Grand Staircase-Escalante NM - Glen Canyon NRA - Vermillion Cliffs NM

We skedaddled from the snow squalls in Bryce and headed towards Escalante, which at least sounded warmer. We stopped by the interagency visitor center there to pick up our overnight permit for the NM and then continued on to Escalante Petrified Forest State Park where were were shocked to find it once again, extremely windy.

Wide Hollow Reservoir was adjacent to the campground and Vitali quickly got to work on catching us lunch.

After battling the wind for an hour Vitali returned, empty-handed and defeated. The skies threatened but after a time the storms passed, the sun returned, and somehow -- the wind was gone! Vitali was determined to provide lunch so he headed back out, had a few bites, and then finally landed a largemouth bass! We fried it up and tasted bass for the first time – surprisingly, it had almost no flavor at all.

We laid around for awhile and then in the evening Vitali went back to enticing fish onto his hook. Just in time for dinner, he snagged another one, and this one was a whopper -- 1.3 lbs! He grilled it whole -- being larger, the meat had a more pronounced flavor that we both enjoyed.

Fish being caught, cooked, and eaten, all were content and we went to sleep. The next day we packed up and started our journey down Hole in the Rock Road, which is a dirt road that travels through Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, through BLM land, all the way down to Glen Canyon. We’d be traveling about 27 miles of it to Peekaboo Slot Canyon and Spooky Gulch.

It was heavy washboard and slow going, with every passing minute Vitali looking more and more aggravated... It took us about an hour to get to the trailhead, arriving around 8:30AM. Luckily, it wasn’t too busy and we were one of the first people on the trail.

This little area has four canyons for exploring – Dry Fork Narrows, Peekaboo Slot Canyon, Spooky Gulch, and Brimstone Gulch. We skipped Dry Fork as I read it had some wading height water and we didn’t want to get wet (and later heard from someone there was a snake sighting!).

We’d never been in slot canyons before so I was looking forward to doing this hike. I warned Vitali beforehand what to expect but he still acted surprised when we got there…

It’s a quick 1.4 miles to the entrance of Peekaboo – and a short 15 foot climb into the canyon itself.

Once up, it quickly narrows and you are forced to climb up, over, around, and under the sandstone. Peekaboo was actually pretty short, and before long we ascended back to the surface and traveled east over to Spooky. The wash towards Spooky gradually got deeper and narrower until we came upon multiple large boulders stuck in the crevasse – Vitali started climbing over them but I knew about the rope drop and looked down below – sure enough, there was the rope and the short drop into the canyon proper.

Once in, we saw why it was called Spooky… it was dark, the walls had strange nubs all over them, and it continued to get narrower and narrower… at its narrowest, we were both walking through sideways, with Vitali’s front and back fully touching both walls.

There were several spots where the canyon would twist around a corner while also dropping three or four feet, which took some maneuvering to pass. All the while Vitali was quietly cursing…

After emerging, we decided to go over to Brimstone Gulch to take a look since we’d covered the mileage much easier than expected. We walked through some more narrows and picked up the trail of some cattle – at least one cow and a calf. We got within maybe a quarter mile to the entrance of Brimstone and saw a cow laying down in the sand! As we got closer, we also saw a calf… and then another cow… and then a bull. They all stood up as we stopped to watch them, and they all started pooping. The bull was eyeballing us pretty aggressively as we inched closer and declared our intentions. They stood their ground and we decided to turn around as neither of us were in the mood for getting gored.

We left the trailhead and started to search for our campsite for the night. The BLM allows dispersed camping along the road so I had been looking on the way in for a suitable spot. We ended up pulling off onto a spur about half way back and found a nice spot with some juniper trees for the night. Night fell, and it became extremely dark, and extremely quiet.

Around midnight, I awoke. Dead silence, the air breathtakingly still. Auf Auf Awooooooo Over and over -- a coyote. It sounded maybe within 25 yards of our tent, and I tried to tell my brain to ignore all the quiet noises happening right outside, while Vitali continued to snore. I eventually fell back asleep and when I asked Vitali about it the next morning he said he didn’t hear a thing.

