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I was pretty lucky to get invited to tag along with some old friends on their yearly spring backpacking trip in Escalante. I have always wanted to visit Coyote Gulch and have heard lots of great things about it so needless to say I was extremely excited to get down south and start hiking. We met up early on Wednesday morning and arrived at our starting point near Chimney rock at 12:30. Soon after we were hiking down the sandy hill and into Coyote Gulch.

Less than two miles into our hike we left our heavy packs on the side of the trail and made a 1.5 mile hike up Sleepy Hollow to the dry fall at the end of the technical section of the canyon. The mouth of Sleepy Hollow was pretty scrubby but the middle portion of the canyon had some excellent alcoves and crystal clear pools so it was definitely worth it.

A cool little tunnel under a very large boulder.

The end.

After a quick rest we were hiking down Coyote Gulch on our way towards Hurricane Wash and Jacob Hamblin Arch.

Jacob Hamblin Arch

We set up camp under the huge alcove between the bends of Jacob Hamblin Arch. Before dinner I did a bit of wandering around the area taking photos of the Arch. I was able to scramble up into the arch from the west side and take a few photos before climbing back down the east side. After dinner and the canyon was dark I set up my camera for a series of star trails and did a bit of light painting.

Thursday morning I was up early and ready to see some waterfalls. I took a quick photo of our campsite then Shay and I were off hiking down the canyon towards the Swiss Cheese falls.

Camp under the large alcove near Jacob Hamblin.

The area around the Swiss Cheese falls and the choke point did not disappoint and I spent almost two hours shooting photos of the water flowing over the sandstone. I took a few portraits but with the long shutter speeds (1/3-1/2 sec.) that came out pretty blurry. This was by far my favorite area in Coyote Gulch.

After my nice long photo break we were back on the move. We hiked down canyon beyond the Choke Point and Coyote Bridge in search of a campsite for our second night in the canyon.

The Choke Point of Coyote Gulch

Coyote Bridge

We set up camp in a little alcove just over a mile down canyon from Coyote Bridge just beyond the first set of falls. I set up my camp and started making some food while everyone else prepared for a day hike down to the Escalante River two miles down canyon. I ate my late lunch and took a quick power nap before I loaded up my day bag with camera gear and worked my way down canyon shooting photos of all the waterfalls. I made it to within one mile of the Escalante before I ran into Charles who was returning back from the river.

Yet another power nap and more snacks at camp and I was hiking back up canyon to shoot photos of the falls we passed earlier that day.

After shooting waterfalls the entire afternoon I wandered my way back to camp just before dark. The last of our group had returned from their hike, they ended up hiking well beyond the Escalante and inside of Stevens Arch. I must admit I am still pretty jealous of their hike but shooting all the falls was still a pretty good time.

Camp in the dark

Day three I was up bright and early and the first one out of camp hiking up canyon towards Coyote Bridge. I took a few selfies before I headed back up canyon to the Swiss Cheese falls for more photos.

We spent the rest of the day wandering our way up canyon and eventually back to the car and into Escalante for some grubbin mexican food. We decided to make the long haul back to Utah county and made it home around 1:30.

Map of the trip

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Clint and I left Orem early Saturday morning with plans to camp and do a loop hike up Arch Tower Canyon to the top of the San Rafael reef then back down Cave Canyon. The weather had looked iffy all week but we packed up the truck while the snow was still falling and headed out to the swell. We turned off highway 6 just before green river and drove the 4×4 road out to the mouth of Cave Canyon. The temperatures were in the high 30’s as we started out hiking on the east side of the reef towards Tower Arch Canyon.

Tower Arch canyon was nice, and I was glad we did it but not really worth doing a second time. To get through the lower end of the canyon there was a fair amount of scrambling up dry falls, bypassing of more than a few potholes, and a bit of bushwhacking.

Coolest part of Arch Tower canyon was the area full of potholes just above the large dryfall about 1/3 of the way up.

Luckily we were able to bypass this one in the narrowest part of the canyon.

Arch Tower

Looking down canyon at Clint and the Tower.

Just as we made it to the top of the Reef the clouds started to give way to blue skies. We hurried along to the edge of the reef to get some shots of the amazing views. The light on Mexican mountain was pretty incredible with the dark storm in the background.

pretty stoked

That snow started getting awful close…

We only had one hour of good light before we had to make the obvious decision to pack up everything and start hiking down off the reef. As we hiked towards Cave Canyon we soon noticed we were off route, we had cut down the wrong drainage and had passed Ednah Bridge. By the time we notice our error and how to correct it the storm was on top of us so we put our cameras in dry bags and geared up for the snow. Our hike down cave canyon was cold, wet, slippery, and due to the rain/snow I could not take any photos of the little water falls pouring into the canyon. The water flow was really too mild to be considered a flash flood but it’s always amazing to see desert canyons come to life with flowing water. We made it back to the truck at the mouth of Cave Canyon 4.5 hours after we started out, we packed up and got off the rough 4×4 road just before the snow really started to come down hard. We had no desire to get stuck in the desert so we made the decision to bail out on camping and head home after driving the Green River cutoff.

Track Log of our hike.

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