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Canyonlands National Park and More 2019

When I worked at the University of Idaho there were many times I went on hiking trips to Utah. When I covered evening classes I would earn comp days which I would use to make three day weekends for trips to the canyon country. My friend Ivan, who also worked there, was always envious. He told me that his father had a picture of Delicate Arch on the wall of their house when he was growing up and he always wanted to visit it. On my various trips I probably did the hike to Delicate Arch half a dozen times. We tried to arrange a trip together to do the hike but it never worked out.

We never gave up trying though. This spring I was planning another trip so I asked him if he could get away. It turned out that we couldn't go together but could overlap. I am the old retired guy who prefers going during the week when it is less crowded. Ivan needs to plan around the weekend to minimize time off from work. Besides, he had a new girl friend, Norma, so I was his second choice for a travel partner. But we worked out a plan where I would go down to do some hiking and then meet him in Moab so we could do some hiking together, and then I would head back to Boise while he and Norma stayed for the weekend.

Well the closer we got to the trip the more complicated it became and we ended up with only one day of overlap. That would be enough for us to do the Delicate Arch hike together though.

I left Boise on a Wednesday and drove to Monticello Utah. Although I would be meeting Ivan in Moab, it was the middle of spring which is high season in canyon country. When I checked the rates for hotels in Moab they were really high. Not just high, REALLY high. So I decided to stay fifty miles south in Monticello instead. My normal budget place in Moab, the Inca Inn, wanted over $200 a night. This is not a fancy place. It's clean, but we are talking painted cinder block walls. By comparison, I could get a room in Monticello for $80/night. Much more reasonable and it is actually closer to the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park. That made it easy for me to decide where to hike the day before I met up with Ivan and Norma.

Sandy and I had done a trip to the area in 2015 and did two excellent hikes in the Needles District. One was a combo hike, going up Big Springs Canyon and down Squaw Canyon. The other was called Peekaboo, one of my all time favorite slickrock hikes. I had also stopped in Monticello for a night in 2017 on my way back to Boise from Consimworld Expo and did a short hike the next day.

There isn't much in Monticello, so I did stop in Moab on the way through to eat at Pasta Jays. I also went to my favorite local book store, Back of Beyond Books, and bought a book on hiking. While I was in town I also learned why the hotel rates had been so high. There was some sort of ATV event over the weekend and the town was full of 4WD vehicles of all kinds. At the fairgrounds alone there must have been five hundred campers, each with an ATV parked nearby. When I got to Monticello it was much quieter and definitely a better choice. Moab is a cool town but sometimes it gets crazy crowded.

The next day I did the hour long drive to the Needles trailhead. Monticello is in the middle of nowhere, but the Needles District is still a long way from there. I cruised by Newspaper Rock. The petroglyphs are really cool but I had seen them before. I stopped at the National Park visitor center briefly, long enough to get a tshirt for me and something for Sandy. Then it was on to the trailhead.

The first part of the hike, to Chessler Park Overlook, I had done two years before. It was only 2.6 miles and didn't take long but it was as far as I could go the last time I was there. It had been early July so I started before sunrise and made sure I finished the hike and was back to the car by eleven am to beat the heat. This time the temperature would be more pleasant. I had the whole day and could explore much further. Beyond my previous turnaround point I had several options. I chose a route that did a five mile loop all the way around Chessler Park before returning to the overlook and then heading back to the trailhead the way I had come in. It would be a total distance of ten and a half miles for the whole hike. It seemed reasonable for my first big hike of the year.

The hike to the overlook didn't gain a lot of elevation but there was a lot of up and down - down into a canyon and then up on the other side. Over and over again. There's a reason it's called Canyonlands National Park, after all.

There was a short, steep climb just before the overlook but then the trail was flat for a long way. It went through the easy sage brush covered meadows of Chessler Park. It's only called a "park" because its pale green vegetation contrasts sharply with the barren desert and red rocky towers of the Needles all around it.

At one point a trail came in from the east. The sign at the junction said Druid Arch. That's a trip I would like to do another day, taking a side trail I had passed before the overlook and rejoining the trail here in Chessler Park after a visit to the arch. A hiker was just coming from that way. I chatted with him for a while and he attested that the arch was well worth a visit. Next time.

After a long swing to the south the trail came to what looked like a dead end. A sign at a trail junction said "Viewpoint" and pointed to the left. I followed the trail that direction as it climbed slickrock to a viewpoint (duh!) that overlooked the southern end of Chessler Park. Further progress was stopped by rapidly steepening cliffs that enclosed the southern end of the meadows.

