Bryce to Little Death Hollow

Jammer

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It's painful, but here's an overview of my hike formerly known as Bryce to Moab!

As you may have read, I decided to bail on my Bryce to Moab Hike on Day 11 after getting an infected toe and a strained muscle in my lower leg. It is the first time I have ever abandoned a hike due to an injury and it's a real bummer. I know it was the rational decision as the situation could have gotten much worse and I may have found myself out in the middle of nowhere. BUT, that doesn't make it any less depressing after doing all the prep/homework for the hike. Now 4 days off the trail, my toe is nearly completely healed, but my leg strain is still quite painful.

If you followed along or left comments via my site with my short check-ins as I hiked -- thanks. I have since gone back and added more detail and pictures. I've also added a photo gallery for each part of the hike. So, for the full report, head back and check out:

www.AcrossUtah.com/wordpress/?p=1372

I don't have the capability to compile my video yet, but I will get right on that as soon as I get back to LA.

Otherwise, here is a quick overview:

It all began with a COLD, but awesome camp in Bryce. Technically -- it was just outside the park so that I could camp w/o a permit. After finding this spot, I think it's a better choice than the official sites.
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The next day I followed the ridge down and out of the NF and to Willis Cr. Road. Crossing a piece of farmland, I had one of those cool moments you can never expect -- about 30 horses came trotting toward me when they spied me walking the road. I didn't know what to expect, but they just crowded around presumably looking for a handout. The were nice and seemed to enjoy me petting their noses.

Farther down I went through Willis Creek Narrows. I saw a few groups of day hikers here. In hind site -- they would be the only hikers I would see on my ENTIRE hike!

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From here I huffed it all the way down to the Paria to camp.

The next day I checked out several of the landmarks of Upper Paria: Lone Rock, Paria Arch, Crack Spring and Lower Asay Slot:

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This is the day that probably screwed up the rest of my trip. A) I didn't wear my new neoprene socks in the water. I'm sure this led to the beginning of my blisters. B) I could not make it past the obstacle in Snake Canyon. Kelsey mentions this waterfall shouldn't be too much a problem for a couple of guys and/or with a short rope. Well... I was a little gunshy to try it solo with my big pack -- even with my rope:

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This was a big setback as I ended up wasting over 3hrs in Snake Canyon doing the hike, scouting and contemplating a new plan. That new plan was to go down to Hogeye Canyon.

The next day I completed the longer route and made my way to Upper Stone Donkey Canyon. This was a really cool area -- white sand dunes and white/yellow slickrock:

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Bypassing the technical slot, I did the slickrock traverse down canyon. This will a little more scary than I was expecting. It's that situation where it's not really that bad, but your mind begins to mess with you. Like... walking down a sidewalk -- no problem. Now, if there is a 400' drop right on the edge of the sidewalk, it's suddenly MUCH more difficult. Here's the view looking down:

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Finding my way down into the canyon was a little more difficult than I imagined, but a little persistence paid off and soon I was down in Stone Donkey. From here I went up canyon and checked out the bottom of the slot. It was a cool, dark slot. I had to get into COLD water up to mid-thigh and then chimney over a few short sections where it was too narrow to walk. Before long I got back in far enough that it was pitch black. That's where I turned around.

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The next day I headed down Hackberry where I picked up the old Goulding Trail to get out of the canyon. Once up on top I headed cross country through the Rush Beds and eventually to Cottonwood Road. Cool "wave"-like slickrock in this area. I wanted to head down to Castle Rock -- but didn't have the time.

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Walked Cottonwood Road for a ways -- if one has to walk a road, this is a pretty scenic one! Went through the Narrows and then headed up to Grosvenor Arch after stopping in at the old CCC Well which had the best water around (yeah -- no more cow water!)

From here I headed out east across the Kaiparowitz Plateau. The mudhills of upper Blue Wash were cool -- but a lot of work. Climbed up to Paradise Ridge and then down into the Upper Right Hand Collet Canyon. I didn't know for sure if this canyon would go all the way down. But... it did. I just had to jump a couple dozen boulders along the way.

The lower canyon had some really cool shallow slots with overhangs as well as colorful cliffs. It also cut through a few bands of coal.