The next day we packed up and continued our eastward journey, back towards Grand Junction for our second covid shot. We stopped first at Lower Calf Creek Falls, which was also in Grand Staircase. We had an encounter with a Karen, who was very brave to say what she did at 7am in the morning…

The hike to the Falls followed Calf Creek and state route 12, and gradually ascended to a stunning pool and a 180 foot waterfall. It felt a full 15 degrees cooler here. Swimming was allowed, but it was too cold. We had the entire glade to ourselves for maybe fifteen minutes, which was unexpected.

We drove a little bit further east that day -- All I have to say about where we stayed that night is that once again, there was no soap in the restrooms.

On Sunday we arrived in Grand Junction, ran a few errands, and then got our second covid shot the next morning. Our next stop was six hours south -- Page, Arizona. The drive was uneventful but we did drive through Navajo Nation which made me realize I knew next to nothing about how these domestic dependent nations function. Wikipedia was very educational and I'd recommend reading all the articles on tribal sovereignty to learn more. All of the Navajo monuments were closed, which makes sense considering the Nation had the highest rates of infection early on in the pandemic.

As we were driving I saw something on the map – a national monument, not on my list(!) that turns out was also listed in my passport book, so I told Vitali we had to stop.

We took a quick detour to Natural Bridges National Monument and eyeballed the largest concentration of natural bridges in the world. We had recently learned that arches are caused by wind and rain and natural bridges are caused by flowing water. The three here were named Supipa, Kachina, and Owachomo, in honor of the ancestral Puebloans who lived here. The monument was small and had a scenic loop drive that allowed us to see all three in a short amount of time.

After that, we’d take a ‘shortcut’ to get down to Mexican Hat… Vitali looked doubtful, especially after the blinking sign that said ‘road not recommended for RVs, 23 miles of gravel’. Well, we continued on and the road continued on being paved, up until what looked like a major elevation change on google maps.

The pavement turned to gravel as Numa descended maybe 1200’ in a mile or so, with pretty dramatic hairpin turns with incredible views of the Valley of the Gods below (which I failed to capture). We made it to the valley floor and continued our journey, right past Mexican Hat and Monument Valley, both famous rock formations that are identifiable in an instant.

At Monument Valley we saw some Influencers getting ready to pose in the middle of the road, clutching their clay colored hats from being blown away in the high winds of the valley floor.

We arrived in Page in the late afternoon and were unexpectedly surprised with a third floor corner room with balcony and a beautiful view of the surrounding desert, as well as the wal-mart parking lot, full of RVs and vans.

The second covid shot seemed to only be making us tired, so we decided to go out and do some sightseeing. We stopped by an overlook of the Lake Powell dam, then went over to the Hanging Garden Trail and the Chains Trail, which had views of maidenhair ferns and the backside of the dam.

We also stopped at the famous Horseshoe Bend, which is on NPS land, but accessed through the city, who charged $10 to park... Regrettably, I didn't have a wide enough lens to capture the bend in it's entirety, so a stitched pano will have to do.

Then we headed over to Wahweap overlook and then Lone Rock Beach – you could drive on the beach right up to the water. The atmospheric haze here was dense.

The next day we packed up and made way for the Grand Canyon, but would first make a detour to Vermillion Cliffs National Monument and hike from Wire Pass to Buckskin Gulch.

This was another slot canyon, possibly the longest in the world, at around 20 miles. The hike was super cool – from Wire Pass you first passed through a separate short slot canyon and then past some petroglyphs, and then into Buckskin Gulch proper. The literature said the major dangers were of course flash floods, and snakes. I know the snakes would (most probably) be on the ground already but the image of a large snake whacking somebody in the head falling from above is really funny to me.

We saw a lot of flood detritus, some very high off the ground – which goes to show how dangerous a flash flood could be. The gulch itself was beautiful.

We hiked a few miles and then turned around, eager to get to the Grand Canyon before dark. Preview: Wind.