The Trip. Collins Spring to Kane Gulch. 38 miles turned 50-some. 5 days. 1500 feet gain/loss. 100 degree heat. Allergy histamine failure of epic proportions. Cost to paying clients for this experience: $1225. Cost to my Seattle trail companions and myself: a bakers dozen of blisters, calf welts and sanity. What was left of it after this school term anyway.
Would I do it again? You’ll have to read on to find out.
Here are some of the things that transpired in this sandstone wonderland formerly carved out hundreds of years ago by the Anasazi and Fremont Indians…
Day 1 Collins Spring to Bannister
It took mere hours to realize that this was the heaviest pack I would ever carry. And we were in the desert. My Pacific NW pack isn’t this heavy. We had to carry water. A lot of it. Springs were far and few between on this trek. This was the tail end of the first season in the canyon before it gets too scorchingly hot to handle. We were chasing shade the entire way. Almost immediately we got off on the wrong path and headed south downriver. A small lesson in ‘never underestimate the power of a GPS.’ T knew in her gut it was wrong. Kudos to Dude for packing the navigation unit. Backpedal back to the Narrows and get going upwash toward Bannister Spring to pump and set up camp. Ended up being a 12 mile day and put us short of our goal, however, we were on track now. Meal of the evening was chicken fajitas with black beans, fresh vegetables and avocado. Dude gets more props for hauling in a full size boxed vino tint for our swilling pleasures. An excellent nightcap before crawling in under the red rock star show. Highlights of the day include: little scurrying multicolored lizards, birdsongs galore, doves, hawks, wildflowers, cactus blooms, and the scent of juniper and sage inhabiting my nose.
Day 2 Bannister To Polly’s Island
Eight to nine mile days feels like twenty out here. We started out with big ambitions to cover some lost ground. We quickly conceded that there were no rules – only guidelines. Nature has more pull than we’d like to think. Plans can be made, goals set, but in the heat of the moment and the apex of the day…it can all change. Listening to your body and mind is key. Stay hydrated and don’t forget to lube up to prevent skin fry-age. The scenery grew even more impressive today. There were lots of snaky switchbacks thru the canyons, thru the wash. Thank god for the land X’ings, as heinous as they could be, which cut off some of the mileage. There was a fair amount of desert shwack to dodge. Our legs were getting chewed up and spit out, blisters were taking shape nicely and the shoulders ached oh-so-good from the silly heavy pack straps. Mental note: there is a big difference between school stress and pack stress in your shoulders. How I prefer the later. We took lunch in the shade of another wash-cut rock crop. Onward a little further to the spring to refill. Tadpoles galore the spring. They were huge…on the very verge of froginess…and cute! We finagled a siesta in the shade of a tree whose waxy leaves glittered in the breeze and sun. We came to an amazing ruin about .5 mi before Polly’s. Just prior to this we saw some pictographs on a canyon wall. People and animals, many snakes with curly-que tails. Way cool stuff. We hiked up to the ruin – a multi tiered, multi room impressive colony setting. This one seemed well preserved. You could see actual thumbprints in the mortar. Tiny cut-out windows that perhaps once served as a binocular view to hone in on intruders. Some rooms you enter from the front/side and others from the top (the kivas – a community ceremonial area). Maize was stored in the granary. We tried to imagine what it would have been like, living this way, up in the rock wall, with just a few family clan members. Ask yourself – what ten people would you want with you under such circumstances? Choose wisely. Back then, there was a greater supply of water, which meant more varied crops. There is speculation that this is one of the things that could have driven the Anasazi out. Water, intruders, disease – don’t know for certain. Not sure how much could exist, or subsist now in this hot death trap. We set up camp at Polly’s, an exquisite site up from the wash and in the presence of this knurly old tree whose roots and stems dove thru the site. Poured some wine for our pesto pasta with kalamata olives, Trader Joe’s merlot salami and ciabatta. A crescent moon appeared, bats darted and an absolutely awful bird sang in the background. I washed and laid down, wishing 22 were close at hand and not freshly nor inconveniently 2500 miles away. Headlamp click off.
Day 3 Polly’s to Totem
Complaints are not synonymous with the backcountry, however, I’m not sure what hurt worse today. My right shoulder, my left foot arch, the thorn that inadvertently got stuck in me arse somewhere along the way, the blister on my thumb from my poles or my wicked scratched up calves. As we got going, I made a list in my head of things my pack could do without: 20 lbs, the two longs sleeves, three extra pairs of socks, 10 lbs less food, the sleeping bag (my cocoon sheet would have sufficed), the wacky water weight and the magazine that I had already read at home. Lunch along the wash in the shade of a canyon wall. It’s amazing how much and how high the flood debris reached. We pumped before we set off. I pulled out my old Sweetwater Guardian, which is horribly inappropriate as a water filter in the desert. Even with a coffee filter double, the thing clogged before I even got a quart out. Drips from there. Cloggy McCloggerson. Today was a tough day. Midday, we found the shack after a wrong decision on one of the many undefined forks in the road. We headed into Step Canyon (the halfway point of our journey) This SHOULD have been fine as many who need water venture in there to get it. Just how anyone got in and out of there cleanly, is a total mystery. It was thick, scratchy, tight and no visible route or trail. This set us off course on time (but remember* there is no time in the canyon) We still had 2-3 miles to get to our next camp and spring. The cottonwoods sent my allergies into overdrive, with sneeze attacks that left me reeling. Singular wasn’t touching it. About now I wondered vaguely were the helicopter was to air flight me out, or at least the hired mules to carry our crap. I was at 2% capacity when we hit party camp, with vacancy! Of course there’s vacancy, there’s not another soul out there as crazy, I mean, as hardcore as us. We were just beyond Totem Pole at Green Canyon spring. T and Dude went to pump while I erected the tents, got dinner prepared and performed some general housecampkeeping. Fajitas again, followed by a slamming of wine, water and chocolate before crawling in. I do believe it was about 9 pm. Despite the utter exhaustion, I couldn’t sleep because I could not breathe. I dreamt and fantasized about the ruins we saw earlier in the day, yellow man pictographs, hands and chickens. We saw tons of artifacts, tools and pottery scraps at these under conditioned ruins. There was one phat double decker townhouse ruin complete with wood deco. We couldn’t identify that one.
