{"id":529,"date":"2011-05-22T15:47:03","date_gmt":"2011-05-22T21:47:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hikehollywood.com\/blog\/?p=529"},"modified":"2012-12-31T01:21:15","modified_gmt":"2012-12-31T01:21:15","slug":"escalante-loop-spencer-canyon-phipps-canyon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.acrossutah.com\/wordpress\/escalante-loop-spencer-canyon-phipps-canyon\/","title":{"rendered":"Escalante Loop: Spencer + Phipps Canyons"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continuing on my 5-day loop through the Escalante area, I packed up from my alcove camp in The Gulch and headed down canyon. The last stretch became somewhat brushy and not all that fun. Once at the Escalante River, I was surprised to see how much larger it seemed from where I left it at Boulder Creek. It was also opaque at this point.<\/p>\n

\"TheI headed down river — finding it much easier to just walk right down the middle than to try and find a route through the brush along the edge. After just a short ways I found the “standard” exit for Steve Allen’s “Ladder Route”. I filled up my water containers and then started the climb up the bit of a scramble up a talus slope of rocks. There may have been an easier way a little farther down the canyon around the next bend, but the chute I went up wasn’t that bad. Once up, it was a steady system of slickrock ramps. A few places it looked like I might become cliffed out — but there was always a way up. <\/p>\n

Up on top of the main canyon, I followed the southern edge of the side canyon for a ways. It was awesome to see the ladders across the canyon which give the route its name. I know things always look scarier from afar — but no way would I trust those old 20′ aluminum ladders to get up that slickrock face!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The route up and over the slickrock saddle was cool — and definitely a work-out on the legs. The top provided views of the Spencer Canyon area as well as the Red Breaks region. I contoured along the Spencer Canyon drainage wishing I had more time to go down in and explore.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Spencer Canyon from above<\/p><\/div>\n

Then, I had a 4-mile slog across Spencer Flats. Nothing too exciting about this stretch of the day. I finally got the point overlooking the Phipps\/Escalante junction where I made my final camp.<\/p>\n

I expected my final day to be a fairly easy one, but it was far from it. I made my way over to area above Phipps Arch — but after almost two hours of trying to find a route, I could NOT get down to the arch. I didn’t really plan on taking this route, so unfortunately I didn’t have the maps\/beta that I should have had — but I distinctly remember reading that there is a route up to and over the arch. Deflated I headed up the canyon in search of a route down.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Phipps Arch from across the side canyon<\/p><\/div>\n

With each small drainage I would try to find a way down, each time only to find a drop-off somewhere along the course. As the day got warmer, and my water was nearly gone, this became more and more excruciating. I kept rim-walking. Occasionally I’d drop down the steep slopes hoping for a route down, but I never found one… meaning I had to reverse course and climb back out multiple times. It was especially frustrating at one point when I could see cars along Hwy 12 in the distance across the canyon, but still no viable route down and across. After going many miles south, one attempt final yielded a steep slickrock ramp which went all the way to the bottom. Yay!<\/p>\n

From here I headed down Phipps Canyon and was ecstatic to find a source of water not too much later. I filled up, then continued on down the canyon and within an hour or so I was back to the Escalante thus completing the loop. From here, it was just an easy walk back up river and back to the car — thus completing my explorations of southern Utah for this year.<\/p>\n

It was a good hike. It was nice to do a loop for once and I definitely gained more data for another, future Across Utah hike!<\/p>\n

My Route:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continuing on my 5-day loop through the Escalante area, I packed up from my alcove camp in The Gulch and headed down canyon. The last stretch became somewhat brushy and not all that fun. Once at the Escalante River, I was surprised to see how much larger it seemed from\u2026 Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":637,"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":[10,12,18,20,21],"class_list":["post-529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trip-reports","tag-escalante","tag-gsenm","tag-phipps-canyon","tag-spencer-canyon","tag-the-gulch"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.acrossutah.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/P1010756.jpg?fit=940%2C198","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3aFWl-8x","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.acrossutah.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529","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=529"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"http:\/\/www.acrossutah.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2078,"href":"http:\/\/www.acrossutah.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529\/revisions\/2078"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.acrossutah.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.acrossutah.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.acrossutah.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.acrossutah.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}