Buckskin Gulch, Utah

After giving up on the hot, slow, circuitous “official” route to the Buckskin Gulch, we went back to our campsite and decided to take the original route the next morning.

Our campsite was still available, yay. It’s not an official campground, just one of those pull-outs off the road with a fire ring. We parked in a slightly different spot this time. It took a little more work getting the van level. We don’t have a fancy leveling system or even those plastic ramps that look like big lego blocks. We just scavenge rocks that we find sitting around near the campsite, put them where we need them, and drive up on top of them. We were able to get tucked away in the trees a bit better than the previous night.

We found this dog gravesite near our campsite. Awww. The rock says, “Roz Dog, A Good Girl, 1999-2015” I bet Roz had a good life.

We were glad that we had our new Starlink internet connection because that afternoon our house sale in Albuquerque nearly fell through. It wasn’t our buyer’s fault – it was the fault of our terrible, horrible, no good, relocation company. It was everything we could do to keep them from cancelling our sales contract – a contract that both us and our buyers were happy with!

By the way, we still haven’t closed on that house sale. We were supposed to have closed yesterday but our relocation company has once again messed up. Now it’s Memorial Day weekend and our best hope is Tuesday for closing. But back to my Utah story.

That next morning we drove to the trailhead that is supposed to be for “The Wave” trail, but is also (we discovered) the original, and closer, way to get to Buckskin Gulch. The first little bit of the trail was a wide wash and we walked with a bunch of Wave hikers.

The majority of the hikers soon took the Wave trail to the right, leaving only me, John, and a nice young man whose name I forgot, to continue down the wash toward the gulch. Our new friend said he was a computer programmer from Austin, Texas. He had wanted to hike the Wave trail but hadn’t managed to get a permit; they had sold out. The number of people allowed on that trail is limited by permit because it is so popular.

I have seen pictures of the Wave, and I don’t see why it’s such a big deal. I think some landmarks get famous and others don’t due to tipping point dynamics more than actual virtue. We’ve seen some truly amazing formations that aren’t on the internet, so no one is ever there.

We walked with our new friend for a short distance, and sure enough, there was the gulch! It was beautiful. Here you can see our friend walking up ahead with Biska.

This next picture shows a drop off. It’s not that far, but it’s too far to jump down it, and not easily scrambled. There used to be a ladder but the ladder had washed out. We turned back, because there really wasn’t a way down.

As we started to hike back out, someone else on the trail pointed out the route around the drop-off. There was a tiny trail sign, easy to miss. Similar to our scramble on our first night in a different wash, we had to go up and around and back down past the choke point. Up we went!

The next few pictures are of us after we’ve scrambled up, and we’re looking at the route back down into the canyon. It was not particularly difficult, but it was steep and exposed.

Yep, that’s the way down.

If we wanted to hike the gulch, we had to get all the way down into that.

Uhhh. Here I am, contemplating it.

By that time, two more guys had joined us. John and I went down first. Well, Biska went first. She had no problem! Can you see her down there in the crack?

The two other guys followed us with no problems, but our friend from Austin just didn’t have the confidence to do it. We offered to help him down but he just couldn’t get up the nerve.

John went back up to help. Here’s a picture of John talking to our friend about how to do it. It looks pretty imposing from this angle!

I felt bad for the guy because I really sympathized. Although this stretch was really not all that difficult for me. John and I had done more difficult sections near our campsite on the hike we took the first morning. I realized that I’m not too bad out there myself. I always compare myself to John, but that’s not a very fair comparison. John is a mountain goat!

Here we are after we got down. We hiked the short distance back up to the choke point to see what it looks like from below. The people above are asking me how we got down there, and I explained they had to backtrack and take the trail up and around and back down. You can see some remnants of the broken ladder.

It was very beautiful in the canyon – and dry! Often these slot canyons are wet and muddy. People will wade through hip deep muck. Not for me! They are also very dangerous if there is rain anywhere upstream. Don’t ever go into one of these if there’s rain forecast anywhere nearby.

Uh oh, Biska needs help. Luckily she’s smart enough not to jump too far.

John to the rescue.

Here’s John giving Biska some water – you can see remnants of the washed out ladder stuck high up in the canyon behind them.

Then first slot canyon joined a bigger canyon. It was here that we realized why the trailhead had been moved. They were routing people around that initial side canyon that had the broken ladder. The main canyon is also a slot canyon – the actual Buckskin Gulch. The new trailhead that we thought was too hot and long on the previous day was the slow, easy way to get to the main Buckskin Gulch slot canyon. The way we went this time was a pretty little side canyon and a short cut – if you don’t mind scrambling.

Here we are in the main canyon, with the opening of the slot hidden in the shadow.