Lassen Volcanic, and then, we were going to spend a couple of days at Craig and Carolyn’s place. Ever the devoted entertainers, they went to lengths to make sure our visit was a memorable one. They had invited some folks to join in the festivities. On the first day, I was to meet my fellow SP staff members for the first time in person: Bob Burd and David Kiene. On the second day we would meet some of their friends that wanted to meet me and talk about CRT. I would also be meeting Henry. Those many emails from long ago were about to come to fruition.
FORESHADOW
A term in writing a good story known as “foreshadowing” is used to expert degree by writers. Events in the plot “forecast” events that are to happen later. When these things happen in real life, it’s weird. It’s fate. It’s the unexplained happening in real time.
Our visit to Lassen Volcanic was a fun two days, although we were sad to learn upon our arrival that Mount Lassen’s trail was closed due to a large rockfall that had obliterated the route. We had briefly considered blazing our own route up the mountain, for we had come a long way to visit this locale, but decided not to upset the Park Rangers and settled on a climb of Brokeoff Mountain instead. This climb of the park’s second highest summit would at least afford us a nice view of Mount Lassen.
Heavy haze from fires in Oregon hung over the area both days, adding an otherworldly white canopy to our visit of the Park. The alien landscapes of Bumpass Hell and Butte Lake were real treats. We scurried to the top of the cinder cone and ventured into the crater, certainly one of the most unique destinations I had ever hiked to. This tiny mountain is essentially a great pile of cinders, so it was a real workout to march up the thing and a fun scree ski to get down. It took us 45 minutes to scale the cone and about 10 minutes to run down the trail of ankle-deep volcanic scree. Painted cinder dunes surround the cone, and a jagged lava bed wasteland was a rugged barrier between this alien wonderland and Butte Lake. A nearby forest of towering pines on the south slopes of Prospect Peak was dying off, likely due to the volcanics of the area. Steam vents could be seen rising from just within the boundaries of the forest.
Brokeoff Mountain is 9,235 feet high, about 7 miles round trip. This was an enjoyable hike, something like a small mountain in Gacier National Park would be. The view was badly obscured by the smoke from the Oregon fires. Nothing was visible to the west. The nearby peaks of the Park were there, but distant Mount Shasta, which we had hoped to see in all its magnificence (we climbed it in 2004), was barely noticeable above the pall. We had a nice time on the summit, sharing it with two gentlemen from Europe briefly before descending. After this wonderful outing, we drove to Sacramento to rendezvous with our SP friends.
We were sad to learn that we would not be meeting Bob Burd, who was caught up in a Boy Scout outing when the troop leader fell ill to the flu. We did however meet the very pleasant and charming David Kiene. I told David it was a bit bizarre, because I felt I knew him before this fateful meeting, having communicated so much over the internet about SP matters. David talks like he writes, and it was like I knew what his voice would sound like before meeting him. We had a wonderful dinner on Craig and Carolyn’s back patio, talking about all sorts of topics. David had mentioned he was planning a trip to the San Juans in a few weeks and I told him I would send an email with some tips and pointers. After dinner, we watched a spectacular movie (Nordwand-highly recommended) in their very nice theater before David headed home. I regretted not getting a picture of him or of us together.
HandjammasterC's Fashion Show
HandjammasterC's Fashion Show
The next morning our very talented hosts had some friends over for a brunch event. Plans to attend the next Burning Man event were discussed, and we viewed some incredible video from the most recent event. If ever there was a Twilight Zone, the Burning Man event was THE place to encounter it. Indeed, Craig insists Burning Man is CRT in real life, and I’m inclined to agree. Rod Serling would certainly be at home at Burning Man. Craig and Carolyn’s friends were interested in CRT, and one couple was supposedly considering coming to CRT with Craig and Carolyn. Craig also provided us a fashion show of Burning Man apparel he had lined up for himself for the next event. Alas Carolyn would not provide us the same entertainment (Craig bought it for her) as there wasn’t much to it and she seemed a bit bashful.
I also finally met Henry this fateful morning. It was a great time! Soft spoken and polite, yet speaking in straightforward fashion, it was a true pleasure to finally meet him. It was great to see him doing well and happy with where he was in his life. He looked like David Coverdale (Deep Purple’s singer in the 70s, and later lead singer for White Snake), and he drove a sporty Mazda Miata convertible. We reminisced about our shared SP past and SP’s current status, but we spent more time talking about other things in our lives, including music and films. It was like our conversation had simply carried over from the internet to reality without missing a beat. It was then I realized the value of Henry as a friend, stepping out of a virtual reality and into my reality.
