Rogil: Fry's had too much water to go into it.
Kathy: We had hoped to hike the Black Hole on Sunday. However, while driving through Utah on Saturday we had seen lots of rain clouds. We stopped at Natural Bridges for something fun to do Saturday afternoon, but the rangers said the canyon was full of water. Natural Bridges is in White Canyon, the same canyon as the Black Hole. We value our lives, so we decided that we would choose from our hikes list something less dangerous than the Black Hole to do on Sunday. (Slot canyons like the Black Hole are an extremely dangerous place to be during a flash flood.) We set up camp near Maidenwater Wash, but went to Hanksville for dinner to get away from the bugs.
Rogil: Lots of vegetation, but not too fierce. One unavoidable pool, waist deep. Pretty hike. Would like to go upstream from the road next time.
Jef: Most of us carefully tried to keep from splashing down into the unavoidable pool. None were successful. Met a group of eight or nine hikers that had come from Lake Powell with full packs. They reported that they had hiked about three hours to get almost to the mouth of Maidenwater Wash. The water downstream from Maidenwash was very opaque and did not have the crawfish and tadpoles that were plentiful in Maidenwash.
Kathy: We hiked down Maidenwater Wash, which was very pretty, and hiked up Trail Canyon, which was pretty until we passed the spring. After that, the hike got kind of long and dry for me, but we ended up where we'd left our cars, which was also where we'd camped the night before.
Sam: The water was knee-deep in most places which was much higher than we had been led to expect from the descriptions that we read. It is certainly named appropriately since it is very muddy indeed. The narrows we saw were quite spectacular and apparently we never reached the tightest and deepest section. Based on our experience and on the various descriptions I've read, the best way to experience the Chute of Muddy Creek is to set up a car shuttle and hike from the Tomsiche Butte area to the abandoned airstrip near the old Lucky Strike Mine.
Rogil: Water always warm, knee deep & fast. Worried me that we would have difficulties going back upstream, but was easier than expected. Next time make a long day with a shuttle & hike thru the whole narrow section.
Jef: This water, too, was cloudy and did not reveal much aquatic life.
Kathy: We definitely have to go back and do this one as a through hike. I think it might actually have been more fun with the unusually deep water we had, though. Rogil found us a room, I mean campsite, with a great view, too.
Sam: Mud Canyon is different from any other canyon I've ever visited. The canyon is cut through the Moenkopi formation which is essentially compressed and hardened mud. Only Kathy and I continued up canyon until it got really narrow and twisty. It was interesting, but it will probably be a long time before I visit it again.
Rogil: Not worth repeating. But maybe I was in a bad mood.
Jef: The dear flys were merciless. Wear long pants and long sleeves.
Kathy: I had fun in Mud Canyon, but I don't know if I'd repeat it. I don't remember the deer flies, but I was wearing long pants and sleeves.
Sam: These are 2 short slot canyons cut through Wingate sandstone near a rock formation called Ding Dang Dome. We originally decided to visit Ding and Dang because we were concerned about the weather and the other places we wanted to go had too much risk of flash flood. I was very pleasantly surprised with what we found. Of all the different slot canyons I've seen, I like those cut through Wingate sandstone the best. The walls are more highly sculpted with a multitude of tiny pockets and the rock has more variety in color. There are several chock stones, pools and short falls in the two canyons, but they were not particularly difficult to negotiate and made things more challenging. I had a lot of fun stemming to get around and over obstacles.
Goblin Valley was spectacular as well. There were hundreds of bizzarre mud pinnacles. Some look like giant mushrooms, and quite a few look like strange misshapen creatures. Visitors are allowed wander at will through this magical place.
Rogil: Wonderful narrows especially in Dang (western canyon). Easy cross country navigating. Definitely a repeater.
Kathy: I really enjoyed this day of hiking, too. It's so nice when a last-minute Plan-B hike turns out like this. Author Steve Allen calls these unnamed canyons Ding and Dang, probably after Ding Dang Dome. Most of our hike selections were from his and Michael Kelsey's books. We will definitely have to return to do the Plan-A hikes, though. Upper and Lower Black Box sound like fun trips.
Sam: Two very beautiful canyons incised in Wingate Sandstone. Chute and Crack were longer and deeper than Ding and Dang. Crack Canyon had much tighter narrows and was on the whole more interesting than Chute. There were few obstacles and only one section in Crack with some shallow muddy pools to wade through. A very pleasant hike.
Rogil: Like Ding & Dang, but longer, more cross country navigating & down climbs not as difficult.
Jef: The cross country path finding was much less than obvious. Good maps and directions a must.
Rogil: Lots of cross country navigating. Very nice narrows. Worth repeating.
Jef: There were jeep tracks right up to the narrows on both ends of the narrows. We hiked for miles what others had somehow navigated in a 4X4. Was this the canyon with a sheep's bridge over it?
Kathy: Yes, this was the narrow slot canyon with the rickety little bridge over the narrows. I really liked the short set of narrows in this wash, very narrow and deep.
Rogil: Primo pictographs. The wind was very nasty, but I enjoyed it anyway. Might be nice to hit it on a Sat or Sun & take the ranger guided tour.
Jef: Camped on the rim of this canyon after hiking it. Woke to rain and snow IN JUNE!
Kathy: If you're into pictographs, you must visit this canyon. The hike is not trivial, though; it has quite an elevation change.
Rogil: Snow in June. The weather was strange!
Jef: Met a local in Hanksville who hangs out at the restaurant that is part of the campgrounds on the north side of the HWY. He seemed very familiar with many of the canyons in that part of Utah. He was wearing (and selling?) a T-shirt with pictographs on it that were probably similar to those in Horseshoe canyon. (He had only one arm.)
Kathy: I like my newest sleeping bag. I had managed to stay warm despite discovering in the morning that I was sleeping in a puddle of water (snowmelt?). Sam discovered the same. Due to the weather, we decided to skip Blue John's Canyon and make Saturday our main day of driving home, rather than Sunday. By the way, just driving through the parts of Utah we visited was very entertaining.
Rogil: Continuous rock hopping & lots of poison ivy. We were probably half hour from the sandstone section when we turned back. Maybe next time I'll be less tired & enjoy it more. Or we could skip some of the basalt section & drop in down stream more. Access is an issue though.
Kathy: The entire hike, in and out, should have taken 7 hours at a leisurely pace, according to author Tyler Williams. However, from his description, we couldn't figure out where to park. Then it took us an hour to get to where we were really supposed to start hiking. And three hours after that we still had not reached the stuff we were expecting to see, so we climbed out of the canyon. We need to get more experience with Tyler Williams' hike descriptions.
I really enjoyed our nine-day canyoneering trip. Rogil keeps saying she wants to go back and do the canyons that were too dangerous (weather-wise). I know Sam would go, too. If only I had more vacation....