Day: 1

April, Whitney, the kids and I left Orem around 1pm and met up with Brittany and Brayden in Escalante around 5. We drove south down the hole in the rock road and stopped at at Devils Garden to walk around Metate Arch followed by a quick stop at Dance Hall Rock before setting up camp at Sooner Rocks.

Whitney on Metate Arch

Brittany

A giant pot hole above Dance Hall Rock

Myself and 50mile mountain

After scouting around Sooner Rocks we found an awesome campsite with lots of slick rock and dry mini potholes that were knee to ankle deep. The kids loved the site and were running around barefoot for most of the night. After sunset I setup for a few star trails and longs exposures around camp before going to bed. It was so warm that I actually slept on top of my bag for most of the night, this was a pleasant change from freezing on most all of our desert trips so far this year.

Our campsite at Sooner Rocks

Brittany and Brayden

Day 2:

As great as our campsite was there was no shade and things got warm in the morning. April and I cooked breakfest for the kids, broke down camp, and started getting our backpacking gear ready to go. We left our camp and drove the 1.5 miles to the Willow Gulch Trail head and immediately hit the trail that descends down a sandy hill into the canyon. Backpacking with kids over the years has been a real learning experience but we’ve stream lined the process and become more efficient at packing, hauling, and motivating. Nothing helps motivate our kids more than the promise of water a few more bends down the canyon.

We packed down Willow Gulch and ran into the first trickle of water about a mile from the trail head. Once we made it to Broken Bow arch we climbed up out of subway section of the canyon to the large alcove to set up camp. This campsite came highly recommended from my friends Jake and Jen who did this same trip with his family in May and Nick who did the 40 mile/willow gulch loop the week prior. We set up camp under the alcove, ate some lunch then went back down to the water and started day hiking down the canyon to 40mile gulch.

Typical scene in Willow Gulch, this small plunge pool was about neck deep.

April in Willow Gulch

Whit and April passing packs in a chest deep pool in Willow not far from 40 mile gulch.

The Choke Point in Willow Gulch

We hiked slowly and let the kid plays and wade in very single pool that crossed our path. Our day hike from camp, down willow, up 40 mile a ways, and back took an extremely leisurely 5 hours. The kids played at a natural water slide near the base of broken bow Arch while we filtered water and I took of few shots of the Arch, then we hiked back up the hill to the Alcove and started cooking dinner. Our friends Melanie and Jon met up with us at camp and we were all amazed we had the place to ourselves on such a busy weekend. It was a beautiful night.

Broken Bow Arch

Camp

Sunset went off

Day3:

We started the day by breaking down camp and packing up our bags so we could hit the trail and hike out early and avoid the heat. The boys were great hikers and soon we were back at the car drinking ice cold gatorade and coke. Brittany and Brayden headed home and it was pretty windy out so we mulled over our options and decided to drive over to round valley draw to do some day hiking and try our luck camping in that area. We must have passed 60 cars while driving out of the hole in the rock road, memorial day weekend was in full effect.

We started down the wash and reached the start of the narrow of Round Valley Draw and ran into a 15′ dry fall. Huge mistake on my part, I should have researched this canyon a bit more because I was totally unprepared for this obstacle. It’s not that it was a particularly difficult downclimb but I could not wrap my head around a good way of passing the kids down. We explored both sides of the canyon for another way down but none was found so we turned around and headed back and drove over to Grosvenor Arch.

John, Melanie, Whitney, April and Bowen above the slot.

The wind was blowing really hard at Grosvenor Arch, we got back in the car and talked about camping in the wind and sand or maybe getting a hotel room. We decided to check the Kodachrome Basin campground where we lucked out and got a campsite due to a cancellation. We showered and ate then Whitney and I made a short hike above the campground for sunset. The next morning we did the same short hike with the kids then headed home. An awesome weekend.

Kodachome Campsite

The first night was fairly cool so we had a large fire and tried our best to stay warm. Our campsite would have been a perfect spot to shoot star trails had the moon not been full, so I had to settle on taking only a few long exposures of the Canyon below.

Saturday morning I woke up early and went on a short hike around our camp taking photos of Micro Death Hollow – Check out Dan Ransom’s TR for this canyon here.

By the time I made it back to camp April was making breakfast and the kids were up and ready to hike. We packed up the car and headed down the Hole in the Rock road towards the Dry Gulch trail head. When we arrived we were only the 4th car in the parking area, we put on our packs and headed down the trail. Soon we arrived at the the mouth of Peek-a-boo gulch and got stuck behind a large and slow group of hikers. They had just made it up the 15′ dry fall and were starting to negotiate the first of the 3 potholes in the canyons entrance. We were waiting on the group for a half hour when it became obvious they were not going to complete the obstacles anytime soon, so we bypassed peek-a-boo and headed down the wash to spooky gulch.

The kids LOVED Spooky Gulch so much and it was impossible to keep up with them in the narrow sandy slot.

I could not make it beyond this point. The canyon was just too narrow for my 6’2″ 245lb frame so I had to stay behind while April chased the kids further up the canyon.

We hiked back towards the trail head and took a short hike up the Dry Gulch Slot. I also scrambled up into peek-a-boo to get a shot of the Arch.

By the time we hiked out and made it back to the trail head the parking lot was completely packed. We made some lunch and drove back up the Hole in the Rock road to Devils Garden. The light, sky, and clouds were prefect in the garden. We spent over an hour wandering around with the kids taking photos and enjoying the cooler weather.

April at Metate Arch.

A few hours later we were back at camp making dinner just before sunset. We hung out around the fire and took a few more long exposures of the cloudy sky and full moon.

Our last hike of the trip was Lower Calf Creek Falls. Again we were one of the first cars at the trail head and only ran into a few people on the 3 mile hike up to the falls. The boys hiked really well but Bowen being only two was carried a fair amount of the way up by April. The mist from the falls was quite chilly and hard to keep off the camera lens but I ended up with some some decent shots.

For the hike down I placed Bowen on my shoulders and hiked ahead of April and Lanik. We saw dozens of European tourists hiking up to the falls on our way down and were glad to have the falls pretty much to ourselves while we were there. Once back at the car we made some lunch and made the long 4.5 hour drive home.