{"id":1236,"date":"2010-05-26T16:58:36","date_gmt":"2010-05-26T16:58:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.acrossutah.com\/wordpress\/?p=1236"},"modified":"2012-04-10T01:49:52","modified_gmt":"2012-04-10T01:49:52","slug":"escalante-to-monticello-2010-part-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.acrossutah.com\/wordpress\/escalante-to-monticello-2010-part-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Escalante to Monticello 2010 — Part 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

Day 12<\/strong>
\nIt was a long walk along a dirt road for most of the day. The views back to the Henry Mountains were nice but otherwise the route was uneventful. Passing Squaw and Papoose Rock was cool, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to see it again. <\/p>\n

\"\"I missed the “short-cut” and instead headed for the official Sundance Trailhead. In a way I’m glad I went this longer way as I got to see a cool arch and had a very impressive view of where the Sundance Trail goes down — WOW!<\/p>\n

Once around the canyon’s rim to the top of the huge drop and it was even more impressive. In a distance of one mile, the trail drops 1400′ down a rock slide to the bottom of the canyon. I saw TWO rattlesnakes on the way down. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It felt good to reach the bottom where there was a nice stream. I made camp here and watched a big moon come up. The frogs were going crazy!<\/p>\n

Day 13<\/strong>
\nDark Canyon is amazing. From the bottom of the Sundance Trail I actually went down the canyon toward the Colorado quite a ways to check it out. I’m glad I did because it was great. After two 20-mile hiking days in a row, I decided to have a fun day and jumped in as many of the emerald pools and waterfalls as possible.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"Headed back up canyon wasn’t too shabby either. More great emerald pools, small waterfalls and a lot of ledge walking along the stream’s edge. <\/p>\n

I ran into a few other groups here. I chatted with a nice group of people from Blanding. Made camp above junction with Youngs Canyon.<\/p>\n

Day 14<\/strong>
\nMiserable Day! After having such a fun day in lower Dark Canyon yesterday, today was a real drag. <\/p>\n

Soon up canyon from Youngs, the water dries up and one is left a tough walk up a cobble-stone wash. But, it’s my old nemesis The Wind which brought the real misery of the day. From morning until early evening the wind was gusting so hard that I couldn’t walk. I have never experienced anything like it in all my years hiking. It would pick up sand and sandblast me as I tried to walk. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Late in the day the wind finally calmed down. After a 2-mile side-hike up Woodenshoe Canyon to get water, I was finally moving back up the main canyon at a decent speed. <\/p>\n

\"\"Saving graces of the day: spotting two collared lizards and a great sunset!<\/p>\n

Day 15<\/strong>
\nLast full-day of the hike. I moved through Upper Dark Canyon at a pretty good click. Spotted twin granaries along the way. <\/p>\n

The water began to flow again near Trail Canyon which made the go easier. Got to Scorup’s cabin from the early 1900s mid-afternoon and had fun exploring the old-time relics. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I also looked for the nearby ruins and kiva mentioned by Kelsey to no avail. By early evening the temperature was dropping rapidly. Set up camp in upper Horse Pasture Canyon.<\/p>\n

Day 16<\/strong>
\nCold night, but it warmed up quickly once the sun was up. <\/p>\n

\"\"I climbed up and out of the canyon and into the pine and aspen forests of the high plateau. Before long I was up to the back-country roads and making my way toward the Abajo Mountains. Met up with my parents as planned near Duck Lake. Due to taking a little extra time around Lake Powell as well as in lower Dark Canyon, I didn’t make it all the way to Monticello as planned. We ended up driving a portion of my planned route to connect with the my trail from a previous hike. Though I came up about 1.5 days short of my original goal, the trip still clocked in at 248 miles and all-in-all was still a great hike across a fascinating portion of southern Utah!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Post Hike<\/strong>
\nPicked up my empty cache buckets and made the drive back to SLC. After last-year’s 49-day journey, 2010’s 16-day trek seemed to fly by. <\/p>\n

Thanks for following along!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Day 12 It was a long walk along a dirt road for most of the day. The views back to the Henry Mountains were nice but otherwise the route was uneventful. Passing Squaw and Papoose Rock was cool, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to see it again.\u2026 Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[82,81,86,85,83,84,23],"class_list":["post-1236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trip-reports","tag-abajo-mountains","tag-dark-canyon","tag-duck-lake","tag-horse-pasture-canyon","tag-scorup-cabin","tag-sundance-trail","tag-utah"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.acrossutah.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/AcrossUtahHeader_Escalante.jpg?fit=940%2C319","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3aFWl-jW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.acrossutah.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.acrossutah.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.acrossutah.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.acrossutah.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.acrossutah.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1236"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.acrossutah.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1288,"href":"http:\/\/www.acrossutah.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236\/revisions\/1288"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.acrossutah.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.acrossutah.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.acrossutah.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.acrossutah.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}