- Joined
- Aug 9, 2007
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April 2012
It's been an extraordinary spring backpacking season. I haven't gotten out on as many long trips as I wanted because it's been tough to find people that want to do those kinds of trips, but I've still crossed a lot of cool places off of my list.
I didn't really know that Chimney Canyon existed until earlier this spring. audraiam was reading a book called Canaries on the Rim: Living Downwind in the West by Chip Ward. The second chapter in that book is titled "The cow that got stuck in the chimney". In it, Ward describes a situation back in the 1990's when a lone cow got stuck in lower Chimney Canyon. Here's a quick excerpt from the book, I haven't read it all but based on what I have, it's well worth picking up.
From there the book goes on to describe how he, Steve Allen and Ginger Harmon went on to push the BLM into removing the cow. If you don't have the book, you can read a bit more about that from at The High Country News.
After reading the way Allen and Ward described Chimney Canyon, and seeing this great trip report from regehr, I was sold. I wanted to do this as a 3-day trip and spend a full two nights up in the high reaches of Chimney but I was unable to find someone that could take the time. So instead it would be a quick weekend overnighter. We left Salt lake Friday afternoon and raced down to The Swell where we met up with Summit and FourisTheNewOne. It was a great evening around the fire. I was too busy enjoying myself to take any photos but Summit took this amazing shot of the spot and all of us around the campfire.
The next morning we made up breakfast and went west towards Hidden Splendor. This is where I quit talking so much and let the pictures do the work.
An old car along the road to Hidden Splendor. I've already shot this and posted photos but the light was pretty nice.
I didn't realize it at the time but we had a great view of Chimney Canyon from along the Hidden Splendor Road. Chimney is to the left in this photo.
And this is a crop of the above photo, you can see the dry, sandy lower section of Chimney Canyon.
Soon enough we were at the end of the road along Muddy Creek, throwing the last few things together before heading up the river.
neiloro and Teak
It's only about a mile from the 4WD trailhead down by The Muddy, to the canyon you take to get up onto the bench and over to Chimney. But plan on getting wet. With my waterproof mid-height hiking boots, I was barely able to avoid it by picking my crossings carefully on the way in but it was close! This is the Muddy at the mouth of that side canyon.
And this is looking up into the side canyon.
I wish that little canyon had a name. I guess Little Susan Canyon would be appropriate as it is the access up to the Little Susan Mine. I'll just call it that for now. It was a very cool and unique canyon, never a slot but still pretty narrow in spots, it was all mudstone, something I've haven't really hiked through much of in such a narrow form.
Once we were a ways up the side canyon, I put Teak's boots on her. She loves her boots so much that she just runs back and forth like a crazy dog for a while.
The route follows Little Susan Canyon all the way to near the top before the old mining road cuts out to the right (LUC).
From there it cuts up onto the benches, following the rim of the canyon before cutting north towards Chimney Canyon. You can totally see the old road along most of the route. It was particularly easy for us to follow as some asshole had recently ridden his dirt bike past all the 'NO VEHICLES' signs and all the way to Chimney Canyon.
We quickly reached the Little Susan Mine where we stopped for lunch and spent some time taking photos.
Teak was loving the shade inside the miner's cabin.
Onward to Chimney Canyon. On a map, it looks like the route across the bench should be pretty direct, but since it follows an old road, and since there are a million tiny mud shale canyons eroding through the bench, it turned out to be much, much longer. I had kind of figured 5-7 miles for us to get to the South Fork confluence of Chimney Canyon. I was way off.
As the trail approaches Chimney, a black streak appears through the landscape. This is particularly obvious on Google Earth. If you hike this trail, when you see the "V" below, know that you need to head down this canyon. There will be a cairn coming soon that guides you down the old road. The jerk on the motorcycle had missed the turn here and found a new way down into Chimney Canyon.
A closer look at the black streak. We found this all the way up into Upper Chimney.
Finally, nearly 7 miles from the trailhead, we were to the bottom of Chimney Canyon. There was a bit of flowing water right away but it quickly dried out. From here it was 2.5 miles of very unpleasant sand slogging to get to the confluence with South Fork.
