05/01/02:
The Maze is at mile 136.3 north of Hanksville on UT-24. On the way I got my best view so far of prong horn antelopes. A male and 6 females crossed the road in front of me. I pulled over and we watched each other for 5 minutes or so.
25 miles of sandy, dusty, dirt road brings you to a bulletin board that may tick you off if you're not prepared. The ranger stations is another 21 miles, the Maze is 4+ hours away and other things are up to 7 hours away.
In addition, all of the Maze roads are 4WD. Not just 4WD but you're supposed to be an expert, have spare tires and other emergency gear. You're also supposed to bring your own toilet system. And if that's not enough they want $15 for backpackers and $30 for vehicle camping. I think that's either for a week or the duration of your stay. I wasn't going to spring for $30 when I suspected there wasn't more than a day or two of activities I could get to.
Horseshoe Canyon was 7 miles the other way so that's where I went and camped at the Horseshoe Canyon Trailhead for the night. Looked like we might get some rain which would make the roads impassable. That's all I'd need... stranded way, way out in the boonies. The skies cleared by midnight though.
05/02/02 Hiking Horseshoe Canyon Trail (6.5 miles round trip):
50's this morning and I was on the trail at 7:30am under clear skies. The trail immediately drops 750 feet to the Horseshoe Canyon floor. The first 2/3 of the drop is over slickrock and the rest a 2-3 inch sandy trail. 30 minutes to the bottom.
Sand on the canyon floor too and I slogged the entire way, mostly thru 2-3 inches of sand. No wonder this 6.5 mile trail is supposed to take up to 6 hours. A small spring 1/2 mile up the canyon was enough of an invitation for many large cottonwoods to lay claim to their piece of canyon floor.
The canyon varies from 100-300 feet wide and 200-300 feet high with the early morning sun struggling to light up the walls where it could reach.
Pictographs are the main attraction of this hike. High Gallery is the first of four rock art shows to be encountered. Here are paintings of mostly armless people, dated B.C.
Horseshoe Shelter, a large alcove has pictures of deer, possibly a bear, a very long skinny bird, carrot or turnip looking things and people with arms. The painting are in 3 different shades leading me to believe some are B.C., some Anasazi and some Fremont Indians. I turned to go and saw a small sign pointing to more rock art. A short scramble brought me to 2 elk, a buffalo (I think) and and archer food shopping with his bow and arrow.
I passed a couple of granaries tucked away in small alcoves before I reached another large alcove and more pictographs. A half hour past that one is the last with lots of armless people wearing rather intricately designed clothing.
They've left a pair of high powered binoculars chained to a log for viewing. Surprisingly they're still there. Also some printed material about rock art in horseshoe canyon and the area in general along with a comment book.