Another Salt Creek Canyon Report

Curt

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Feb 1, 2014
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Its been a year since I made this trip and I'm only finally getting around to posting something. Part of the reluctance is due to the other great reports on this web site. I don't really have anything to add and a lot of my pictures are repeats of ones found on those other reports. But, it was a great trip and I thought, 'So what if its basically a repeat of other reports?'. Its nice to see the pictures again.

One thing I didn't count on in planning this trip was the possibility of snow. It was a complete surprise to find out that the Beef Basin was snowed in. At the Needles Park Headquarters they expressed a high degree of doubt about our prospects of being able to get to the trail head. We decided to try it anyway. We had a 4WD pickup and we had always planned to take the pickup to the trail head and had never quite figured out how we were going to retrieve it. That problem was suddenly looming a lot larger. There wasn't much snow on the road till we got near Bridger Jack Mesa. We did encounter a fair amount of mud. At first it was just muddy, then it was slippery mud, then it was snow on slippery mud. I wasn't driving and I have to admit I was unnerved by how much difficulty we were having staying in the track and making way once we passed the last place anyone before us had given up and turned around. We didn't quite make it to the trail head before we gave up too at sunset. We ended up camping by the road in the snow. Its been a few years since I've done that and I was reminded of how I still don't like it.

As I look at this , I think it doesn't look so bad, but what finally got us was going down hill. You couldn't stop - you'd just slide - and you couldn't hardly control the direction vehicle was taking. The road goes close to the edge in a couple places and although nobody said anything I'm sure we were all thinking about the possibility of sliding off.

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Anyway, here's pictures from the trip.

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The snow was mostly gone once we got down into the creek itself.
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We started seeing ruins almost right away.
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The riparian overgrowth near Kirk's cabin seemed a lot more impenetrable than this picture shows.
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The arch near Kirk's cabin is hard to see because of the rock wall behind it.
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The wagon seemed to be in better condition in some of the other older reports.
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Looking down canyon near Kirk's cabin
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Looking back the way we came in about the same spot.
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Big ruins
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More ruins
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Some ruins on the middle shelf. I can't imagine how the ancients accessed them.
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Squash Patch Ruins. The remains of last year's squash are on the lower right corner.
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Alcove where All American Man is found. He's in the alcove on the left in front of the wall.
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View to the north. The picture above was taken at the notch between the two monoliths.CLSC-73.jpg

View to the south.
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Ruins at the 4 faces. The 4 faces are on the right edge under the ledge.
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We liked this camp spot a lot. It was an established spot but didn't look like it had been used in a long time.
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Flash flood debris.
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Last edited:
thanks for sharing. i always prefer seeing more.
 
Probably every trip report I've posted has been a repeat of someone else's, but I think it's interesting to see how other people perceive a particular place. So thanks for your perspective on Salt Creek!
 
I was there last March. I had to walk the last part of the road because of the snow and change my destination to Angel Arch instead of the entire trail. Cold at night, beautiful in the day. Never saw anyone till I was coming out. Great report!
 
I was there last March. I had to walk the last part of the road because of the snow and change my destination to Angel Arch instead of the entire trail. Cold at night, beautiful in the day. Never saw anyone till I was coming out. Great report!
Our trip was actually in March too. We had the same experience too - cold at night but beautiful during the day. But we saw several people. Most of them were in the upper canyon. I was surprised because of the difficulty we had in getting there just to start the hike.

We ran into a woman hiking alone on her way out. That would have been on March 9. Hard to remember the conversation a year later, but I think she said that we were the first ones that she had encountered on the trip. Was that you?
 
Neat to see that area that time of year. Did you see any bears?
 
I checked the dates and yes, we did meet. Small world!
I wanted to thank you on behalf of us all for the directions you gave us for getting through the riparian overgrowth by Kirk's cabin. It sure made that part easier.
 
Neat to see that area that time of year. Did you see any bears?
No bears, no tracks, no scat. But we were still required to have bear canisters. There's still ammo boxes at the camp site by the 4 faces - I think that's SC-3. SC-1 & SC-2 don't have them. We didn't check SC-4.
 
No bears, no tracks, no scat. But we were still required to have bear canisters. There's still ammo boxes at the camp site by the 4 faces - I think that's SC-3. SC-1 & SC-2 don't have them. We didn't check SC-4.


Thanks for posting.

We saw a lot of scat filled with Prickly Pear seeds.
 
Did this hike a few years back with my grandson. Was his first hike so had to help him some so didn't get to enjoy it like I should have. Would like to go back and do it with a little more exploration again.
 
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