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A day later I finally made my way to Devil's Garden where I had hidden my first cache nearby. Once I had my re-supply, I headed out x-country through the colorful hills up toward Harris Wash.

Once at the Harris TH, I followed the route up into Red Breaks. Once past all the sand, the canyon slots up and is pretty cool; nice sculpted walls, but fairly shallow. It was a tough go though with a big pack as there were a bunch of chockstones which had to be negotiated. None were scary or overly difficult -- just very tiring!

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Headed out the next day the area up and around the East Fork was pretty scenic -- quite the slickrock paradise. I made my way all the up to the Volcano aka Cosmic Ashtray:

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Here I headed east to the Escalante. I had a little bit of a problem finding the sand slide route down to the river -- but I eventually found it. Once down had to fight the brush and a slightly-swollen river up a few bends to Horse Canyon.

I was meeting my parents at the LDH Trailhed, so I had to really push it up Little Death Hollow. It's really is an amazing canyon though -- gotta be one of the longest non-stop slots around. Like Red Breaks, the Chockstones didn't pose anything crazy hard, just time-consuming and tiresome for the solo hiker with a big backpack. I will say that a few of them I went UNDER though -- which if there had been water in the canyon wouldn't be an option.

I made it past the dead cows -- yuck! The BLM rangers said they were to be cleaned out by last week, but NO.

It soon got dark on me and I had to pull out the headlamp. Nothing like being in a narrow canyon in the dark. Making even spookier -- there were quite a few LIVE cows in the canyon who didn't like me being there. There were huffing/mooing at me and kicking up quite a bit of dust.

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After a few hours hiking in the dark -- I made it too the TH and the rendezvous with my parents. They were happy to hear that I would be calling it quits and not continuing with the 2nd half of the hike.

All in all it was just shy of 160 miles in 10 days. Despite being an abbreviated agenda, I still got to see some good stuff.

Finding water was not an issue despite warnings from the rangers of how dry it was this year. I was lucky with cooler temps after day 4 or so.

Besides quitting early, the only major negative for this trip was the COWS. The Paria and Hackberry both seemed more trampled and polluted than my last visit 3 years ago. The water still had a bad taste even after filtering. Lower Collet, Harris and Lower Red Breaks were also a mess with cows. Not only are the cows ruining the environment, it doesn't seem good for them either. I saw FIVE dead cows on this hike and the many that I saw alive were really skin and bones. It seems like there has to be a better way to raise cattle.

I've taken a peek at my video footage and I think I should have ample for something good. Stay tuned for this. I also tried my own GoProHD set-up by taking a picture straight ahead every 5 minutes. I'm not sure how this will turn out (maybe not frequent enough) but I will string these together soon as well.

OK -- that's the report for now. Maybe this fall I will do the "Little Death Hollow to Moab" hike!

- Jamal

Featured image for slideshow:
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Nice report Jammer! I'll look forward to your maybe Little Death Hollow to Moab trip report.
 
Oh man. I don't know how you condensed all that down to one trip report. That would have taken me at least 12 or 15 and a couple hundred pics! :lol:

Amazing story with the horses. Such a contrast to the situation with the cows though. I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels like this year has been really bad with the cattle, and yes, how the hell does anyone raise cattle in the desert?! It just doesn't work! I went to post my Chimney Canyon TR last night but got too worked up reading about what lower Chimney used to be like, after they had stopped grazing there and before now since they're back in full force. Anyway, that's a rant for another day. A fine trip report, totally sucks you couldn't make it all the way but you still hiked longer and further on one trip than 99.99999999% of the rest of us. Someday I'd like to do something like these trips you do. In the meantime, I might have to hit you up on advice for backpacking the area between Bryce and Escalante. That Bryce campsite looks sweet!
 
This looks awesome! Definitely seems to be a quite trying trip. I can't wait to see the vid you put together.
 
strong work. simply badass!

i'll be down in the bryce / paria area next week. you got me way stoked for that trip.

oh, did you happen to notice the size of that pondera tree about a mile (?) down willis creek from the junction with sheep creek? i think that beast is an honorary member of the california redwood tree club.
 
oh, did you happen to notice the size of that pondera tree about a mile (?) down willis creek from the junction with sheep creek? i think that beast is an honorary member of the california redwood tree club.

