As far as four day trips go this one was right up there with the best of them. It certainly was about the journey and not about a particular destination. Every stretch of the trip hand-sampled some of the best terrain the Colorado Plateau has to offer. The hiking was not just a means to get to the river, the packrafting was not just a means to get somewhere otherwise inaccessible. Yes it was cold, the days short, and at times the weather was downright scary, but overall we lucked out. Once away from the trailheads at both ends we had the whole place to ourselves, certainly an advantage of going this time of year.
We would start at the Elephant Hill trailhead in the Needles District of Canyonlands, follow excellent trails through and past the rows of sandstone spires, take a detour loop around the very special Chesler Park, traverse into the otherworldly Grabens area, hike across four major graben valleys, suit up at the river, take on the Class III rapids of Cataract Canyon, thread our way up the limestone-ledged Dark Canyon, scramble out the Devils Slide, and finally follow a slickrock jeep trail back to the waiting vehicle. This sampled the best part of the needles, the grabens, the river, and a surprisingly formidable stretch of Dark Canyon. As far as we know no one has done this exact route before (though it is certainly possible we were not the first).
Jeff gets full credit for conceiving this route, I only added a couple
detours and modifications. I had previously passed through this general
region while hiking the Hayduke Trail- we went along Cyclone Canyon and
caught occasional glimpses of the Needles that left me wanting, and
hiked down Dark Canyon to the Devils Slide, which were easily some of
the most pleasant miles of the whole trip. I vowed to return, in
particular to explore the Needles District further. We hiked 7 miles to camp at Devils Pocket in the Needles District, hiked 6.5 miles and packrafted 6.5 miles to reach a camp partway along the river, paddled an aggressive 23 miles to camp at the mouth of Dark Canyon, and hiked 7 miles to reach our waiting car at the end of the fourth day.
We would be a group of five- myself, Sara, Jeff, Andy, and new friend Dan. If there was a downside to the trip it would be the necessity for a 3.5hr one-way car shuttle. Because of this we met and camped at the Sundance Trailhead (exit) on night zero, then drove to Elephant Hill. Sara and I were already 95% packed but some last minute decisions were made and our 41 lb packs (lots of water) were donned. For a tourist route the trail to Chesler Park was quite pleasant, with slickrock patios, cryptobiotic crusts, narrow slot passages and dramatic views. And yet we were only just getting started.
A couple miles in we made the climb up to the saddle into Chesler Park, a beautiful grass-floored hanging valley surrounded by red-and-white striped spires. We walked along and dropped our bags beneath a disturbingly watchful raven (bets ensued regarding which pack would be pecked apart first). Although only a few miles into the trip, we certainly enjoyed the opportunity to drop packs and take a lovely stroll through the park. We followed trails clockwise around to the Joint Trail, crossed through it narrow intersecting slots, walked down the wash on the other side, then found another jointed passage (used by game) to follow back to Chesler Park.
The route I hoped was feasible along the slickrock edge of the drainage network on the west side of the park could not have been much better. Uninhibited by packs we leaped and jumped over the network of cracks and canyons while enjoying what honestly was one of the best views I can recall on the Colorado Plateau. Top quality route and we could avoid the crypto 100% of the time. Our detour took a little under an hour and a half but was incredibly satisfying.
We rejoined our packs and followed the trail out of the Needles, over a
saddle and into the grabens. Just enough daylight was left to reach our
assigned campsite, Devils Pocket between two towering fins, and settle
in. We had a pleasant and social night hanging out. I found the
motivation to take a one mile return walk to find the toilet at the 4x4
camp (the only toilet and only place where we would not have to carry our waste out), which was pleasant in the cool evening darkness. The rain did not start
until we went to bed and ended about the time we were ready to pack up-
civilized! It would be the first night in the fancy new shelter I got,
which did extremely well in the rain and was surprisingly spacious.
We packed and headed out, making a well-timed morning stop at the 4x4 toilet before following the impressively challenging 4x4 road out of the Devils Kitchen and into Devils Lane. We climbed up the side of Devil's Lane and followed an abandoned stream channel into Cyclone Canyon, a Hayduke favorite of mine.
The Grabens are an incredibly fascinating area. Salt from the underlying
Paradox Formation causes the overlying units to flow and settle along
pre-existing joints, creating 500 ft-wide basins (grabens) surrounded by
young looking vertical cliffs and highlands (horsts). The salt is drawn
toward the lower gravitational potential of the deep Cataract Canyon,
causing folding of the rock units along the corridor as the salt rises
towards the surface. Essentially this 70 square mile region is an
enormous slow moving landslide collapsing into the Colorado River's
Cataract Canyon. It is no coincidence that this is the only 30 mile
stretch of river for a while with significant rapids. The
effect is of strangely otherworldly box-shaped valleys with no real signs of rivers or streams. Stunning geology!
