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Paria Canyon Trip Report |
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Attendees: Robert Buhrman, Rita Buhrman, Paul Geiger, Larry Lee, Marty Pietz, Niki Pietz, and Larry Walker
“As we advance there seems no end to the visionary enchantment which surrounds us. In the midst of this fantastic scenery are vast ranges of walls, which seem the productions of art, so regular is the workmanship.” First Across the Continent: The Story of the Exploring Expedition of Lewis and Clark in 1804-5-6.
May 5, 2001 – Saturday, Day One: Happy Cinco de Mayo! Our second group hike of the century. Day One is almost just like Day One from our Thunder River trip. Drove up last night to Sunset Crater area. Pick any spot to camp. Perfect weather. Great sleep. Got there around 11:00. Sunrise approximately 05:20; nice night and day. Stopped at Wukoki (Wapotki) Indian ruins in Sunset Crater Nat’l Park. Neat ruins. Drove up through Navajo Nation. Drove to Cameron and visited trading post for breakfast. Drove to Navajo Bridge near Lee’s Ferry. Stopped for a look. We then drove down to Lee’s Ferry to drop off Larry Lee’s pickup for the shuttle ride back. All 7 of us pile into Marty’s capable truck and head out toward the trailhead. Drove over to Glen Canyon Dam for a tour. New regulations will not allow self guided tours or carrying of any articles, including lady’s purses. The result of the Oklahoma City bombing incident: wow! Drove on to Whitehouse campground up route 89 into Utah. Got started on trail around 15:15: later than I would have liked. What a magnificent place. The hike is fairly easy with many river crossings. Several people expressed their serious disbelief when we said we were headed to the Buckskin/Paria confluence for the night. We missed the ruins – just forgot to look for them. However, we did consult with the GPS markings and located the first set of petroglyphs along the trail. As we approached the top of the Narrows at about 17:30, many clouds and a few sprinkles were present. Based on our well-justified concern with flash floods, the unanimous vote was to stop for the evening at the top of the Narrows. The whole place is really very mind-boggling. The erosion patterns are surreal. The water is very silty and not very cold. It’s probably the way the Colorado used to look – “to thick to drink, to thin to plow.” The opaque water is very challenging; with only 2 inches of water, the bottom is invisible. It makes for shaky crossings at times. I invented the rumor that of the 300 or so river crossings we had to make, there were 2 that had 8 foot deep hidden sink holes – so be on your guard! In keeping with the Cinco de Mayo spirit, pork, green chilies, and bean burritos for dinner – awesome! And sopapias for dessert – very good touch. Marty put together the entire menu and bought all the food for our subgroup of 4 (Niki, Marty, Paul, and Larry W.); he did an excellent job. Larry Lee provided us with plum wine and kalua, another south-of-the-border reminder. The portions, variety, and quality were perfect. All slept and snored well. There were only a few minor mice problems. Saw surprisingly little (in a relative sense) wildlife on this trip in general.
May 6, 2001 – Sunday, Day Two: Good sleep. Good breakfast. Headed down Narrows starting about 09:00. The canyon stays pretty narrow until you get past about mile 10 or so. The canyon is breathtakingly beautiful here. The walls extend 400 to 700 feet up. The erosion on the Navajo sandstone is enchanting. It’s obvious that this place gets some serious floodwaters at times. Occasionally, we came upon a log or branch lodged or suspended over our heads or in a strange place looking as if it were put there on purpose by someone. It is cool walking in the limited sun of the canyon narrows. On down we went past Slide Rock. It looks like a large rock just slid off the face of the wall and formed and “arch” with the original wall. We reached the Buckskin/Paria confuluence around 11:30 or so, and, dropping off our packs, headed up to investigate. Buckskin Gulch has a small trickle of a stream coming out of it. The canyon is much narrower in places than Paria. Oddly, there is much more greenery here than in Paria so far. We saw many cottonwoods and other vegetation as we went along. We came across a pretty cool carving in the canyon wall – obviously “hikerglyphics,” though well done. There are several areas in here where the sun is blocked out completely. There is only one place that we found where you can touch both canyon walls simultaneously; the picture didn’t turn out. We walked up about ¾ of a mile and stopped to take a light snooze/rest. Bob and Rita continued on up the canyon looking for the cesspool. A pocket of water and debris, which captures and holds most things washed down, including dead animals and such – pew. When we awoke and started heading up the canyon to follow, they were returning unsuccessful. We decided to head on out and get back to Paria. We hiked until about 18:00 and stopped at Big Spring: fantastic water source, and fine camping. Not a cloud or a worry all day. The water is rushing from 2 places on the wall – 2 liters per minute, easy. Baths were in order. Had spaghetti and sauce and pistachio pudding for dinner – very good, even without the sausage. Have to remember to pick up parmesan cheese and red pepper condiments from pizza places. Larry Lee provided us with plum wine and kalua again – and bumped into a tree. Sleep came easy… the sleep of the just… just tired.