After slogging through cow shit and sand for a while we finally reached the South Fork confluence where there is a spring and the remnants of an old miner's cabin and chicken coop. We had now logged nearly 9 miles and spent way too much time taking photos along the way. I realized what an idiot I was for trying to do this as an overnight. It was 4pm and we were just at the door step of seeing and of the good stuff in Chimney Canyon. Meanwhile, Teak was exhausted and overheating and we were still neck deep in cow stink. This is the view of the area surrounding the spring and miner's cabin near the confluence. Hmmm, where to pitch a tent...
Amazingly, we found a nice little ledge above the miner's cabin that was completely free of cow shit and would actually make a great place to camp. We sat there and looked over the maps and route description trying to decide how best to utilize the little time we had. We decided to head up the main fork with our packs on and find a campsite up that way near a side canyon Steve Allen describes as 'The Music' of Chimney Canyon. A place of such exquisite beauty that you should not camp in it as it is so pristine. Sounds great.
So we went up stream, slogging through liquified cow crap for about 5 minutes before reaching a small dryfall. It was easy to bypass, just a walk through but this was a special dryfall, it was the point that cows cannot go past. What we found on the other side was astounding. The canyon went from being a putrid, rather unpleasant place, to one of the most pristine and beautiful desert environments I have ever seen. At first it was wide with grand wingate walls with intricate patterns and formations. Yes, I'm not posting a lot of pictures, there are some things you just have to SEE.
Soon we found ourselves at a fork. The way we read the description, we should head left and then find this 'Music of Chimney Canyon' up the canyon on the left. The canyon became even more beautiful and narrow now with the occasional spring popping up.
Incredible formations are the name of the game in Chimney Canyon.
And the white marks on the walls from the water and minerals made amazing patterns.
We really took our time through that section and soon we rounded a bend that would put us very near our side canyon. But what's this? A very impassable dry fall. The canyon was littered with huge boulder for a couple hundred feet before reaching this.
Right as we arrived at the dryfall, I noticed Teak was suddenly unable to walk like normal. We got her up onto this big rock and realized what had happened. I had taken off her boots for the last mile or two, the sand had been cool and smooth up here and I thought she could use some time without them. But somehow when she was negotiating those big boulders, she did something and almost completely ripped off TWO of the pads on her back feet, one on each foot. It looked very bad and she was bleeding.
We busted out the first aid and went to work wrapping them up and then putting them back in boots. This was the worst possible spot for something like this to happen. We were now 11.5 miles from the trailhead on an out and back hike. That means we were going to have to figure out how to get this 100 pound doberman back out a full 11.5 miles!
Just to give you an idea of how bad it was, this photo was taken two days later. Teak had since torn off the flap of pad and it had already started to heal a bit. It looked a lot worse when it happened.
After getting Teak bandaged up, we decided it would be best to head back down canyon to the next good campsite we found. The canyon that we had thought was the 'Music of Chimney Canyon' was out of reach beyond the dryfall. But we soon realized that wasn't the canyon we were looking for. The route description is slightly misleading as it says to go up this main fork then turn around and find the music on the left. We missed the turning around part. We had already passed right by the special side canyon long ago. We really wanted to go explore it but our thoughts were now on how to get Teak out. She wouldn't even get up when we went to leave.
We struggled getting down that short section of canyon. Teak lost boots and bandages along the way that we had to go back and find. But we did stop and filter some water for the camp we had yet to find. We went a couple hundred feet up into the 'Music' on the way down. It has a lot of potential... next time.
After a few tries getting Teak's boots situated, she was moving good so we decided to go all the way back down to cow crap canyon and camp on the nice ledge above the miner's cabin. We figured she is hiking now so we might as well take advantage, tomorrow could be a totally different story. This is a shot the following morning of the camp on the ledge.
Teak started out struggling a bit but after a couple miles she was doing fine. We soaked a t-shirt and put it on her for the hot dry hike over the bench and kept her going with frequent offerings of beef jerky.
The rim of what I'm calling Little Susan Canyon.
Teak is toast.
Back in The Muddy Creek.
We made it back in really good time, especially considering the circumstances. It would have been nice to spend the day exploring the south fork before heading back, but you gotta do what you gotta do. neiloro woke up at 6am and went and explored it while I slept with Teak. Perhaps he'll post some photos of it.
It was extremely sad to see that the cows are back in Chimney. And not just one this time but a couple dozen at least. They are doing more damage than I could have possibly imagined. Maybe we need Steve Allen and his letter writing to get them the hell out again?
