Alison
Hooligan in search of Hoodoos
- Joined
- Jan 18, 2012
- Messages
- 110
Hello all! This is my first TR on BCP, so go easy on me. 
Chere posted on my FB page a couple of months back that she scored some permits to The Wave. High five, right? After last years attempt and getting completely snowed on, rained on, and a side ways beating by the wind for 3 days camping and still not able to get walk in permits, I was super stoked to re-attempt this hike with her almost a year later. So this past weekend I packed up my bike, pack and cold weather gear to head on down to St. George. On the agenda: Mystic Mikes for a soak, lots of beer consumption, MTBing Bear Claw, hiking the Snow Canyon overlook and The Wave. EASY! Well, not exactly. Everything went as planned with riding and hiking in STGeorge but Chere noticed the weather report coming in wasn't looking so great for our Wave hike on Sunday. We carefully watched the weather and made a last minute decision to not attempt it,
mostly because life was just too crazy on Monday and we were being skeptical about the weather/road conditions, etc (for the record, we drove those roads last year in the middle of a downpour, quite traumatizing) .. so we scrambled for a PLAN B at 9 PM at night. Through the course of a 30 minute internet search, we found the Caves of Kolob Valley but there seemed to be no information on it. Chere sent word to Matt A from BCP (don't know how to tag) with no response. Thanks to Nick for sending him the SOS email because he called immediately. He graciously offered to go with and show us the way! So waking up at 5 am, leaving by 5:30 am, meeting Matt in "Her-i-kun" at the MCD's at 6 am put us in the right direction. We arrived at the trail and what do we see immediately? Snow blowing at us and zero sunrise photo ops. So we all sat in the car waiting for it to clear and chatting it up. Finally around 7 am, we were able to head out.
I loved this valley the first time driving through while running shuttle on the Subway and never imagined it would hold so much natural history in it's heart. The hike was really not even a hike but more of an exploration. As we were hiking on up to cave number one, chatting it up and in poor lighting, Chere and Matt both notice and say, "what the heck is up there?" For a fraction of a second, I was spooked but instantly we discovered two people that had over-nighted in the cave. They were very welcoming but I got the feeling we just woke them up or interrupted "a moment". The girl was very informative and asked us if we knew that the cave was called the "birthing cave" of which we didn't know. After describing to us in detail about how we were basically standing in the uterus of the cave, she pointed out the two legs, feet, ovaries, etc...pretty trippy but interesting! There is a rock in the middle of the cave and she claimed that if you are feeling bad and need to be "re-birthed", just lay on the rock and pretend to be birthed out into the valley. In some warped way, I think it would be cool to be birthed out of a cavernous vagina as an adult and just start my life over. HAHA!
Thanks to Chere for letting me have a place to crash and play in St. George. It's always a fun time with her! And thanks to Matt for getting up at asscrack-thirty to meet us on a wet and cold day. Here are some pictures from my trip. Enjoy!
Chere posted on my FB page a couple of months back that she scored some permits to The Wave. High five, right? After last years attempt and getting completely snowed on, rained on, and a side ways beating by the wind for 3 days camping and still not able to get walk in permits, I was super stoked to re-attempt this hike with her almost a year later. So this past weekend I packed up my bike, pack and cold weather gear to head on down to St. George. On the agenda: Mystic Mikes for a soak, lots of beer consumption, MTBing Bear Claw, hiking the Snow Canyon overlook and The Wave. EASY! Well, not exactly. Everything went as planned with riding and hiking in STGeorge but Chere noticed the weather report coming in wasn't looking so great for our Wave hike on Sunday. We carefully watched the weather and made a last minute decision to not attempt it,
mostly because life was just too crazy on Monday and we were being skeptical about the weather/road conditions, etc (for the record, we drove those roads last year in the middle of a downpour, quite traumatizing) .. so we scrambled for a PLAN B at 9 PM at night. Through the course of a 30 minute internet search, we found the Caves of Kolob Valley but there seemed to be no information on it. Chere sent word to Matt A from BCP (don't know how to tag) with no response. Thanks to Nick for sending him the SOS email because he called immediately. He graciously offered to go with and show us the way! So waking up at 5 am, leaving by 5:30 am, meeting Matt in "Her-i-kun" at the MCD's at 6 am put us in the right direction. We arrived at the trail and what do we see immediately? Snow blowing at us and zero sunrise photo ops. So we all sat in the car waiting for it to clear and chatting it up. Finally around 7 am, we were able to head out.I loved this valley the first time driving through while running shuttle on the Subway and never imagined it would hold so much natural history in it's heart. The hike was really not even a hike but more of an exploration. As we were hiking on up to cave number one, chatting it up and in poor lighting, Chere and Matt both notice and say, "what the heck is up there?" For a fraction of a second, I was spooked but instantly we discovered two people that had over-nighted in the cave. They were very welcoming but I got the feeling we just woke them up or interrupted "a moment". The girl was very informative and asked us if we knew that the cave was called the "birthing cave" of which we didn't know. After describing to us in detail about how we were basically standing in the uterus of the cave, she pointed out the two legs, feet, ovaries, etc...pretty trippy but interesting! There is a rock in the middle of the cave and she claimed that if you are feeling bad and need to be "re-birthed", just lay on the rock and pretend to be birthed out into the valley. In some warped way, I think it would be cool to be birthed out of a cavernous vagina as an adult and just start my life over. HAHA!
Thanks to Chere for letting me have a place to crash and play in St. George. It's always a fun time with her! And thanks to Matt for getting up at asscrack-thirty to meet us on a wet and cold day. Here are some pictures from my trip. Enjoy!
