Well, if you read this you know there was a bit of buzz over the weekend about our little hiking trip. A lot of people are asking what happened. Before you get the wrong idea, everyone got out ok without major injuries and we didn't make the 6 o'clock news, as far as I know anyway. So, here's the skinny…
First off, we didn't get lost. We were never lost. We could, at any point on our trip look at a map and our GPS unit and point to where we were within 50 feet. Here's the problem that we had. The exit, as described in the hiking book that we used to plan our trip, describes the exit we were to take as "the climb lasts for only 100 feet, and if you can get up the first 20 feet you will have no difficulty with the rest. Look carefully at the stone face near the bottom and you will notice depressions in the stone which you can use for toe holds."
The problem we had was recognizing the location of the exit to find the footholes. The location was not very specific and, re-reading the information having been through the canyon, I think I now know where the exit actually is. The book continues on stating that if you are uncomfortable making the hike up the rock face, that the canyon could be exited through Hurricane Wash another 7.8 miles along the trail. This was the exit we took.
So, there in a nutshell was the problem with our adventure. We did have a wonderful time (though if you ask the wife and kids right now, they will disagree.) We will all look back and realize that it was a good adventure that didn't go as planned as we would have liked, but we did survive and were able to take some incredible pictures. We were upset that we weren't able to make it home Sunday as planned, but our adventure was incredible.
Our first day started out really well. Once the cars were parked, we hiked about 2 miles to our first magnificent site.
This pic shows the edge just before this
This was such a neat sight. We climed down the rocks through a narrow opening about 3 feet wide. We had to lower the gear down the side about 60 feet because the opening was too narrow to take the gear through it.
Once down, we had lunch and then continued down the valley and around the corner to the left of the picture. Our journey continued for another 4-5 miles until reaching our campsite.
After we got up the next morning, we hiked for a few miles crossing the river in many places. We reached Coyote Natural Bridge.
This was a really neat sight as well. The rock formations along the journey were definately something to admire. As we continued along our journey, we also reached Cliff Arch and Jacob Hamblin Arch. The exit originally was to be near Jacob Hamblin Arch but we were unable to locate it.
Had we done a little more exploring, I think we may have found it but we tried to press on as much as possible. We eventually got to the point of collapse late Sunday night which was about 7pm. Having been hiking for the better part of 10 hours, we were completely exhausted and decided to set up camp for the night.
Awaking Monday morning, we were stiff but ready to be out of the canyon. We (Aly, Aurora, Mason and I) hiked for another 1/2 mile and caught up with Harold and Vicki who had pressed on Sunday night. Once we caught up with them, it was another 2 miles to the Hurricane Wash Trailhead. We dropped our packs and Harold and I began the 6-7 mile trek to get the cars. They were so far ahead because we had planned on the other exit and had thus left them at where we thought we would exit from.
It would be another 2 to 2-1/2 hours until we returned to the rest of our party at which time the Rangers had also located us. We were about 15 hours overdue from being home and were glad that they were making calls to let our friends and relatives know we were safe.
It is an adventure that I don't want to repeat, but was a learning experience. More planning and less weight. Also, I feel that if there is a hike that we want to share with the family, it is important that it be done by those more able to handle that type of a trek than to include others who may not be as able to complete such a journey.
Anyway, I hope that this lengthy post shows that we did have a good time dispite the unfortunate circumstances that we encountered.