Featured image for slideshow:
It's been an extraordinary spring backpacking season. I haven't gotten out on as many long trips as I wanted because it's been tough to find people that want to do those kinds of trips, but I've still crossed a lot of cool places off of my list.
I didn't really know that Chimney Canyon existed until earlier this spring. audraiam was reading a book called Canaries on the Rim: Living Downwind in the West by Chip Ward. The second chapter in that book is titled "The cow that got stuck in the chimney". In it, Ward describes a situation back in the 1990's when a lone cow got stuck in lower Chimney Canyon. Here's a quick excerpt from the book, I haven't read it all but based on what I have, it's well worth picking up.
Chip Ward in Canaries on The Rim said:
From there the book goes on to describe how he, Steve Allen and Ginger Harmon went on to push the BLM into removing the cow. If you don't have the book, you can read a bit more about that from at The High Country News.
After reading the way Allen and Ward described Chimney Canyon, and seeing this great trip report from regehr, I was sold. I wanted to do this as a 3-day trip and spend a full two nights up in the high reaches of Chimney but I was unable to find someone that could take the time. So instead it would be a quick weekend overnighter. We left Salt lake Friday afternoon and raced down to The Swell where we met up with Summit and FourisTheNewOne. It was a great evening around the fire. I was too busy enjoying myself to take any photos but Summit took this amazing shot of the spot and all of us around the campfire.
The next morning we made up breakfast and went west towards Hidden Splendor. This is where I quit talking so much and let the pictures do the work.
An old car along the road to Hidden Splendor. I've already shot this and posted photos but the light was pretty nice.
I didn't realize it at the time but we had a great view of Chimney Canyon from along the Hidden Splendor Road. Chimney is to the left in this photo.
And this is a crop of the above photo, you can see the dry, sandy lower section of Chimney Canyon.
Soon enough we were at the end of the road along Muddy Creek, throwing the last few things together before heading up the river.
neiloro and Teak
It's only about a mile from the 4WD trailhead down by The Muddy, to the canyon you take to get up onto the bench and over to Chimney. But plan on getting wet. With my waterproof mid-height hiking boots, I was barely able to avoid it by picking my crossings carefully on the way in but it was close! This is the Muddy at the mouth of that side canyon.
And this is looking up into the side canyon.
I wish that little canyon had a name. I guess Little Susan Canyon would be appropriate as it is the access up to the Little Susan Mine. I'll just call it that for now. It was a very cool and unique canyon, never a slot but still pretty narrow in spots, it was all mudstone, something I've haven't really hiked through much of in such a narrow form.
Once we were a ways up the side canyon, I put Teak's boots on her. She loves her boots so much that she just runs back and forth like a crazy dog for a while.
The route follows Little Susan Canyon all the way to near the top before the old mining road cuts out to the right (LUC).
From there it cuts up onto the benches, following the rim of the canyon before cutting north towards Chimney Canyon. You can totally see the old road along most of the route. It was particularly easy for us to follow as some asshole had recently ridden his dirt bike past all the 'NO VEHICLES' signs and all the way to Chimney Canyon.
We quickly reached the Little Susan Mine where we stopped for lunch and spent some time taking photos.
Teak was loving the shade inside the miner's cabin.
Onward to Chimney Canyon. On a map, it looks like the route across the bench should be pretty direct, but since it follows an old road, and since there are a million tiny mud shale canyons eroding through the bench, it turned out to be much, much longer. I had kind of figured 5-7 miles for us to get to the South Fork confluence of Chimney Canyon. I was way off.
As the trail approaches Chimney, a black streak appears through the landscape. This is particularly obvious on Google Earth. If you hike this trail, when you see the "V" below, know that you need to head down this canyon. There will be a cairn coming soon that guides you down the old road. The jerk on the motorcycle had missed the turn here and found a new way down into Chimney Canyon.
A closer look at the black streak. We found this all the way up into Upper Chimney.
Finally, nearly 7 miles from the trailhead, we were to the bottom of Chimney Canyon. There was a bit of flowing water right away but it quickly dried out. From here it was 2.5 miles of very unpleasant sand slogging to get to the confluence with South Fork.
