Black Abyss Cave Nov 28

It has been a while since I've gone "caving" so it was nice to have an opportunity to tag along on someone else's recreational trip. Also uncharacteristic for my cave trips we could drive right to the entrance of this one! The entrance pit was more formidable than I expected with a vertical wall above the dripline and two sketchy downclimb routes on loose exposed slopes. After a fair bit of scouting Lukas and I found a reasonable route down and rigged traverse and handlines for the others. We deliberately spaced everyone else out so that no one was ever in the rockfall path of someone else. This took quite a bit of time for something that would have taken me but a couple minutes myself, but it was worth being cautious. Eventually we all made it into the impressive 35m-wide passage that descended steeply over loose angular breakdown.

The void was enormous and seemed endless despite being only a little more than a hundred feet long! The others slowly picked a safe route through the breakdown while I took up the tail. I enjoyed photographing the reflected golden light fading into the darkness. I brought my DistoX2 and used it to create a quick backbone survey of the cave on the way in.

At the end of the main passage the ceiling met the floor. Lukas and Suhei scouted onward through the breakdown, finding a route to another room. This one has some nice crossbedding and occasional gypsum flowers. It was a dry and dusty cave. Though more leads existed downward, this room made a logical spot to take photos before turning back for the entrance. 

We made it back up without incident. Plotting the survey measurements later revealed the cave to be 215m long and 120m deep, notable but as usual not as extensive as I thought when I was in the cave! It was a neat and different cave; thanks to Lukas for letting us tag along.

Plan sketch

Profile sketch

Buckskin Slickrock Nov 27

Continuing our tour of otherworldly slickrock, we dropped a vehicle at the Wire Pass trailhead (I counted more than 50 cars!) and drove on to the Upper Buckskin trailhead. I had noticed on aerial photos there was a rather vast slickrock area along-strike from the famous (and highly restricted access) Coyote Buttes. Though perhaps not as intricate and delicate, it looked to have some good brain rocks and a few teepees. I envisioned hiking a circuitous 9 mile traverse from one trailhead to another which would take in slickrock, upper Buckskin Gulch, and exit through the impressively narrow Wire Pass slot. The Upper Buckskin trailhead was thankfully less busy but there were still over a half dozen cars. The open wash of Buckskin Gulch was mercifully hardpacked, making surprisingly good travel. The gulch narrowed somewhat as the sandstone was approached. The first two miles went very very fast. We then turned up a side wash with deep sand and slowly slogged the short distance to the slickrock patio. Once on slickrock we did not leave it for almost the entire day! We clambered up and down the different levels and hiked to the summit of the prow looking out over Buckskin Gulch and the vast plateau of Vermillion Cliffs. 

With the sun lowering we worked our way down to the very head of Buckskin Gulch slot and hiked the short distance down to Wire Pass. We saw people aplenty on this part of the hike, needing masks in the narrow slot with barely room to pass. Wire Pass was longer than I remembered it.

After the downright frigid previous night (and game to visit a cave the following day), Lukas and Suhei voted for a cheap motel room in Page. At $28 a room it was hard to argue with their reasoning! A warm if antisocial evening was appreciated.

Yellow Rock Traverse Nov 26

Yellow Rock is an impressively fantastical slickrock hill of bright colors and mind-bending patterns that most people visit as a short out-and-back hike. The area to the south looked to have more of the same rock formations so I thought up a 6 mile slickrock route I thought would be interesting. As a bonus this area is in a BLM wilderness study area, which as of yet do not have any rules against flying drones. It seemed like a good opportunity to reach out to local canyoner Lukas that had been interested in the use of drones for scouting canyons. He could join for the hike and I could give him a crash course in flying drones with the bonus of having a shuttle vehicle. Heather and I met Lukas and Suhei right on time at the trailhead. We left a car at the Cottonwood trailhead and then drove the couple miles to the Paria Box trailhead. We meandered our way through discontinuous trails along the left bank of the Paria, chatting away about caves and canyons. The Paria was a modest ankle depth. The canyon wall rudely plunged into the mighty river. We could have pulled shoes off to cross and recross but ended up going through considerable heroics to climb along the wall. All managed to avoid water contact! 

Paria River

Dry feet heroics

A very short distance further we clambered up a loose gully with a faint trail, away from the river. Once out of the gully we reached a pinon flat with the curious metal box and enclosed alcove of Hidden Cache. It was an odd little spot and we each took turns poking into the hideout.

Hidden Cache

From Hidden Cache we cross-countried our way up slickrock and around crypto-soil to a view of Red Top across a joint ravine. We then found a more circuitous route with some downclimbing that led us around a hill and over to the other side of the ravine. More slickrock took us to a lookout patio about 20 m below the summit of Red Top. The others snacked while I was the only one motivated to summit. A couple steep climbing moves were needed to gain the summit, which boasted a fully panoramic view of interesting things. 

Red Top at center

Back down from the summit, I joined the others and began to give Lukas a crash course in drones rules and operation. It was a little windy but the drone fought the wind for some nice aerial views. It was easy to sell Lukas on the ease and versatility of using drones for scouting cave entrances and canyons.

Red Top

Geology a plenty

After a brief snack we continued north across slickrock and through washes. This middle part of the hike was a little less interesting than I hoped but travel was easy to make good time and it is hard not to enjoy anywhere off-trail in the southwest. I geeked out on the subtle textures and alteration in the rock while the others chatted.

In little time at all we made it to the southern edge of Yellow Rock. Wow! The colors and patterns were even more impressive than I imagined! Lukas and I spent two solid drones flights exploring the aerial views, which unsurprisingly greatly surpassed those we could see from our bipedal vantage. The low sun angle meant that looking directly at the slopes of Yellow Rock (parallel to the sun direction) focused attention on the colorful painted swirls within the rocks and looking perpendicular to the sun focused attention on the rectilinear and triple-junctioned surface textures. Storm clouds darkened the horizon north of us. It was hard not to go overboard with drone photos as every bizarre view appealed the brain. I'll let the photos do most of the talking since I do not think science has a much better handle on exactly how these rocks were deformed and altered into their fantastical colors and patterns. After, I hiked up the steep slickrock to the summit (more great views) then looped back to the others. We packed up and walked the mostly straightforward trail back to the waiting car at Cottonwood.

Although Yellow Rock was the clear highlight I was overall satisfied with my little cross-country jaunt and the diversity of landscapes encountered. We closed our shuttle and drove on to House Rock Road, which was ridiculously busy with traffic. We found the stateline campground to be completely full unfortunately so we drove on to the wash where Heather and I parked for our Coyote Buttes South hike on our last southwest trip. We had a social couple hours and a very cold night.