May 7, 2001 – Monday, Day Three: Hiked from Big Spring to Wrather Canyon. Was this the day that Rita got her shoe stuck in the quicksand? As the canyon starts to open up some in this area, it takes on a whole different beauty: allowing some vegetation to creep in. The trail moves up away from the river to avoid Boulder Alley. Larry Lee says we chose wisely as he stayed down by the river. We lunched just before Adam’s Water Pump. We enjoyed watching the humming bird and playing with the dead tarantula at lunch. The water pump was interesting in one crucial fact: the rubber belts seemed to be in pristine condition. The pump motor is a 4 cylinder, water cooled, magneto charged engine. Of course, the hoses were shot. We really couldn’t see where they were planning to pump the water to. The head pressure up any of these walls would have been way more than that engine could handle. I guess that’s why it has had 6 owners, and none were successful. Not far from the pump were some petroglyphs we deemed “pornoglyphs,” due to their somewhat explicit nature. This was one of the few petroglyphs to have a face on a person. This is where we first experience Frank the cowboy rock carver. He graced several rocks near the petroglyphs with is moniker and the date: usually around 1894 – 1896. A little further down we come upon the Hole, which is an interesting key-hole shaped slot with a seep spring inside. There is a tree, unknown to me, that was in bloom in the canyon that was particularly aromatic during the entire trip. It had dark green and red bark and reminded me of jasmine. The were especially thick at the Hole. The campsite at Wrather Canyon is directly across from the canyon trail entrance. There’s a small clear stream flowing out of Wrather Canyon. We never found the source, but found enough pockets to get good pump water. The campsite is generally ok at Wrather. Most of the area is heavy with grass, which seemed a good place for rattlers; I looked hard, but couldn’t drum one up; got a good bee scare though. Baths were in order again today. Bob, Rita, and Larry Lee set up camp on the sandbar overlooking the river – nice choice. The rest of us took refuge under the cottonwoods. Delicious turkey and Stovetop stuffing for supper: always a big hit; coconut pudding for desert. Bob heard something splashing up the river during the night. Would we see it tomorrow? Lots of sheep/deer sign about. The group found a deer half decomposed and a sheep’s horn. Larry Lee saw a garter snake nail a lizard today; those are getting to be commonplace now.
May 8, 2001 – Tuesday, Day Four: Hiked up to see the famous Wrather Arch. Now which is it ¾ mile? ½ mile? 1 km? 0.9 miles? It seemed to be ⅔ of a mile to me. What an absolutely gorgeous canyon: very, very riparian. And I don’t mean a stinking German either. The canyon is full of wildlife sign, and wildlife. When we got to Wrather Arch, it was not obvious. The arch is camouflaged up against one of the canyon walls. It’s more like a double arch. Once I realized the arch, I had to announce it so the others would be aware. What a beautiful, huge structure. I guess, they say, the arch is about 200 feet in length. It was kind of like a big cave with the back side wall blown out. We crawled all over it. We climbed up so we could look down Wrather Canyon from above: gorgeous. Once done playing, we went back to the stream for water pumping; fill ‘em all up. While hiking back down Wrather Canyon we spotted a doe mule deer. She sat perfectly still while we took a copious number photos. She is a well fed, large deer. After hiking out of Wrather Canyon, we grabbed our packs and headed down toward Bush Head or Bushed Canyon – the stop for today. Shower Spring was flowing gloriously: what a welcome relief from the heat: good drinking water. A little further down, we found a nice shady place for lunch. We stopped at the Sand Slide with its spring and petroglyphs. The white columbines and wild roses were nice garnishing for the spring. The petroglyphs were very good here A little further down, we began to see the walls breaking up and new formations come into view. This is the Grand Canyon after all. They call it the Chinle formation; does that mean Navajo ghosts? The other formation is the Moenave formation, which begins to appear. We made it to Bush Head Canyon around 18:00 or so. We bypass the campsite and choose the large sandbar just down stream: too many bugs and ants under the cottonwoods. The sandbar was really nice and large. Marty said being there on the sandbar and looking up Bush Head Canyon reminded him of 139 Mile canyon/beach on our Thunder River trip. Looking up Bush Head Canyon was very reminiscent of Grand Canyon scenery. Chicken and rice for supper with cheese cake for dessert tonight: delicious, as always. There were lots of cute, fat-throated frogs here. It was another great night of star and satellite watching; we saw 3 satellites converge on one spot: 1 north-south, 1 south-north, 1 west-east – must have been the International Space Station.
