Not long after our great Telluride to Moab bike trip, my friend Kim Kelsey and I started brainstorming for the next trip we needed to do. As Lisa says, "Bob and Kim are cut from the same cloth." The trips we like to do are a bit more adventurous than most of our friends want to do. If they do join us we are often asked afterwards that they be taken off our short list.
Running the Escalante may not be technically challenging, but it sure is a logistical challenge. It also is a lot of work; no lazy floats on this 85 mile river trip.
This is a picture of the Calf Creek drainage, one of the early tributaries that flows into the Escalante River.
Running the Escalante may not be technically challenging, but it sure is a logistical challenge. It also is a lot of work; no lazy floats on this 85 mile river trip.
This is a picture of the Calf Creek drainage, one of the early tributaries that flows into the Escalante River.
One of the many logistics of this trip included shuttling a pick up vehicle near the takeout once we finished the float. For the Escalante, the shortest way to do this is to take the very scenic Burr Trail which runs between the town of Boulder, Utah near the put in, to the takeout at Bullfrog Marina on Lake Powell. It is mostly paved except for the short distance it runs through Capital Reef National Park. It's in this section you wind your way through the very interesting Waterpocket Fold technically known as a geologic monocline.
Another one of our friends, and Kim's brother in law, Earl Hall, was the third member of our team. While Kim and I were shuttling vehicles, we left Earl at the river put in with a saw to start removing the Russian Olive tree branches that the winter snows had pushed into the river. Between the 2 inch thorns on the trees and the very low water levels, the first 30 miles of this trip promised to be fairly challenging. Below that we should pick up enough tributary flows to provide enough water so that the river should be partially navigable in our inflatable kayaks. Until then it was going to be a lot of pulling, pushing, carrying, and portaging with no escape routes. As I wrote in my river journal on the 30th of April, "...this river is committing."
This is a section of the Burr Trail that makes its way through the Waterpocket Fold.
Bullfrog Marina on the far northern end of Lake Powell.
Another view of the Waterpocket Fold on the Burr Trail.
Earl Hall hanging out in the cabin that we'd rented from Escalante Outfitters the night before our launch.
Kim Kelsey
While lying in bed the night before our launch I started thinking about the challenges of low water and Russian Olive thorns we were committing ourselves to the next morning, and was questioning how smart that really was. Then I got to thinking about how Kim and, another friend of ours, Al Scholes had done this trip 20 years earlier.
What they had done was to go downstream about 35 miles and put in at Fence Canyon instead. This would involve at least as much work as pulling, pushing, carrying, and portaging our boats and gear from the normal put in off highway 12, without the added risk of destroying our boats with the Russian Olive thorns. The downside is we'd be giving up river time, but it looked like there wasn't much "river time" to be had anyway.
After discussing this option with Kim and Earl we decided to go for it and drove down the Hole in the Rock road to the Egypt trail head where the descent down Fence Canyon began. We didn't have any pack frames to carry all our gear and boats down the 1,500 feet and 3 miles to the river so we had to use the two dry bags we had that had shoulder straps integrated into them. They weren't very comfortable and the loads would be heavy but at least we now had a do-able plan. This is a picture of me looking down Fence Canyon to the Escalante river far below.
What they had done was to go downstream about 35 miles and put in at Fence Canyon instead. This would involve at least as much work as pulling, pushing, carrying, and portaging our boats and gear from the normal put in off highway 12, without the added risk of destroying our boats with the Russian Olive thorns. The downside is we'd be giving up river time, but it looked like there wasn't much "river time" to be had anyway.
After discussing this option with Kim and Earl we decided to go for it and drove down the Hole in the Rock road to the Egypt trail head where the descent down Fence Canyon began. We didn't have any pack frames to carry all our gear and boats down the 1,500 feet and 3 miles to the river so we had to use the two dry bags we had that had shoulder straps integrated into them. They weren't very comfortable and the loads would be heavy but at least we now had a do-able plan. This is a picture of me looking down Fence Canyon to the Escalante river far below.
At the Egypt trailhead with my first load to carry down Fence Canyon to the Escalante river.
This is a picture Kim took of Earl and I hauling loads down Fence Canyon to the river.
Kim Kelsey at our first campsite on the Escalante at the bottom of Fence Canyon.
We planned on launching on Saturday, May 1, but that day was used to haul gear down Fence Canyon per our new plan instead. Each of us hauled a load down but Kim stayed at the river while Earl and I went back up for another load. Earl was tired and opted to stay by himself in the truck at the trailhead while I took another load to the river to stay there with Kim. In the morning Kim and I planned to hike back up, meet Earl, and each of us would carry one final light load to the river and launch. When we got to the truck and met Earl, we learned that he had caught the flu and had been up all night with some very miserable symptoms. To add insult to injury, it had also snowed on him most of the night as well. This is a picture of Earl not feeling so well.
In the end, Earl decided it was best that he not go down the river but instead go back to Escalante and rent a motel to heal up for a few days. It was a hard decision for him to make especially after all the planning and commitment he had made to get this far. But, being on the river for a week with the flu would have made one night on the rim in a snowstorm a good time. As it turned out we were fortunate as to the gear we had packed down to the river and had yet to pack down. All we had left was one more boat, Earl's personal gear and snack food. We didn't have to pack anything back up and all Kim and I had to pack down was the snack food.
This is a picture that Earl took of Kim and I as we headed back down with our final load and before he drove back to the town of Escalante to heal up.
This is a picture that Earl took of Kim and I as we headed back down with our final load and before he drove back to the town of Escalante to heal up.
Kim took this picture of me after leaving Earl, hiking back down to the river, and loading the boats right before launching on the afternoon of Sunday, May 2.
Finally, on the river.
We only went a couple of miles the first day and set up camp at Neon Canyon.
Part of the reason we stopped after going only a couple of miles was to enjoy the spectacular one mile hike up Neon Canyon to the Golden Cathedral. This is a picture of Kim at the Golden Cathedral.
A section of the hike up Neon Canyon.
Another picture of the unique horizontal arches of the Golden Cathedral.
Myself in Neon Canyon.
On Monday, May 3rd, we woke up to a chilly morning with ice on the boats. Like I wrote in my river journal, "I'm glad I brought my heavier sleeping bag and dry suit."
Making breakfast on day two.
Kim Kelsey on the Escalante.
Kim and I have done some fun trips together and here we are on another one. By this time the fun had begun because the planning, packing, and logistics were mostly behind us. Now all we had to do is make it down the river to Lake Powell where we were to be picked up by another good friend of mine, Dennis Smith, in his power boat. That prearranged ride was schedule for Friday, May 7.
Dinner on the river; it doesn't get better than this.
Our very nice camp on the evening of May 3rd at river mile 50.