The promise of a few minutes of sun was enough to declare a brief break to dry gear and snack at Cyclone Canyon. Yet another horst traversing canyon (this one active) brought us into Red Lake Canyon, the only graben with a significant active wash running its length. To avoid some nasty pour-offs the trail took us up over the side, traversed, and then ultimately down a small landslide to regain the floor in lower Red Lake Canyon. Across the way we had nice views of the Doll House, another more remote needle-like region of Canyonlands. Here the walking was pleasant and fast to the river, with interesting fossils in boulders along the way.
We found the shores of the Colorado to be lined with the sticky silty mud I've encountered many times along the river. We converted from hiking to packrafting mode initially slowly and relaxed, eating lunch as we went, but then more rapidly as the sky darkened, thunder boomed and rain began. The torrential rain began about 5 minutes before we pushed off, followed by strong winds that pushed the river upstream. Our pleasant walk in the park suddenly felt a lot more epic as my exposed face and hands began to lose their warmth. I borrow one of Jeff's fancy neoprene poggies to cover my hand and alternated as needed so that at least one hand could be warm enough to function.
We only covered about 6.5 miles before pulling out at a camp spot early enough to get settled and warm, but there were some notable moments of excitement. Sara flipped in the first rapid, Brown Betty, which also was her first flip in a packraft ever. She seemed a little intimidated (and cold obviously), but also perhaps somewhat relieved at getting the first flipping experience out of the way. There would be more flips. Jeff or I were in the scout or probe position, while Dan, the most experienced as whitewater guide, had the final sweeping role. Generally I picked good lines for the group to follow and the nimble packrafts presented some handy sneak options that would not have been available to larger craft. One unique and memorable rapid had the vast majority of its flow funneled into a nasty wave and hole train with the most perfect bypass on the right side (no rocks, no sharp eddy)- I had never seen a rapid quite like it! The rain quit after a couple hours and we grew more cheerful once we got into a rhythm with the rapids. About 4pm we pulled into a sandbar which initially appeared to be a somewhat grim camp coated in Russian olives shoots but actually served us perfectly. We wished we had made it a little further along the river but it was what it was. Again the rain mostly fell at night.
The third day would be the big whitewater day through the meat of Cataract Canyon. What was mostly transparent river the day before was now the typical opaque muddy brown (good thing we had colelcted water the night before). The day started slowly as we waited for the sun to hit our little camp, dry some crucial gear, and the thought of near-freezing wetsuits hampered our enthusiasm. It was after 10am by the time we pushed off. This was another great day, our first with blue skies all day. We soon reached Mile Long Rapid(s), which took some scouting but did not generate too much chaos. We scouted each of the Big Drop Rapid including the rapid just before. These were rather impressive rapids!
I managed to catch a hidden wave weirdly at the bottom of Big Drop #2
and had my first and only flip of the trip (I easily hopped back in
unaided). Sara and Andy had a few flips here and we had to collect gear.
Big Drop #3 was sobering. Andy and Sara correctly chose to do the easy
portage. I opted for a waterfall drop route that avoided some of the key
mayhem (a great run). Jeff and Dan had a successful run through the
meatier line towards the center of the run. We were stoked!
A couple more significant rapids with some of the best wave trains on
the whole trip (and that I have experienced in a packraft) followed,
then things quickly seemed to ease up. It was after 1pm by the time we
got through most of the rapids and took a short lunch break. We had only
gone about 5 miles with a stout 18 miles to go to reach Dark Canyon. If
we did not make it tonight it would not be the end of the world, but
would mean we would lose a lot of time the last day putting our packraft
gear back on and off, and loading and unloading our boats another time.
I voted for aggressively paddling onward and reassessing based on how
many miles per hour we made and the group's exhaustion and temperature
levels.
The canyon began to widen and deepen, taking on more of a Grand Canyon feel with steps and ledges in the canyon walls. Gypsum Canyon was a particularly interesting area as the wide park-like region seemed to be due to several very large landslides and slumps. Here too we saw the first evidence of young sediment banks marking the full pool water mark of Lake Powell. We felt pretty sure that we would not encounter any more rapids, further motivation to keep paddling through the fading light. The canyon narrowed and got darker. We started counting side canyons down to when we would reach Dark Canyon. The worst would be if we passed it! We were making decent progress at a little over 3 miles per hour but muscles were starting to ache and the air was starting to cool dramatically.