Day 4 Totem to Split Level Ruin via Bullet Canyon
Off to a better start. A machete would have come in handy to get us out of this portion of the path. There’s a staggering amount of green in these parks yet – like desert meets jungle. Because we like to begin hiking in the crack heat of the day, we got on the trail around eleven. We typically killed it until we hit some sort of landscape setback. They are not kidding when they call this place primitive. Trail maintenance is non existent when you’re deep. Then I started to be thankful for that and really relish in our solitude. Many don’t dare come this deep…and they will never get to see what we’ve seen. We tramped past more ruins, seen from afar until we hit Bullet Canyon, the fork in which we head north another 18 miles to Kane. We’re averaging 8-9 miles a day with stout breaks in the shade and serious hydration. Some folks from Indiana strolled up during our siesta and tipped us off to a cool canyon just back with more stunning pictographs, including Green Man, which we’d read about. Dude opted in, T and I stayed. Backpedaling into canyons at this point didn’t seem like a grand idea. We kicked back in a nice spot with a very phallic rock formation right in our line of sight. Nothing else to do but try and climb it. Love dry grippy sandstone. I conducted a lizard hurt, but seems the heat was too much for even them right now. Maybe they just rather feign snake-i-ness while I’m hiking to try and make me scream like a girl. We have another 4 miles today and I have ice cold beer on the brain. Don’t care if it’s pissy week UT beer either. Just cold. We got going with the sun at our backs now, not so much in our eyes. Tip: going this direction on the path at this time of day makes for ideal hiking conditions. Our packs didn’t seem to be getting any lighter, but that didn’t faze us as we continued. The other civilization in this canyon spiked camp before Split Level. As we hiked on, they tried to inform us that we’d already passed the ruin. T – with her undoubtedly mad navigational skills and keen sense – wasn’t convinced. She blew off our would be friends and we plodded another 200 feet, where we came to none other than… Split Level Ruin and one of the major houses of the canyon. Dude felt it necessary to backpedal and let them know that they were, in fact, spiked just underneath the ruin. Turn 180 and OH, there it is. We dropped pack and hiked up. Elaborate and beautiful it is, kiva and granary easily found. A big chimney in the kiva and burned black. I can see why this is an archeologists dream. So many anthropomorphs, petrified knife tips, tools, shards of painted pottery. We took in every aspect we could from behind the protective chain link. We found a spot a few hundred feet from the ruin to set up for the night. Another gorgeous, starry clean night to rival our blue bird days. After Indian sustenance and apple pie, our sleeping pads called. I’d close my eyes for a little bit in the dark, and then open them to the Big Dipper directly above me. I could see the shadows and feel the the 500 foot tall cliffs around me, leaving me feeling like a small fish in a very big bowl. The walls gave way to the sky and all the constellations. I swear I could feel the earth moving.
**would have liked further exploration down Bullet Canyon to see Jailhouse Ruin and Perfect Kivas for their distinction.
*** look around while you walk. look carefully and focus on the rock. These walls are filled with treasures. I don’t even know how many we may have missed along the way.
Day 5 Split Level to Kane Gulch Ranger Station
One big 9 .5 mile push out today. We never know just how the day will go until it goes. A short bout of energy at the initiation, but exhaustion set in earlier than usual. Body laughed at the Motrin. Definitely felt like 100 temperature today. Carrying so much water all the time was a buzzkill! Every spring lured me to submerge my body, but it wasn’t an option. Lunch came sooner than expected, I think because we more wanted to drop our packs. Misappropriately timed, we finished the last of our heavy foodstuffs. Another salami bites the dust. The next ruin was Turkey Pen, named for the wooden staked turkey pen that marked the top. Pets for the Anasazi children? Probably not. I think they just had Thanksgiving all the time. With tubers and sum funky berry to mash that substituted cranberry. Maybe juniper berry. We saw our first petroglyph here. Not to be confused with pictograph. I honestly didn’t know the difference. Pictographs are the colored paintings from various medium on the walls. Petroglyphs are more reductive, the people use rock to scrape and carve out the image. Remarkably preserved, it neat to get a close eye on the the construction and the care. Another ruin, Junction, just ahead and then we began the four mile trek up and out. Fascinating to watch the scenery change as you get higher and leave this once populated world behind. We came up some sizable boulders that left us wondering how they were just suspended in mid air. Just when I thought the trail was at the end and we would see the trusty Toyota waiting idly, there was more trail to endure. Repeated twisting, winding, elevation. I sank deeper under the weight of my pack, bearing down. A sense of foraging, desperation and longing to stay in just as much to get out. When the feeling was too strong to stand, I saw the solar panel top of the Kane Gulch Ranger Station in the distance.
So… despite some unforeseen setbacks, would I do it again?
In a heartbeat.
Many thanks to my trails companions for a hasty introduction to this extraordinarily wild place. I’ll hike anywhere, anytime with you.