I returned to the junction and this time followed the other branch of the trail as it descended some steep steps cut into the rock down through a narrow crevice. At the bottom the route turned sharply to the left and went through a narrow canyon. I had gone through several narrow slots like this on the first section of the trail. They were usually about a hundred feet long or so and were quite impressive. But this was "The Joint" and it followed a narrow crack in the rock for at least a quarter of a mile. This was a really amazing place. A sandy floor with walls rising straight up for 50-100 feet, sometimes as narrow as only two feet wide. At one point there was a dry fall of about six feet, but there was a log with steps cut that made it fairly easy to descend. Eventually I ended up in a large grotto that was more like a cave than a canyon. At the far end the route took a sharp right turn and then finally came back out into the sun in another hundred feet or so. This is the kind of incredible hiking that is unique to the Utah canyonlands. I don't know of anyplace else in the world like it.

Coming out of The Joint I emerged into Chessler Canyon, a more open canyon but still with beautiful rock formations on both sides. After descending the canyon for a while I reached a large turnaround area that marked the end of a 4WD road. The route followed the road for a while, unfortunately, because just as I was about to climb a very small hill to leave the parking area an ATV appeared and came down the road, complete with a huge cloud of choking dust. I waited while it passed, cursing the driver even while I smiled (tight lipped to minimize how much dust I swallowed) and waved back to him. Then a second came along. I waved again. I waited again and then another one came. And another. And another. They all waved. Gee, these people who were were completely covering me in dust and trying to choke me to death sure seemed to be friendly. It turned out that there were eleven ATV's and it seemed like it took them forever to pass.

Well at least now I knew what all those people who were driving up the hotel prices in Moab did during the day. After taking several minutes to dust off I started hiking down the road. Fortunately I didn't encounter any more ATV's before I found where the trail split off from the road to head back to Chessler Park.

The trail climbed for quite a while. I hadn't realized that I had descended that much. Or maybe it was just one of those trails that old hikers talk about that are uphill both ways. Eventually it headed directly for a line of impressive rock towers, some of the Needles, and looked like it had nowhere to go. At the last minute a tiny gap in the wall of rock appeared and I went over a pass back into the northern end of Chessler Park. From there it wasn't far back to the overlook to complete the loop.

But it was the first hike of the season and I had gained a lot of weight over the winter. I was moving slowly and stopping often to rest. I have to admit that after reaching the overlook the last two and a half miles back to the car were a bit of a slog.

When I got back to the trailhead I drove as fast as I could to reach Needles Outpost, a small campground and general store at the entrance to the park. I bought a cold soda and sat on their patio while I drank it (chugged it, actually). Then I bought another to take with me to drink on the long drive back to Monticello. When I reached the motel I had a shower and then went to Subway where I had a delicious dinner. I'm not being facetious. It tasted great after a long day of hiking, especially since I hadn't eaten anything all day.

It turned out that I did have a major problem though. I had worn brand new boots on the hike, a pair of low-top Oboz that I had bought over the winter. I have worn Merrills for the past few decades but Sandy has two pairs of Oboz and she swears by them. Since I needed new boots I thought I would try something different. I ended up with a really bad blister on my right heel. I haven't had a blister problem in so long that I haven't carried moleskin with me for years. But I got a very bad one this time. After dinner I stopped at the grocery store and got first aid supplies so I could patch myself up. It was pretty bad but I hoped that I could do a good enough job that I could manage a short hike with Ivan and Norma the next day. There was no way that I was going to back out of our hike after it had taken so many years before we finally were able to hike together down here. If I had to I would crawl.

The original plan was for Ivan and Norma to arrive Thursday evening so that we could start out early on Friday to do Delicate Arch. Since parking is limited at the trailhead you have to get there early to get a spot. Then Ivan decided to leave Boise late Thursday evening and drive straight through the night and get to Moab early Friday morning. But late that night I got a text from Ivan saying they had trailer trouble enroute and wouldn't get in until late in the morning. The good news was that now I didn't need to get up really early to drive to Moab. The bad news was that I needed an alternate plan for hiking.

I met them at the campground in Moab at 11 in the morning. The problem they had on the trip down was that the equipment rack on the back of Ivan's monster camper had broken off and they needed to stop to fix it. After they finally got settled in the campground, we took my car to the trailhead for Corona Arch. I had done the hike twice before, once on my own and once with Sandy. It's not as famous as Delicate Arch but it is still very impressive. There is a lot of parking at the trailhead and the hike is pretty short. So that was our alternate plan.

The weather was great and Ivan and Norma both enjoyed the hike. There is a little bit of sport where the route climbs some slickrock with cables for protection followed by a rock step with a ladder. Everything went well and the biggest problem was keeping Ivan moving. He was constantly stopping to take pictures and videos. But that was good. It meant he was enjoying the hike.

After the hike we drove back to Moab and had lunch at Pasta Jays. Two days in a row were fine with me. I had one day for pasta and one day for pizza. No problem. After lunch I drove back to Boise. Ivan and Norma stayed the rest of the weekend in Moab. The next morning he did finally get to do the Delicate Arch hike. He had his ATV along and they also did some 4WD trails. They had fun which is fine but motorized sports are not for me. I'm a hiker. But at least Ivan and I got in a canyon country hike together after all these years. Hopefully we'll get in another one soon.