SLICKROCK
PARADISE
While
Christy and I had taken several trips to Utah, Colorado, and Arizona
previously, we were largely focused on visiting new places on this one. There were a couple of exceptions
though. We were planning to hike the
Virgin River Narrows in Zion National Park in Utah for the second time. However, the follow up trip would be a two day backpacking trip, while our first visit had been a
long dayhike.
That promised to be a very different experience. I also planned to revisit Upper Calf Creek
near Escalante. On our last trip,
Christy and I had hiked to Calf Creek Falls.
Afterwards, I did a separate hike to Upper Calf Creek solo. That hike had just been a couple of hours,
but I was blown away the beauty of the place.
This time, I planned to bring Christy with me, and we were going to
spend the night down there.
We
had breakfast and packed up the next morning.
We got a little lost on the drive out, which was exciting since we
didn’t have a cell signal and Google Maps wasn’t working. We eventually figured out our mistake and
found the way out to the main road. We
then drove past Navajo Lake. It sits
down in a basin, which was full of smoke from a nearby wildfire. We had planned to stop at the lake to do the
short hike to Cascade Falls, which is a waterfall where The North Fork of the
Virgin River emerges from a cave in the side of a cliff. However, the smoke was thick and we didn’t
want to hike in it. Instead we drove on
through Red Canyon and past the entrance to Bryce Canyon National Park. We stopped at a roadside pulloff
for lunch before continuing on to Escalante.
Just before town we stopped at a Ranger Station and picked up a
backcountry camping permit. Then we
drove through town and down to Calf Creek.
From there we continued up the most exciting stretch of scenic highway
12. This stretch of road follows a narrow
spine of rock with dramatic drop offs on both sides. At the top we saw
some college aged kids getting ready to longboard down it. I’ll bet that was awesome, but
terrifying. I hope their skills matched
their ambition!
The
directions in Kelsey’s guidebook are wrong, and we missed the turn for the
trailhead. I did the same thing on my
previous visit, and I think we actually turned around in the same place. We doubled-back, and found only a couple of
other cars in the parking lot. That was
a bit of a relief. It was a Saturday
afternoon, and I was hopeful that it wouldn’t be crowded. One group had just hiked out, and there were
only two other cars in the parking lot.
That was encouraging. We packed
up and started down the trail. At that
point it was 92 degrees, which seemed almost reasonable for mid-afternoon. Christy only carried a light daypack, which
left me to carry everything else, including a small cooler with cold beer. The first part of the hike was painful with
my heavy load. The route starts with a
steep descent on slickrock. In fact, the entire area is nothing but slickrock for as far as the eye can see. The footing was a bit sketchy, thanks to the
steep grade and lots of loose pebbles. I
took it slow, and eventually the grade eased. The rest of the hike down to Calf Creek was
more reasonable. We eventually reached
the rim of the inner canyon. We passed a
partial view of Upper Calf Creek Falls and continued to the pool at the brink
of the falls. It is fed by a pleasant
little sliding cascade. Immediately
upstream is a thick stand of scrubby trees and shrubs. Just upstream from that is another lovely
pool fed by a 10’ waterfall. That pool
is an incredible swimming hole in a stone bowl.
Upstream from there is nothing but a jungle of scrubby trees and shrubs.
There
were three people there when we arrived.
There was a friendly couple from Salt Lake City at the upper pool. At the lower pool we
met a college kid from Minnesota that had a summer internship with the National
Forest Service. All of them were dayhiking. It looked
like we might have the place to ourselves that evening!
It
took a while to find a suitable campsite.
Christy had her hammock, while I was planning to cowboy camp. I found a flat, sandy spot just upstream from
the upper pool. Finding good trees for
the hammock was more challenging. We
eventually found a spot that worked. It
was conveniently close to where I planned to sleep.
We
spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing in the sun, swimming, and drinking cold
beer. Later that evening I hiked down to
the base of Lower Calf Creek Falls. The
route isn’t obvious, but there is a good path all the way to the base on River
Left. It is a scenic waterfall, but the
area around the base is marshy and buggy.
I didn’t stay down there long. I originally thought I might hike from there
all the way downstream to the brink of Calf Creek Falls. By that point I wasn’t feeling that
ambitious. Instead I returned to the top
of the falls and went for another swim.
Christy
and I enjoyed a wonderful, peaceful evening together. We had quesadillas for dinner and got a
little drunk before crashing under a sky full of brilliant stars.
It
was cold the next morning. In fact, it
was in the low 40’s. Neither of us had
expected that, and we hadn’t prepared for it.
Christy was a bit frozen, having slept in her hammock with only a
lightweight sheet for warmth. It took
the promise of hot coffee and breakfast burritos to get her up. Fortunately it
warmed up quickly. We had just finished
packing up and were getting ready to start the hike out when the first dayhikers arrived.
Our timing had been perfect! The
hike back up was uneventful, and we still had a full day ahead of us.
Back to Utah
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Please remember to Leave No Trace!