Climbwild and SP Staff Member Aaron Johnson
I can’t express my gratitude enough to our wonderful hosts. They love entertaining and they’re pros at it! If you ever have the opportunity to visit Craig and Carolyn, take it, and rest assured you’re going to have a GREAT time. If ever there were outstanding ambassadors for SP, Craig and Carolyn are the supreme examples.
Back at home the following week, I sent David a long and detailed email about the San Juans that he and his friend Mike would use to guide their travels through my most favorite part of Colorado. With that, Ellen and I had two weeks to prepare for our highly anticipated trip to Escalante. One of our Usual Suspect hiking partners, Cheryl, would join us half way through the trip. She was an Escalante lover and very enthused about our first visit to the area. Ellen and I would spend four days exploring on our own, with the aid of valuable tips and info provided by Cheryl. Cheryl would then join us for the following four days and together would we would explore new landscapes and make some very interesting and weird encounters.
HERDINA PARK
Ellen and I first saw this suggested outing on the Backpacker Magazine website. I thought I had done all there was worth doing in Arches National Park, so I was pleased to see this new possibility. It took us a year to get around to doing it, but since we had unknowingly stumbled back into the Twilight Zone on this trip, it did not go as planned. We did not have the “sixth sense” about us to realize this outing could be setting the bizarre tone that would run as an undercurrent throughout the trip.
We parked in the middle of nowhere, and we saw no one the entire day. This part of Arches is simply not visited by the casual visitor. An inquiry about road conditions at the (nicely done) new Visitor Center was ambiguous as well. We followed waypoints and vague directions provided by Backpacker. We initially went up a spectacular slick rock canyon which happened to be just slightly off route. We backtracked and got in the right canyon, reaching the mentioned pour-off, but finding no way around it that would not involve serious risky scrambling. Not interested in tempting fate and possibly ruining our long awaited visit to Escalante, we hiked back to the car, deciding to reach the opposite end of Herdina Park via the Salt Valley road. The route description was not so great, but we figured it was written in vague style to add a bit of adventure to the proceedings. Alas, this approach was time consuming, and we wanted to be in Escalante by dinner time.
During our hike out, I just about stepped on a snake that looked like a stick. It was light brown with black spots, about two feet long, enjoying the shade in the soft sand beneath an overhang. We drove around to the half way point of the route to visit two lonely, secluded arches. Eye of the Whale and Leaping Arch are both located near the northeast end of the Herdina Park area and are worth a visit. During our visit to Leaping Arch, Ellen was startled by a young rattlesnake that had offered plenty of warning with its rattle. She was content to clear out of the area, and that we did. Of my many travels in Utah’s desert, this was the first time I had ever encountered snakes of any kind.
The drive to Escalante is a surreal experience. From the vast emptiness east of the intriguing San Rafael Swell, Route 24 blazes past lonely, solitary rock towers and buttes harboring the extremely weird and wonderful Goblin Valley. Through the desolate landscape surrounding secluded Hanksville, a forgotten hamlet right out of the X Files, the route to Escalante turns west, passing by towering Factory Butte on the north and venturing into the wonderfully wild world of Capitol Reef, one of my favorite places in the world. On the west side of the Reef is the tiny town of Torrey, where Scenic Highway 12 leads south over the east flank of Boulder Mountain through one of the nation’s largest aspen groves. Descending south from the mountain to the southern Utah desert, the highway escorts visitors into the unforgettable Navajo Sandstone planet of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (GSENM).
Soon the land falls away from both sides of the road as it trails the ridge top of a butte surrounded by canyons. It’s wise to slow down when driving this spectacular, airy and narrow road for caution’s sake, but also to take in the views, stopping when you can to take in a view that can only be witnessed in Utah. The alien grandeur of the place defies words. The route descends into the canyon, trailing Calf Creek a short distance to the Escalante Canyon, then climbing out in equally grand style before arriving at the tiny town of Escalante, located in the middle of a desert wonderland located squarely in central southern Utah.
It’s clearly evident by the many pictures on SP that visiting Utah is like visiting another planet. Such would be the case during the rest of our trip. We would visit some of the most crazy and unique destinations in our total hiking and climbing experience. Yet the experiences connected with our visit to Escalante would also extend this sense of another world beyond our usual perceptions, leading us to a surprising series of realities and unexpected conclusions.