May 9, 2001 – Wednesday, Day Five: Hiked today from Bush Head Canyon down to the old Wilson Ranch site. What a cooker, must have been 100° F up on the plateau away from the river. But it was an easy walk, much different than river sloshing. We put in a lot of miles in a short period of time. The desert dandelions and the showy daisies were plentiful and delightful. The rock formations resemble Grand Canyon scenery. The tamarisks are heavy near the river. There is a formation here that looks like mine tailings; it can be seen as you drive through the reservation as well. We walked in, over, and around this formation for several miles. It is unearthly looking, and multicolored. After taking the wrong route through the sand dunes (led by Paul and Marty), we came to a nice overhang for a break. I had marked out some petroglyphs for us to see; they were supposed to be the real good ones. Well, I marked out the ones about ½ a mile upstream from where we stopped. Marty, Paul, and I decided to go back and find them. The rest of the party headed on downstream to find camp. We found the upper petroglyphs, but these weren’t the ones we had in mind. The really pronounced display was about a ¼ mile downstream from where we stopped. We did see some pretty cool markings (lots of singles from where the rocks had broken and rolled), and a strange bird making a strange noise. Came to find out that the bird was a chukar. When we were leaving from our resting spot to head upstream, we bumped into the first party we had seen since the Narrows. 5 hikers doing the whole route in 4 days – hurriedly. They had a dog along, carrying her own food. After we returned to our packs and headed downstream, we really saw the large display of petroglyphs – Scorpion Rock, Upsidedown Rock, and 10 Sheep Rock petroglyphs. Funny, we were admiring the worlds largest cairn and we happened to notice that three large rocks up there was a petroglyph. Well, the others became real obvious, real soon. Buhrman didn’t give me as much grief as I expected when we met up for using the GPS and pointing us in the wrong direction. We met up with the others at Wilson Ranch and uranium mine. Everyone was bushed. We elected again for a sandbar camp; they’re really nice. The ranch still has a lot of artifacts from when it was active: corral, sluice tank, water catches, etc. There is posted a large warning sign not to drink the water, stay too long, or take any rock samples due to the high level of radioactivity caused by the uranium mining. Another great evening spent in good company. We had red beans and rice for supper and applesauce for dessert: another winner. We finally had to pump the silty river water – two to three liters pumping before we had to clean the pumps. It was difficult; we pumped just enough to cook and drink for the next day. It was another great star and satellite night. Maybe this was the night we saw the 3-satellite convergence…
May 10, 2001 – Thursday, Day Six: We have a hankering for Navajo tacos, so we decide to pack out early – left at 07:15. It was a very short day of walking. We were out by 10:30 easy. This final stretch of trail is fast and firm. We saw one other lone hiker and his dog down below on the trail. We stopped and toured the Spencer Place. This is good cowboy country. Looks just like TV. The buildings and such seemed pretty modern since they were used just as recently as the 1940’s. We then came upon the trail register, where we did. We then visited the gravesites of some of the Johnson family and others: a very peaceful and respectful place. And finally, before returning to the main roads in the Lee’s Ferry area, we passed by the Lonely Dell Ranch – homestead of Mr. Lee and family. We didn’t realize until afterwards that we could have walked through the ranch and up to where our truck was parked without going down the roads: just as well. The ranch is well kept and still used by the Park Service. New and old buildings are present. The orchard is still there. What a neat place to have a farm/ranch. Back to the parking lot and Larry’s truck. We all piled in and rode up to the trading post for showers and snacks. Afterwards, Bob, Rita, and Larry Lee headed back up to Whitehouse trailhead/campground to retrieve Marty’s truck. Marty, Paul, Niki, and I hung around Lee’s Ferry fishing and drinking cold beers/lemonade. The fishing was poor, it being the middle of the afternoon and all. I only caught one, and it was pretty nice – and it’s on ice. Had 2 other good hits, but failed to produce. We headed down to Cameron for shopping and eating, and then on back to Phoenix/Mesa, home.
Overall Comments: OUTSTANDING trip! Nice job putting it all together, Marty! Take your time and enjoy it all you can. Be aware of the flashflood dangers. A party was wiped out by a flashflood a couple of years ago in a similar canyon, Antelope Canyon, I believe. Bring plenty of socks. There is plenty of locatable spring water to drink in the right season. I saw some pictures on the web where the river wasn’t even flowing; be aware of water conditions. Mosquitoes and deer flies weren’t too bad. As with all desert/canyon adventures, eat, eat, and drink. Watch out for those 2 out of 300 hundred river crossings that are “deeper;” I forget exactly where they are…