The last mile or two was pretty firmly in the dark and with naked visibility of only about 40ft we hugged the left canyon wall waiting to see the enormous break in the cliffs and the sound of running water signifying Dark Canyon. I brought up the tail with my occasional photo stops. It was about 6:30p when I finally heard the whoops and hollers that we had arrived. Now time was of the essence! Sara and I had the only accessible headlamps and body temperatures were rapidly dropping now that we stopped so we had to make every second count. One headlight was used to dig out others while I ran off to try to find an acceptible campsite. Our landing was grim with sinking squishy sand which had me worried we could be a long way from a campsite. Fortunately only about two stone throws from the packrafts I found a higher dry sand terrace with space for our three shelters and convenient rocks to spread out gear. I hurried back and guided everyone there. More digging of flashlights, rapid changing into dry clothes, and firing up the JetBoil. It took a half hour perhaps (and I was the last to get out of my cold wetsuit) but everyone started to feel human again. Once I warmed I started to really enjoy this camp. The limestone, the boulders, the wet sediment, sound of water, cool air, it all greatly reminded me of cave camps I have known, a strange and unexpected bout of nostalgia. Though tired, everyone seemed super happy that we had pushed through the dark to make this camp. We underestimated the length of the last day's hike out so this decision was critical.
Camp III: Dark Landing (Jeff Creamer photo)
We all slept quite well and enjoyed emerging to see our surroundings in daylight. The usual quick breakfast and we began preparing packrafts and the rest of the gear for the hike out. The large slabby boulders were convenient for cleaning packrafts for stowing. We were ready to go at about 9:30a, before the sun managed to make its way into our camp. Upstream we still had some Lake Powell sediments to contend with for over a half mile so we took care trying to keep feet dry. This slow pace eventually annoyed me so I opted for wet feet and a pleasant stroll thinking to myself. Once the canyon opened up above the sediments the others began catching up.
With the sediment gone the canyon soon cut into the beautiful cherty
limestone that I knew from upper Dark Canyon. I delighted to find the
scenery comparable, although the difficulty of travel seemed slightly
more elevated. We made pretty good time traversing the fantastic
limestone ledges, as Jeff and I assessed the creek for high flow
packrafting potential (some great stuff and some nuisance-y stuff was
the verdict). Dark Canyon really packs a punch!
We had an early lunch at a nice sunny corner above a waterfall. Upstream was a deep long pool and waterfall which slowed us down considerably...
Jeff's initial scout of the way forward seemed like we might do better to find a bypass. But retracing our steps revealed no obvious bypasses. We proceeded some distance upstream by taking our shoes off but this was a short lived solution as we soon reached a formidable pool and waterfall. If this was mid-summer, no problem, just swim across. But this was winter and being dry and warm was important. Dan's Alpacka came out to ferry Dan and Jeff across to assess the situation. I delicately traversed the right wall as far as I could. Eventually a plan was hatched: use the Alpacka and throw rope to ferry gear from Sara and Andy to me to Dan. Dan would pass the gear up to Jeff who would take it along the narrow ledge and up through the rabbit hole on the side of the waterfall. Eventually people were ferried. The full escapade took over a hour. Again I thought of our push the previous night: if we were dealing with this later in the day it could have slowed us down even more. We still had some climbing and traversing to do, but with the obstacle behind us the rest of Dark Canyon proceeded pretty smoothly.
We had a quick stop for water and then worked our way up the side canyon to the base of Devils Slide. Sara seemed intimidated. I was now in familiar territory again. Some of us were tired and it took an hour to climb the loose 1200 ft high slope to gain the plateau. It was pleasant to climb out of the shadows and into the late afternoon sun.
Once on top, we still had several miles of trail and 4x4 track to reach our vehicle. Progress continued to be painfully slow. I saw a lovely sunset from the edge of the canyon, and then the wind started picking up to the point of chills. Eventually the car was reached at about 6 pm.
Everyone agreed it was an excellent trip. The scenery was hard to beat, the adventure level high, the solitude perfect, the company most agreeable. Thanks to Jeff, Dan, Andy and Sara for a very memorable trip. It easily made the long drive worth it, but happily we still had two more days in canyon country.
But the trip was not over yet as we wanted to complete the car shuttle! I drove us out of the dirt road maze while the other furiously snacked. I caught up on the snacking once we hit the highway. A short stop in Blanding to get rid of Andy and Jeff, then Sara and I drove on to Elephant Hill to get rid of Dan. Super tired, Sara and I combed all the campground on the way out looking for a spot (all were overflowing). We ended up taking a paved forest road steeply upward into the Abajo Mountains, pulling off at the first dirt side road we could find. Certainly no people up here! I noticed the mud-imprinted ground indicating recently melted snow, and then a light snow falling as we completed converting the vehicle to camping mode. I was a little worried about getting snowed in and not being able to get out tomorrow, but I was too tired to deal with that. It would be tomorrow's problem!