PETRIFIED FOREST AND KODACHROME BASIN
Amazing Formations in Kodachrome Basin
Just outside of Escalante is the Petrified Forest State Park. This place has a wonderful camping facility situated at the trailhead for two engaging trails that wander around the top of an adjoining butte. This park is definitely worth the price of the $6 admission ticket, and it’s a step into a primal time. It wasn’t hard to imagine a huge forest of conifers standing tall on this once mountainous landscape. The trees were subsequently buried and petrified through chemical reactions and subterranean pressures, muting them into the stone specimens we witnessed on this cool Escalante morning.
We spent the bulk of the day at Kodachrome Basin, another state park adjoining the GSENM. It is a wild world of spires and hoodoos that lure the explorer into forgotten winding passages, to awesome panoramic views and strange discoveries. We hiked most of the Park’s trails, coming across some of the most alien looking formations we have ever seen anywhere.
The next day led us down the horrible, endlessly washboarded Hole in the Rock Road (HRR), to the middle of nowhere. Here in the great desert wastes is a maze of canyons that defies adequate description. Two spectacular and short slot canyons are found here, and they are well documented on SP as well as the internet. Ever since seeing the dramatic photos of these two spectacular places, we have wanted to experience them for ourselves.
The Incredible Peek-A-Boo Slot Canyon
We had now arrived at the entrance to Peek-A-Boo, and it was an odd sensation, feeling as if the moment was being experienced by us through someone else, that we weren’t really here. After a couple years of anticipation, we were there, ready to make the tricky scramble into the mouth of the slot, poised about 15 feet above the ground via a scamper up steep and smooth slick rock. The pool of water that usually forms at the entrance was not there, but the ground was moist and marked with countless human and animal footprints, including those of a young bear. What a young bear would be doing this far out in the desert was beyond us.
I deposited my backpack behind a bush just west of the entrance, anticipating tight quarters within the slot. This would turn out to be a good decision. I climbed up into the slot first, having to hang my leg down as a climbing aid for Ellen. We short people have to get creative when visiting strange and weird places better suited to tall folks! We then began a series of creative maneuvers to get through the many challenges this wonderful, strange place offered.
In the Peek-A-Boo Slot Canyon
The slot features four arches, two of which are immediately evident upon entering, the other two, deeper within the slot, are pleasant and engaging surprises. The further in we ventured, the tighter, darker and more wondrous the journey became. It was an unforgettable experience we would seriously consider revisiting (which goes against our policy of repeating stuff) because it is indeed so special. We had so much fun, that rather than walk out of the slot and back to the entrance via an outside route, we retraced our moves back down through the slot. We encountered another party of three at the entrance and amused ourselves watching them crawl into the slot before proceeding to the Spooky Slot.
The Spooky Slot is located a quarter mile east of Peek-A-Boo down the dry fork of Coyote Gulch. The entrance is obviously spooky, dark and mysterious and hard to miss. Once again I deposited my backpack behind a bush. It would have been a real hassle to get a backpack through either of these slots. Spooky wasn’t as spectacular as Peek-A-Boo, but it offered more bang for the buck. It was longer, darker and incredibly narrow. Large round folks need not apply! After a wonderful “atrium” preview, obstacles were extended, dark and narrow. Two cruxes would pose a real challenge to large folks. We caught up to another party of three at these spots and it took them time, being larger than Ellen and me, to get through them.
A steep corkscrew chute of sheer slick rock walls was the first crux, and climbing this thing in the dark requires some study and predetermination before placing your feet. A second crux is a wider spot choked off by boulders. Explorers can either climb under these boulders and then climb straight up through a hole not much bigger than me, or climb up and over the boulders through a narrow hole, not especially suited for short folks. We both took the crawling route, which was remarkably clean and devoid of wood debris or cobwebs. We emerged into a sunlight alcove, the only one in the whole quarter mile long slot. We briefly conversed with the other group which was there taking a break. We then continued on with more slot action, surprised to find another small arch to pass through.
Emerging at the slot’s north end, we followed a cairned route back to the entrance along the slot’s west side, occasionally get a peek into the canyon’s hundred foot depths. What a blast! These two canyons are unique experiences, highly recommended to those looking for a unique adventure. Big people, or folks with claustrophobic problems, should skip these canyons, but for those able to visit these canyons, it’s an experience you’ll never forget!
