guyfromscene24
New Member
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2014
- Messages
- 4
This is a brief trip report of a 3-day backpack trip to Hatch/Fiddler's Canyon on March 23-26. We drove down Poison Springs Rd to the Dirty Devil in my stock Ford F150 without any incident.
On Day #1 we crossed the river and hiked along the road up to the high point and then dropped down using the Steve Allen/Hayduke exit/entrance route into Hatch. It was pretty easy finding the wash/shallow drainage and then pretty easy to find the traverse. I was surprised how steep it is to drop down to the navajo slickrock. About 100 yards or so of a controlled skid down the very loose rock. My friend did most of it on his but. The final drop into Hatch was pretty easy (Allen calls it a 4- climb but Id say easy 3, 3-).
We made the mistake of assuming there would be water in the two medium springs mid-canyon so hiked down 20+ minutes to set up camp, but the upper spring was completely dry and the lower spring was discharging too slowly to be of use, with no puddles to draw from. We ended up deciding to drop the packs and hike back up canyon to check out the narrows and then head back down, pick up packs, and go to the Dirty Devil for water. Surprisingly, even though I have never seen any beta of this, there was plenty of water in the narrows just 5-10 minutes from the exit/entrance point! So we ended up camping near the entrance point and loaded up.
On day 2 we hiked down to the confluence with Fiddler's, dropped the packs, and hiked up. As expected essentially all of Fiddler's was dry, but there was a few nice pools at the very end of Fiddlers (at the alcove). Another nice surprise. We loaded up with water which allowed us to minimize drinking from the dirty devil. We found a nice camp on a huge sandbar across from the mouth of Hatch.
Day 3 we hiked out via the Dirty, crossing the river 13 times (not that we were counting).
After getting back to the truck, we drove up to the black jump road (a bit harder than Poison Spring but still very doable), camped at the closure point, and day-hiked to Happy Canyon. It was mid 90s the whole week, and we were getting parched, so we spend about 4 hours in the narrows and hiked back to the truck around 5 pm in the shade of the Wingate cliffs. Worked out great. Very nice hanging out in there watching the lighting change.
The traverse and then the slide....
Upper Hatch Narrows
Fiddler
Dirty Devil Sunrise from Camp
Happy Narrows!
On Day #1 we crossed the river and hiked along the road up to the high point and then dropped down using the Steve Allen/Hayduke exit/entrance route into Hatch. It was pretty easy finding the wash/shallow drainage and then pretty easy to find the traverse. I was surprised how steep it is to drop down to the navajo slickrock. About 100 yards or so of a controlled skid down the very loose rock. My friend did most of it on his but. The final drop into Hatch was pretty easy (Allen calls it a 4- climb but Id say easy 3, 3-).
We made the mistake of assuming there would be water in the two medium springs mid-canyon so hiked down 20+ minutes to set up camp, but the upper spring was completely dry and the lower spring was discharging too slowly to be of use, with no puddles to draw from. We ended up deciding to drop the packs and hike back up canyon to check out the narrows and then head back down, pick up packs, and go to the Dirty Devil for water. Surprisingly, even though I have never seen any beta of this, there was plenty of water in the narrows just 5-10 minutes from the exit/entrance point! So we ended up camping near the entrance point and loaded up.
On day 2 we hiked down to the confluence with Fiddler's, dropped the packs, and hiked up. As expected essentially all of Fiddler's was dry, but there was a few nice pools at the very end of Fiddlers (at the alcove). Another nice surprise. We loaded up with water which allowed us to minimize drinking from the dirty devil. We found a nice camp on a huge sandbar across from the mouth of Hatch.
Day 3 we hiked out via the Dirty, crossing the river 13 times (not that we were counting).
After getting back to the truck, we drove up to the black jump road (a bit harder than Poison Spring but still very doable), camped at the closure point, and day-hiked to Happy Canyon. It was mid 90s the whole week, and we were getting parched, so we spend about 4 hours in the narrows and hiked back to the truck around 5 pm in the shade of the Wingate cliffs. Worked out great. Very nice hanging out in there watching the lighting change.
The traverse and then the slide....
Upper Hatch Narrows
Fiddler
Dirty Devil Sunrise from Camp
Happy Narrows!
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