04/11/02 Hiking Kolob Arch Trail (15 miles round trip):
I'm back in, or I should say outside of, Zion National Park, camped up on Kolob Terrace Road in Virgin. Yeah, that's the name of the town.
60's this morning at 8:15am when I hit the Kolob Arch Trail after passing many deer on the road. Actually it's the Hop Valley Trailhead that leads to the La Verkin Trail which finally leads to the Kolob Arch Trail. The trail dips down into a valley surrounded by big, red, sandstone buttes and cones. The temperature dropped into the 40's when I hit the shade cast by those rock walls.
The trail is a fine dust, much smaller than grains of sands. 1 inch is good to walk in (other than the puffs of dust rising up), 2 inches are OK, 3 inches you start slogging and 4 inches you're almost bogged down. The trail is rated strenuous and I figured this is the reason.
The trail leads through a thick forest of dead or dormant mesquite and some kind of sage brush into a valley. 1.5 miles brought me to a gate and entrance to 2.5 miles of private land. The trail swings right towards a huge wall several hundred feet high and joins a road. Looks like some great rock climbing here. The road leads downward 600 feet into the canyon and Hop Valley. It wasn't quite toes jamming in the boots but I knew I'd have a struggle on my hands at the end of a long hike climbing back up.
As I started down the steeper section I had to pause for one of the best valley views I've ever seen. Hop Valley is several miles long but only 1/2 mile or so wide. Towering pink walls spotted with pines rise up off the valley floor and angle towards each other at the far end of the valley. Scattered around on the valley floor are more pines and a stream twisting and turning northward.
At the bottom of the road water began seeping from somewhere making the narrow canyon floor boggy. Within 1/4 mile it became a small rivulet and a short distance later was joined by another one coming in from the right forming a small stream. Towering cliffs are all around, including a couple of balanced rocks.
Walking along the sandy stream I spotted the tracks of a small bear. After 1.5 hours I passed through a fence and 2 hours into the hike I came to another fence and a camping area. I don't know which one was the end of the private land. A gate on the other side of the camping area led me to La Verkin Creek, all dried out. The GPS showed I'd come 4.8 miles.
As expected the trail turned sharply upward but only for a short distance before turning back down. Then a series of ups and downs before I found myself at the crest of another beautiful valley way below me. Starting down the trail my toes were jamming in my boots again. This was a steeper and shorter trail that dropped 500 feet. Towards the bottom a trail sign showed Kolob Arch to be 1 mile off to the left, Timber Creek Trail 3.5 miles and Lee Pass 6.5 miles to the right.
I followed La Verkin Creek left for 1/2 mile and turned right for another 1/2 mile at the Kolob Arch sign. This last 1/2 miles is a lot of scrambling up and down. The arch was a disappointment to me. Trail description says it may be the largest free standing arch in the world. Bull! I was expecting something like Druid Arch in Canyonlands or Delicate Arch in Arches National Park. Instead it was just an arch carved out front and back but the sides were part of the surrounding rock. No wonder there weren't any pictures in the park handouts. It was up quite a ways so they must mean it's one of the highest up.
Anyways, it was 11:30 and it had taken me 3.15 hours to get here. I wanted to get back up the 500 drop before stopping for lunch. I was already tired and knew I'd have some struggling ahead... and I did. I don't know how many times I stopped on the way up but it was a lot. Then there were the gnats. Not a lot of them but they fly right in your face. If you're not careful you're snorting them out of your nostrils or gagging them up out of you're throat. That really screws up you're rhythm when you're huffing and puffing.
Back in Hop Valley I found quite a few larger bear tracks along the stream. Eventually I got back to the final climb and just took my time going up, resting frequently. And then I had to end the hike by slogging through the 3-4 inch deep dust going uphill to the trailhead. The trail description said this was and 8 hour hike. I finished in 7 hours and 50 minutes.
04/13/02 Hiking Wildcat Canyon Trail (10 miles round trip):
Rested yesterday. Big lightning storm lasted for 30 minutes or more. Very little thunder. A little bit of rain though. Every little bit counts in the desert. They're into the 4th year of drought here in Utah.
Picked up the Wildcat Canyon Trail a little ways down the Hop Valley Trail. It then swung east back across the Kolob Terrace Road. Saw some mountain lion tracks which was cool. Also saw what I took to be bobcat tracks. Works for me since I'm hiking the Wildcat Canyon Tail.
The trail leads through an open meadow area and then a stand of dead or dormant trees. The sun was in my face so I missed some potentially great views. A few junipers appeared and then I was in a forest of Douglas Firs and Ponderosa Pines.
1 hour into the hike I came to the base of some slickrock 30-40 feet high. Working my way to the top I found a very nice view. A valley floor 100-200 feet below with lots of pines scattered about and cones, peaks, ridges and ranges off in the distance.
Continuing the hike through a forest of Ponderosa Pine I saw several huge, fat, pale, conical globs of rock several hundred feet high. Dunno what they were but probably the results of some sort of volcanic activity.
2 hours later I found myself at the Wildcat Canyon Trailhead??? What happened to the canyon? I dunno, maybe it was that nice valley. All I could do was turn around and go back the way I came.
04/14/02 Right Fork of North Creek:
50's at 8:00am. Forecast for 95F in St. George. That sucks but I'm not in St. George. Left Fork of North Creek requires a $5 permit even for day hikes. That sucks too so I'm not going there. The Right Fork starts out through Junipers and prickly pear cactus. The cactus is right on the trail so you have to be careful, something I'm not very good at.
In short order the trail drops out from under you. It drops down over lava rock more than 400 feet in less than 1/4 mile. It felt even more than that. 30 minutes to go less than 1/2 mile. I found a Thermarest sleeping pad on the trail, dropped by a backpacker. Someone had a rough night sleeping. I set it up in a Juniper tree and continued.
North Creek actually has water in it along with many small waterfalls. Steep slopes rise up topped off by towering red crags and bluffs. The trail follows the creek and is soon closed in my cottonwood trees and you can't see much of the slopes or bluffs.
It's a pretty trail but I can find this kind of hiking in just about any mountain area and I soon lost interest. I continued on for another mile or so. Boulder hopping is not one of my favorite pastimes and that's what the trail turned into so I turned back.
I soon bumped into 3 fly fishermen one of whom had lost the sleeping pad. I told him where it was and we chatted a while, they claiming to have pulled 40 trout out of that little tiny stream yesterday.