For Spring Break this year we decided to pack it up and head down to the southern edge of the San Rafael Swell in central Utah. This is one of my absolute favorite places to visit. You may have noticed that I haven’t blogged much for the past few months. That has more to do with how busy I’ve been rather than how little is going on. My son Keaton had an intense surgery (selective dorsal rhizotomy) that kept him in the hospital for about 2 weeks. I spent pretty much every day and night with him, which was fun. We’ve been working on the annual catalogs for the US, Australia and European markets at work, and so that has meant long hours and days and days of photo shoots. We were gifted 3 chickens from some neighbors of ours, so that has been fun. And, to top it off, I replaced the radiator and water pump in our mazda the week before this trip. One thing that I didn’t do this spring was shoot the LDS general conference like I have for the past few years. The Church audiovisual department has made a lot of changes and one of those was to cut back on the amount of photography produced for the Ensign. I was all set up to go, contracts signed, planning meetings done, and then bam, change of plans. Anyway, if you are waiting for me to post the photos from General Conference that I took, you won’t be seeing that this time around. Maybe next time? Who knows. I can honestly say it was so nice to spend the weekend home with the fam, relax and watch the conference from the comfort of my pajamas.
Anyway, back to the trip. Our baby is only 8 months old, so we decided to only stay 2 nights. After pulling in at sundown on Thursday and setting up camp, we decided to spend Friday in Little Wild Horse Canyon. I knew that it was possible that it could rain on Saturday, so we went to the slot canyon on Friday when it was clear.
This was the view from our campsite Friday morning. I love waking up to these kinds of sunrises. The desert is beautiful this time of year, and except for the wind on the day we arrived, the weather was great. There isn’t any water around for miles, so visiting when the weather is mild is a good idea.
Here is our camp set up behind this little hoodoo outcropping, just west of Little Wild Horse Canyon. We finally broke down and bought a spacious 2 room, 6 man tent with 2 rooms for our outings. I loved it and I think the kids liked having their own space. It was Easter weekend, as well as our spring break, so there were tons of people in the area. We were lucky to find this semi-secluded spot.
Our kids scaled this hill just west of our camp no less than 400 times while we were there. The 16 mm lens diminishes it’s size, but it’s probably 200 feet to the top, and a 45+ degree pitch. None of them made it all the way up since it was pretty crumbly vertical rock at the top, but that didn’t stop them from trying. Even after our all day hike in Little Wild Horse, the first thing they did when we got back to camp was head up this hill.
Even with all that energy, the kids were no match for the death march I had planned for them. Okay, I didn’t plan on it being a death march, but I just have a way of turning every hike in to a death march. I think I get that from my dad. Here we are at the beginning of the slot. Keaton had just undergone a major surgery where nerves in his spinal cord were killed to help with the effects of his cerebral palsy. That was only 2 and a half months before this trip and now he was hiking like a champ. He is still building up muscle in his leg, but the biggest problem he had was with his stretchy velcro closure shoes that kept popping off. You can see the shoe on his left foot has slipped off of his heel as his is climbing. I got that jerry rigged so that it would be a little tighter, and he didn’t have too much of a problem after that. If I could design a playground, it would be something like this. The kids loved this place.
This canyon is popular for a couple of reasons. The slots are long and deep, and there aren’t very many major obstacles to scramble over. This is a good one for kids, and as much as I would have liked to explore some of the more rugged slots around this one, I’ll have to wait until the kids are a little older. This was their first time in the area, so it was a good introduction.
Did I say this canyon was great for kids? That was before we got to the water filled section. I have never seen standing water like in the main canyon on this hike, but then again this has been a wet spring. Now, most parents with 5 kids age 8 and under would say, “Well, that was fun, let’s head back now.” We aren’t most parents. We are extreme parents, and when I say “we”, I mean “I” am an extreme parent. My wife Kristin would fall in to the category of “most parents.” The canyon itself was only 65 degrees at this point, so the water must have been in the 40’s. The extreme parent portion of our expedition convinced the rest of us that we should go for it, mostly because it looked like the water was only 2 feet deep at the most and ended in about 100 feet. I carried the kids through one at a time with Swasey in the backpack. Luckily, I was in chacos, so I didn’t have to go barefoot.
Here are Kristin and Keaton coming out of the water. I wish I have more photos of this section, but there were so many people hiking that day, we had to keep moving to avoid causing a major traffic jam. Anyway, the water wasn’t bad. That is until we found the next pool. And then the next, with obstacles. There was a nice family from Salt Lake hiking in front of us, and they actually were great to help us get through the next little bit. Just past this traffic jam was a 3 foot deep pool immediately followed by a 3 foot tall boulder. Normally I would have skirted around this in about 30 seconds, but hauling the kids over it was a chore. We finally made it past the water and in to an opening with sunshine. We spent probably 1.5 hours there, eating lunch and playing. The plan was to go back the way we came, instead of completing the 8 mile loop. It was probably 1:30 or 2 pm at this point. Kristin hated the water section so bad, that she decided we should go for the loop. I like hiking, so it wasn’t hard to convince me. Kristin and I had even backpacked the whole loop before together when we were first married, so it wasn’t like we were heading in to uncharted territory. We simply forgot that kids have a mind of their own and when they are done, they are done. Luckily they lasted until past halfway before they were done.
The next few miles were still awesome. The canyon is a little more shallow and starts to open up. The kids were still scrambling up every rock face they could.
I love this little section. The boulder looks massive compared to Berkley. He was my hiking buddy as we brought up the rear. He does great for a 3 year old kid. If you look hard, you can see Berkley standing below the boulder.
Then the canyon widens, the sun comes out, we entered the business end of the canyon. The river bed is sandy and tough going. The playground is behind you and there is a solid 3-4 miles of hiking before you get back to the fun stuff. You basically hike through the reef (or edge of the upheaval dome if you are a geologist), and then hike to the next canyon over. Bell canyon happens to flow in to Little Wild Horse, so you end up right back at your car. That is if your kids don’t die on you.
This is the “Behind the Reef” road. The canyon in the distance is Little Wild Horse. There is about 2 miles of hiking on this road to get to Bell Canyon and at this point we were less than halfway. This also happens to be where the kids hit their wall, and Berkley and Keaton pretty much were done. Kristin and I started to carry them, which meant she had Keaton, and I had Berkley in my arms and Swasey on my back. At least it was a good workout, because we definitely weren’t moving fast.
That’s when the reinforcements arrived. This mom and her two adult sons from Salt Lake, were hiking through at the same time and caught up to us just as we started to carry the kids. We must have looked pretty pathetic, because they jumped right in and started packing Berkley, Keaton and Parker. Even though the kids were unsure about being carried by strangers, it wasn’t long before they were riding like they were on their favorite horse. These guys were awesome, just the kind of people I hope to be like someday. I can’t thank them enough.
They made it so we got back to camp before dark and actually got to have a decent dinner. They carried the kids to about 1-2 miles from the trailhead before they left us, and by then the kids were ready to start climbing all over the place again. In fact, right after they set the kids down, they were already scrambling up the slick rock. You can kind of see them 25 feet up the slope in the photo on the right. A little know fact is that kids always have a reserve of energy for something they think will be fun.
Bell Canyon isn’t quite as impressive as Little Wild Horse, but it’s still worth the visit. I love converging lines of the sandstone here. Even though it was a Davis death march of epic proportion, I’m ready to go back for more. Now that the kids have done 8 miles, they should be good to go 10 on the next hike, right Kristin?
