- Joined
- May 31, 2015
- Messages
- 3,216
24-25 February, 2017
A friend and I went out to Capitol Reef a few weeks ago to camp and hike Sheets Gulch. It was a good time.
We got there in the dark and set up camp. We checked out our surroundings a bit, had a little fire, and went to bed.
The next morning, we treated ourselves to bacon and eggs for breakfast. The warm breakfast made up for the 15 degree temperatures and frozen water bottles.
We thought we had a pretty nice perch for cooking.
We got moving quickly, mostly so we could warm up. We were surprised to see another car at the trailhead. We set out, and after 5 minutes, we came across a guy and his dog headed the other way. He said he had come across a fair amount of water and thick, deep mud near a section of narrows, so he turned around. We decided to go see for ourselves.
The first narrow stretch came into view, so instead of testing the mud, we decided to bypass the entrance.
We looked down into it, and it seemed pretty dry, so we dropped in.
The canyon opened up again.
Then it got fairly narrow and very deep.
There was good amount of petrified wood in the canyon. This was the biggest chunk that I noticed.
We reached the muddy spot the man with the dog mentioned. We decided to go for it. The first few spots were pretty easy to maneuver over without getting wet/muddy. Then we got to a part where we had to just go for it. It was too bad that the ice wasn't very thick.
That mud had the consistency of melted soft-serve ice cream.
It was worth the dirty shoes and cold, wet feet though.
We saw these weird holes in the rocks. No idea how these formed.
And then we came across the cool, very large arch.
We walked through some more twists and turns and came upon a set of narrows with an unknown amount of water beneath a long stretch of ice. Stemming it didn't look very easy either. We decided the 4 miles we had gone was enough, and that we didn't want to get wet/muddy beyond our ankles. So we turned around, briefly checked out some side canyons, and headed back.
This is where we turned back.
I hadn't seen stratified layers with these colors before. Very cool.
We did the whole section of narrows that we bypassed part of at the very beginning. Fun maneuvers over some water and ice.
And the rest of the way was fine. We ended up only seeing the one guy with his dog. Otherwise, the entire Notom Road area was empty. It was a nice little trip.
A friend and I went out to Capitol Reef a few weeks ago to camp and hike Sheets Gulch. It was a good time.
We got there in the dark and set up camp. We checked out our surroundings a bit, had a little fire, and went to bed.
The next morning, we treated ourselves to bacon and eggs for breakfast. The warm breakfast made up for the 15 degree temperatures and frozen water bottles.
We thought we had a pretty nice perch for cooking.
We got moving quickly, mostly so we could warm up. We were surprised to see another car at the trailhead. We set out, and after 5 minutes, we came across a guy and his dog headed the other way. He said he had come across a fair amount of water and thick, deep mud near a section of narrows, so he turned around. We decided to go see for ourselves.
The first narrow stretch came into view, so instead of testing the mud, we decided to bypass the entrance.
We looked down into it, and it seemed pretty dry, so we dropped in.
The canyon opened up again.
Then it got fairly narrow and very deep.
There was good amount of petrified wood in the canyon. This was the biggest chunk that I noticed.
We reached the muddy spot the man with the dog mentioned. We decided to go for it. The first few spots were pretty easy to maneuver over without getting wet/muddy. Then we got to a part where we had to just go for it. It was too bad that the ice wasn't very thick.
That mud had the consistency of melted soft-serve ice cream.
It was worth the dirty shoes and cold, wet feet though.
We saw these weird holes in the rocks. No idea how these formed.
And then we came across the cool, very large arch.
We walked through some more twists and turns and came upon a set of narrows with an unknown amount of water beneath a long stretch of ice. Stemming it didn't look very easy either. We decided the 4 miles we had gone was enough, and that we didn't want to get wet/muddy beyond our ankles. So we turned around, briefly checked out some side canyons, and headed back.
This is where we turned back.
I hadn't seen stratified layers with these colors before. Very cool.
We did the whole section of narrows that we bypassed part of at the very beginning. Fun maneuvers over some water and ice.
And the rest of the way was fine. We ended up only seeing the one guy with his dog. Otherwise, the entire Notom Road area was empty. It was a nice little trip.