I do remember several really big ones. Several weren't overly big in diameter -- but really tall. It looked as if they were stretching up to get out of the canyon to get more sunlight.

Here's a pic of one -- might this be the beast of which you speak?

Lower_Wilis.JPG

Yeah -- I'd like to head back to the Upper Paria. Would like to check out upper Asay and more of the Deer Creek area. I would also like to go back and give Snake Canyon another shot. The area between it and Hogeye looks really cool -- lots of Yellow-Rock-type teepees and domes.

- Jamal
 
Awesome TR Jamal, even though you had to cut it short. That campsite at Bryce is killer!!! Great pics!
 
Super-jealous of your time around Red Breaks since mine sucked last year. I can back you up on the cattle though... there was so much dung around Red Breaks I couldn't believe there wasn't a McDonalds around somewhere slaughtering and selling the beef.
 
Hey all -- back in LA catching up on "normal" life -- booooo! I should have just finished the hike a few days ago, but instead I spent my time wrapping up my video.

I will embed the "full report" video below, but if you have limited time you can also check out the the shorter 9-min version I made for my Facebook friends (who have a limited attention span for my hikes!)

Let me know if you guys have any questions. Enjoy.

 
Jamal, I really love your Bryce camping spot. Is it easy to find?
I'm switching plans a little bit for my upcoming trip and will eventually end up for a night at Bryce Canyon.

Very easy to find. When the Under-the-Rim trail goes over a small ridge just north of Iron Spring -- just head east along the ridge through the white sand. The park boundry is very close at this point (under 1/4 mile.) There is no sign, but you will see the site. Farther along the ridge there are several other good places to camp, though the first one was the only one with the fire ring.
 
That is so awesome Jamal!!! You are totally like Les Stroud (Survivor Man)! How much time does it take to setup your camera, go back and walk through with it filming you and then go back and retrieve and break down your camera? It's awesome footage, but I would guess it really slows you down.

Can't wait to see the rest of the voyage! You planning to do it this year? or next?
 
That is so awesome Jamal!!! You are totally like Les Stroud (Survivor Man)! How much time does it take to setup your camera, go back and walk through with it filming you and then go back and retrieve and break down your camera? It's awesome footage, but I would guess it really slows you down.

Can't wait to see the rest of the voyage! You planning to do it this year? or next?

Thanks! It does slow me down some, but I like doing it. I've actually refined the process so that the camera doesn't slow me down much -- it's just the walk back each time. I have a lightweight camera bag that I wear as a side-pouch with a zipshot tripod mini-bungeed to it. I really can set up a shot in about a minute or two. I also keep a small point-and-shoot camera in my pocket that I use for reference shots. This year I took a "forward" shot at least every 5 minutes. This is what I used for the time-lapse stuff. Would have liked to have done every 1-2 minutes, but had to conserve battery power.

As far as LDH to Moab... not sure. I've never done a big hike in the fall, so I'd like to try that at some point. BUT, it also removes me from my comfort zone and I'm not sure what to expect re: water. I would hate to make it a 3-part hike! So... TBD.

- Jamal
 
Thanks! It does slow me down some, but I like doing it. I've actually refined the process so that the camera doesn't slow me down much -- it's just the walk back each time. I have a lightweight camera bag that I wear as a side-pouch with a zipshot tripod mini-bungeed to it. I really can set up a shot in about a minute or two. I also keep a small point-and-shoot camera in my pocket that I use for reference shots. This year I took a "forward" shot at least every 5 minutes. This is what I used for the time-lapse stuff. Would have liked to have done every 1-2 minutes, but had to conserve battery power.

As far as LDH to Moab... not sure. I've never done a big hike in the fall, so I'd like to try that at some point. BUT, it also removes me from my comfort zone and I'm not sure what to expect re: water. I would hate to make it a 3-part hike! So... TBD.

- Jamal

I'm glad you take the time to setup the camera and walk through the frame and go back and get it! Makes the video a lot better! :twothumbs:

I wonder if one of those solar chargers would work for you so you could up the photos to every 1 or 2 minutes? Do you use the gopro for this? How do you mount it to you?
 
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