Our visit to another planet continued with a tour of Devil’s Garden, back up the horrific, jaw-rattling HRR toward Escalante. This is a very special, even magical place. Fortunately, we allotted plenty of our day to check this place out thoroughly and we weren’t disappointed. Hoodoos, strange domes, plenty of hidden passages, a wash lined with sheer red walls, a frail looking arch and a natural bridge gallantly defying gravity were all treasures to be discovered. A highly recommended visit to Cedar Wash Arch followed, taking a pleasant back road that led us into town from the south, avoiding the washboards of the HRR.
It’s hard to believe such a lush environment can be found within forty miles of the stark wastes of desert that Peek-A-Boo and Spook Slots are found in. This canyon is an oasis of life in the rugged and harsh Escalante Canyons environment, all because of the presence of water. A spring fed stream runs through the canyon year-round, resulting in a flourishing environment that supports a startling array of wildlife.
We were surprised to see rainbow trout in the creek during our hike to stunning Lower Calf Creek falls. Evidence of a multitude of animals abounded in this gorgeous canyon, dressed in the splendor of a spectacular display of fall colors. Large petraglyphs adorned the far canyon wall, harkening back to an ancient time when the native Freemont people lived in and scratched out an existence in this harsh landscape.
Lower Calf Creek Falls Rainbow
Arriving at the falls was stepping into paradise. This finale was a fabulous exclamation point to the journey up the canyon, a place of unparalleled beauty. This place is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in all of my extensive travels.
This 6 mile round trip hike is very easy and access is right off of Scenic Highway 12, so it’s popular. There is a fee due to the high traffic, to maintain parking and restroom facilities. It is $3.00 well spent. Don’t miss this startling oasis in the desert, and doing it in the fall would certainly be the best time if you’re after a breathtaking spectacle. Calf Creek is just another example of the wild and bizarre diversity of the Escalante Canyons.
Our friend Cheryl arrived that evening and we met for dinner to plan the rest of our activities, working from a list of possible activities she had suggested to us. The following day we decided to do the hike to Phipps Arch, which involved scaling an exposed Class 3 slick rock obstacle. Some guide books suggested the move was Class 4 for some folks. We decided it couldn’t be that difficult if it was written up repeatedly in various sources and set out of determine the difficulty for ourselves.
We parked at the trailhead, located right on the highway where it crosses the bottom of Escalante Canyon. The hike was level and fairly easy, involving only about a three hundred foot gain to reach Phipps Arch. Our first encounter on the trail was an old Freemont storage grainery that Cheryl had not noticed on her earlier visits. We then came across a group of wild turkeys, which scattered to avoid us and dashed into the bush. We would later find their footprints at one of four crossings of the Escalante River upon our return. They had followed us to the water.
Phipps Wash is the first tributary on the right from the trailhead, and it wasn’t long before we were far enough up this side canyon to start our ascent toward Phipps Arch up yet another side wash. This was a fun route finding exercise, aided by cairns that eventually led us to the crux move. It was indeed a steep wall of slick rock without any notable holds, but we managed to get up the thing. We would find a better alternate route on the descent further to the west.
Above the crux, we were channeled into a narrow draw that brought us directly to the base of the massive Phipps Arch, perhaps one of the biggest and thickest arches I have ever seen. The arch is situated in a magnificent setting that defies adequate description and is a challenge to fully capture on camera. We had a beautiful day with a cloudless sky, lots of sunshine and cool temperatures, so we lingered at the arch for quite some time, soaking in the incredible ambience of the place while eating a good sized lunch.
After our return to the car, we took a short hike to view more petraglyphs nearby, including the often seen Hundred Hands wall (actually there are over 200 hand prints on the panel).
The Golden Cathedral is well known on the internet, and unmistakable when seen in photos. It is a dramatic pour-off in Neon Canyon, a fantastic tributary of the Escalante located well within the Lake Powell Recreation Area, and logically accessed only from the GSENM. This was our biggest distance and gain day on the trip. Resources stated it was a 10 mile day, but the GPS differed at day’s end, bringing the tally in at just over 11 miles. There was concern my feet would be unhappy with this distance, but most of the hiking was level, and numerous crossings of the Escalante River would proved to be refreshing enough to revitalize my tired feet.
It meant that we had to once again endure the rattling ride down the HRR, but it was worth the torture. At the trailhead, the bulk of the descent was apparent. The hardest part of this day would be at the end, when the gain would be required to climb from the huge bench back up to the next level where our Pathfinder was parked. This stretch was on a vast tilted sea of slick rock.