After slogging through cow shit and sand for a while we finally reached the South Fork confluence where there is a spring and the remnants of an old miner's cabin and chicken coop. We had now logged nearly 9 miles and spent way too much time taking photos along the way. I realized what an idiot I was for trying to do this as an overnight. It was 4pm and we were just at the door step of seeing and of the good stuff in Chimney Canyon. Meanwhile, Teak was exhausted and overheating and we were still neck deep in cow stink. This is the view of the area surrounding the spring and miner's cabin near the confluence. Hmmm, where to pitch a tent...
Amazingly, we found a nice little ledge above the miner's cabin that was completely free of cow shit and would actually make a great place to camp. We sat there and looked over the maps and route description trying to decide how best to utilize the little time we had. We decided to head up the main fork with our packs on and find a campsite up that way near a side canyon Steve Allen describes as 'The Music' of Chimney Canyon. A place of such exquisite beauty that you should not camp in it as it is so pristine. Sounds great.
So we went up stream, slogging through liquified cow crap for about 5 minutes before reaching a small dryfall. It was easy to bypass, just a walk through but this was a special dryfall, it was the point that cows cannot go past. What we found on the other side was astounding. The canyon went from being a putrid, rather unpleasant place, to one of the most pristine and beautiful desert environments I have ever seen. At first it was wide with grand wingate walls with intricate patterns and formations. Yes, I'm not posting a lot of pictures, there are some things you just have to SEE.
Soon we found ourselves at a fork. The way we read the description, we should head left and then find this 'Music of Chimney Canyon' up the canyon on the left. The canyon became even more beautiful and narrow now with the occasional spring popping up.
Incredible formations are the name of the game in Chimney Canyon.
And the white marks on the walls from the water and minerals made amazing patterns.
We really took our time through that section and soon we rounded a bend that would put us very near our side canyon. But what's this? A very impassable dry fall. The canyon was littered with huge boulder for a couple hundred feet before reaching this.
Right as we arrived at the dryfall, I noticed Teak was suddenly unable to walk like normal. We got her up onto this big rock and realized what had happened. I had taken off her boots for the last mile or two, the sand had been cool and smooth up here and I thought she could use some time without them. But somehow when she was negotiating those big boulders, she did something and almost completely ripped off TWO of the pads on her back feet, one on each foot. It looked very bad and she was bleeding.
We busted out the first aid and went to work wrapping them up and then putting them back in boots. This was the worst possible spot for something like this to happen. We were now 11.5 miles from the trailhead on an out and back hike. That means we were going to have to figure out how to get this 100 pound doberman back out a full 11.5 miles!
Just to give you an idea of how bad it was, this photo was taken two days later. Teak had since torn off the flap of pad and it had already started to heal a bit. It looked a lot worse when it happened.
After getting Teak bandaged up, we decided it would be best to head back down canyon to the next good campsite we found. The canyon that we had thought was the 'Music of Chimney Canyon' was out of reach beyond the dryfall. But we soon realized that wasn't the canyon we were looking for. The route description is slightly misleading as it says to go up this main fork then turn around and find the music on the left. We missed the turning around part. We had already passed right by the special side canyon long ago. We really wanted to go explore it but our thoughts were now on how to get Teak out. She wouldn't even get up when we went to leave.
We struggled getting down that short section of canyon. Teak lost boots and bandages along the way that we had to go back and find. But we did stop and filter some water for the camp we had yet to find. We went a couple hundred feet up into the 'Music' on the way down. It has a lot of potential... next time.
After a few tries getting Teak's boots situated, she was moving good so we decided to go all the way back down to cow crap canyon and camp on the nice ledge above the miner's cabin. We figured she is hiking now so we might as well take advantage, tomorrow could be a totally different story. This is a shot the following morning of the camp on the ledge.
Teak started out struggling a bit but after a couple miles she was doing fine. We soaked a t-shirt and put it on her for the hot dry hike over the bench and kept her going with frequent offerings of beef jerky.
The rim of what I'm calling Little Susan Canyon.
Teak is toast.
Back in The Muddy Creek.
We made it back in really good time, especially considering the circumstances. It would have been nice to spend the day exploring the south fork before heading back, but you gotta do what you gotta do. neiloro woke up at 6am and went and explored it while I slept with Teak. Perhaps he'll post some photos of it.
It was extremely sad to see that the cows are back in Chimney. And not just one this time but a couple dozen at least. They are doing more damage than I could have possibly imagined. Maybe we need Steve Allen and his letter writing to get them the hell out again?
Featured image for slideshow:
