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Reflection and Redemption on the Colorado River

4/24/2015

I read this entry the night I wrote it on the Grand Canyon. The group had suffered the worse weather of the trip and patience was fraying. The release of tension I felt at the end of the day coupled with an appreciation for the group. I have made some minor edits from my original journal entry, but this is largely what I wrote there on the beach of Pancho's Kitchen

April 3, 2013 Pancho’s Kitchen, Colorado River, Grand Canyon National Park

Today we pushed from Forester Canyon to Pancho’s Kitchen. When I woke this morning, my gut already felt tight from the memories of my rookie trip last year on this stretch.

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Out of My Element: Descending into Utah's Coyote Gulch

4/24/2015

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Maggie Looking into Escalante Canyon

We cautiously approach the edge of the precipice. The rolling slick rock drops away into the Escalante River Canyon. The canyon snakes through the desert plateau, with the Stevens Arch on the far side staring at us like a serpent's eye. It's my girlfriend Maggie's and my aim to hike up Coyote Gulch, one of the Escalante's main tributaries. But we are momentarily paralyzed by the landscape into which we will descend, and I can't help but wonder if we are making a huge mistake.

We find the "Crack in the Wall," where a section of the rim has cleaved a foot away, creating a narrow entrance. We body belay our packs with a rope over the lip to a flat spot below, then scramble down the tight passage, shoulders scraping the rock on either side. The corridor opens up into the desert sun, and I am struck by how far I am from the forested mountains of my native Cascadia. Here, I am out of my element. While I am thrilled to have my beautiful backpacking novice girlfriend, I feel an underlying trepidation. In the many miles before us we will need to find potable water, route find up the creek and over rocks, and then make an exposed climb back to the rim. I fear being chastised, on online news comment sections, for being another tourist underestimating the desert, and getting himself and his girlfriend in over their heads.

A steep, sandy descent leads us to the gulch's entrance a half mile above its confluence with the Escalante where we step into a desert eden. Dragonflies buzz about our heads, and butterflies flit in the morning sun. We don our neoprene socks on sunny sandstone slabs under cottonwoods, and begin tromping up the creek. Coyote Gulch shatters our preconceptions of what entitles a “gulch.” This is a massive canyon with grand, sheer walls.

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Reflection and Redemption on the Colorado River

Out of My Element: Descending into Utah's Coyote Gulch

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