Once on the lower bench, it was an eastward trek across Navajo sandstone for several miles until we came to the mouth of Fence Canyon. Here there was a bit of confusion, as we had the option to follow Fence Canyon and deal with some deep, spring fed pools, or stay above the canyon on the well trod route and descend into the gorge later on. We went with the latter choice, eventually finding the scant trail and gradually descending into the canyon, right where the north and south forks converge.
Again, due to the presence of water, Fence Canyon was a lush paradise of fall colors and a wide variety of plant life. Not far beyond, the mouth of the canyon emptied into the broader Escalante Canyon and the first of a total of 6 crossings for the day greeted us. The water was cold and breathtaking as we forged not only across the river, but down it as well. Our feet were suitably numbed and aching before we managed to exit. We kept our wading shoes on for additional crossings to come, including a couple Cheryl had not recalled. She was thinking that after the hundred year flood of 2006, the course of the river and thus the route might have changed. It was just another testimony to the power of water in the desert.
Along the way we found more petraglyphs just before arriving at the entrance to Neon Canyon, changing to an eastward course from the southbound course of the Escalante River. It was another mile up Neon Canyon to the Golden Cathedral. It was during this stretch we realized the mileage in the guidebooks was wrong and we were in for a very long day.
Even so, we were in magical Neon Canyon, which certainly lives up to the reputation implied by its name. It is here we encountered the tracks of a hefty mountain lion in the mud that was still moist in the shadows of the overhanging canyon walls. After numerous bends and plenty of cool shade cast by the towering cliff walls, we arrived at the optimum time to view the Golden Cathedral. A large pool resides beneath this unique pour-off that had actually been bored through by ferocious flooding events. The reflected sunlight illuminated the red walls, making for dramatic photos. In the pool, tadpoles and minnows were thriving in their own ecosystem.
Technical climbers often take an alternate route to the upper canyon and rappel down through the openings in the Cathedral ceiling right into the pool, which can be almost 10 feet deep. We saw no one though on this day, feeling very isolated out in this desert wilderness with only a supposed mountain lion for company. We did however run across a couple of European gentlemen on our return through Escalante Canyon. They seemed perplexed as to how we managed to keep our hiking boots dry. We explained it to them.
Our return did not have the route finding issues we had on our way to the Golden Cathedral, so we made good time climbing out of the canyons, crossing the vast Navajo sandstone flat and scaling the sea of slick rock back to our vehicle. Another jarring hour on the HRR had us eating a late dinner at the Cowboy Blues in Escalante and recalling the glories of a long day well spent in the vast wilderness of the Utah desert.
The next day was a short one, deliberately planned that way to allow us to recover from the long trek to the Golden Cathedral. Our day involved an hour long drive to the start of Willis Creek Canyon, a slot located on the Kaiparowitz Plateau, the middle section of the GSENM at about 6,000 feet. Total distance was not to exceed four miles, but it turned out to be closer to seven miles. No matter, it was worth it. The Willis Creek slot, though not as narrow as Spooky, was nonetheless spectacular. Cheryl had never visited this part of the monument before, so it was a really inspiring treat for her to do something new.
Because of the extended length of our Willis Creek outing, we decided to forego the long drive for another two mile hike in Cottonwood Canyon and save that for another trip. We did visit the incredible Grosvenor Arch, just east of Kodachrome Basin. This is a HUGE arch located in the Dakota Sandstone layer of the Grand Staircase. Its size isn’t really evident until you walk up and stand beneath it.
Our final day in the monument was another leisurely one. Led to believe by what we now knew were not reliable printed resources that this narrow canyon went on for three miles, we were a bit disappointed that the slot section was 1/8 of a mile long. However, it was a beautiful hike, at around 7,000 feet in a canyon that is obviously hardly ever visited. We had been cheated out of our annual fall hike in Colorado by unruly weather, but we got our large fall color dose thanks to the Escalante. Trap Canyon was a fall spectacle like no other, with dazzling arrays of not only orange, red and yellow, but purple and pink as well.
On our way back to town on the Smoky Mountain Road, without a doubt the most civil dirt road in the area, I noted several possible locations we could use for stargazing later that evening. I had no doubt that the night sky from this isolated locale would be spectacular beyond belief.
After an early dinner, Ellen and I drove down the Smoky Mountain Road and parked at the monument border to watch the stars, along with the glowing canopy of the Milky Way, gradually blanket the Utah desert sky. This was the subtle yet crowning moment closing a spectacular trip to a wild, new place that we would not forget. Hopefully a return to this “distant planet” is in our future, for there is still so much more to see and do.
Thursday night. Dinner time at the Cowboy Blues restaurant in Escalante. A later than usual meal for three tired souls staggering in from a long trek across the toasted desert wastes of the Escalante. Our dinner has just been brought out to us when a tall, lanky character strolled up to our table, seemingly out of nowhere, offering up a greeting that went something like “well, look who we have here!”
It’s David Kiene, my fellow staff member from SummitPost!
I stammer, rendered speechless. I must have looked silly, mouth open in disbelief, full of half chewed food. When I realized who I was looking at (he’s pretty tall, so I’m craning my neck above my plate), I simply blurted out “what the hell are you doing here?” David laughed.
I had warned David that the aspen viewing in the San Juans might not be that great. They may be past their peak. He reported that most were, but they had a few spectacular places to visit despite the timing, thanks to my informative email, which served as their tour guide for the area. Once the viewing was done and much time remained in their allotted trip time, they decided to head to New Mexico and Utah.
We invited David and his friend Mike to join us. Their dinner was just about to be brought out, so we assembled the tables and had ourselves a marvelous dinner together. Throughout the discussion, we exchanged trip stories and pondered the bizarre chances of such a rendezvous happening.
What were the chances of them encountering us in Escalante? We had considered other restaurants in town. We could have easily chosen any other place to eat. It just so happened Cheryl was intent on Cowboy Blues because she thought we would enjoy it. This was the only factor in our choice, one that could have easily been decided against. David and Mike just happened to pick the restaurant at a totally random chance as well.
Escalante is BIG country. Two SP members in the same area passing in the night is a high possibility. But having them meet under such chancey circumstances is another matter, especially when the same two met only two weeks before in another state. Even more boggling is the fact that both of these guys are also SP staff members.
What are the chances of such a rendezvous happening?
David and Mike wandered the back roads from Colorado’s San Juans, to the remote lands of New Mexico, then to Utah’s desert. Eventually getting funneled through Hanksville and Capitol Reef, they entered the amazing Escalante region just as we did days before. The experience that grand introduction while we were visiting the Golden Cathedral. They had considered driving on through to get closer to their next destination, Zion National Park. They could have easily blown right through Escalante. Yet they decided to stop for a bite to eat, and then car camp not far off the highway, ending a long day of driving.
They could have gone ANYWHERE once they diverted from their planned tour of the San Juans. We could have easily missed them even if they deliberately chose to try and find us in Escalante. David said he actually thought briefly of the possibility, by sending an email to see if I would respond, but he figured the chances of me checking my email and being able to act on it were very slim. He was right. I was purposely avoiding the internet on the trip.
The whole incident was weird. Really weird.
Outside the establishment, we said our goodbyes under the porch light of the Cowboy Blues porch, failing once again to get a good picture of David. We have no photo account of this fateful event.
On our final night in Escalante, as Ellen and I gazed up at the sprawling magnificence of the Milky Way, I once again pondered the probability of such an event taking place. I’m still baffled, and I realize as I gaze into the universe that fate does indeed play a larger role in our lives than we might think.
We have a motto at CRT. It’s CRT’s trademark, and it’s a good motto to live by.
Expect the Unexpected.
Especially when making Encounters in the Escalante.
LINKS
The following links will be helpful in planning your own excursion to your own Twilight Zone:
What are you trying to do? Now I HAVE to get back there again next year. Excellent pics and some great inspiration. Thanks for taking the time to put this together.
Aaron, you definitely need to be praised for the amount of work you have put into this page and many others like it. I truly enjoyed reading it! This is what SP is all about, sharing stories and experiences like this one. Again, thanks for the hard work! And btw, the pics are fantastic!
Thank you Sergio for the nice compliment. We were certainly fortunate with out photos. Glad you liked the report-thanks for taking the time to check iout.
I just spent three weeks out in Utah, most of it in Escalante last month. It is another planet for sure. I did Neon canyon and rappelled out of the Golden Catheral. It is one of the most beautiful places I've set eyes on.
The Twilight Zone theme got me hooked. Awesome areas and photography. I was expecting something like: "We went to a canyon and found an old green rope. Then a falling rock narrowly missed my head. Later we saw a wolverine. The next day we went to a different canyon and found an old green rope. Then a falling rock narrowly missed my head. Later we saw a wolverine." But, you ran into a friend. Aaaaaand?
Annnnd-ha ha ha! You're always expecting SOMETHING to happen in the Twiight Zone (probably a good idea). We DID see all sorts of wildlife on this trip-more than any place I've been to previously. Thanks for reading the report!
