Tuesday April 22nd was our third day in Utah. We got up at a reasonable hour, had breakfast, and hit the road. We had decided that on this day we would explore Wire Pass, so the girls could experience a slot canyon. We headed east on Highway 89 for about 40 Miles to the House Rock Valley Road. Here we headed south for about six miles to the trailhead. The Wire Pass Trail and the trail to The Wave share the same starting point. Access to The Wave is limited to 20 hikers per day, and is subject to a lottery process for the available permits. I hiked the trail to The Wave when I was here last fall and felt that it was a little too long and strenuous for the girls. We decided to do the Wire Pass hike instead. This trail requires registration and a permit at the trailhead, and the payment of a fee of $6 per hiker, but there is no lottery process and the number of hiking permits is not limited.
The trail sets out from the parking area and follows a wash. After about a half mile the trial to the Wave branches off to the left, crosses the border into Arizona, and continues to the south. This entire area is within the Coyote Buttes, and is all part of the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument. We stayed in the wash and continued on towards Wire Pass.
It is easy to see why there are many warnings about not hiking in the area if rain is threatening. A large area of uplands near Bryce Canyon, and a significant portion of the Paria Plateau drains down a series of similar washes and eventually into the slot canyons of Wire Pass, Buckskin Gulch and the Paria River. If there is a significant amount of rainfall, a large volume of water drains off of this rocky landscape and is funnelled into these narrow canyons. While hiking we saw evidence of logs and debris jammed into the canyons high above us, left behind by previous flash floods.
Here we are setting out down the wash, not far from the parking area. And, a short time later, the girls stopped in this sheltered spot for their first break.
We continued on down the wash for another half mile or so, and eventually got to the point where the wash entered the slot canyon of Wire Pass.
Wire Pass is a relatively short slot canyon. It starts out rather small but gets significantly deeper as you get further along. Within the slot canyon there are a couple of places where logs and rocks from prior flash floods have become lodged in the canyon. This has resulted in a built up of sediment behind the dam, and a rather significant drop to continue along the canyon. Both of these places had a vertical drop of about six feet and it was a bit of a scramble to get down over them, and would prove even more difficult on our return back up the canyon. In some places the canyon was so narrow that my camera back pack was dragging on the walls on both sides and I had to sort of turn myself a little sideways to slip through. Eventually we exited the first canyon to a bit of an open area, and then a short distance later entered a second slot canyon. This one was much shorter but much deeper. This one opened up to a sheltered alcove with a large sandstone arch and here met Buckskin Gulch, another slot canyon that ran in a direction perpendicular to Wire Pass.
There were a number of other hikers moving down the slot canyons at the same time as us, but it was not overly busy or crowded. I made a couple of stops to take some photographs with my view camera. It was a bit cooler on this day, and the wind was brisk at times. It really picked up the sand and grit and drove it through the narrow canyons. It was challenge to keep the camera gear clean and functioning properly. I did a thorough cleaning later in the day when we got back to the house but for days later some of the camera movements and lenses were grinding with this sand. At one point when I was shooting in the upper Wire Pass I laid my darkcloth down on the ground. In the 10 minutes or so that it took me to meter the scene and make my photographs, there was a significant accumulation or red sand on my dark cloth. Challenging and frustrating to say the least.
Buckskin Gulch comes down from the northwest, meets Wire Pass at this spot that I call the Confluence Arch, and then continues on to the southeast. Eventually it meets the canyon of the Paria River, which continues on for about 30 more miles to the Colorado River. Some people hike this entire distance but it is a long difficult hike of several days. On this day we just hung around the confluence area for a while and explored a short distance up Buckskin Gulch before eventually heading back to the trailhead.
Near the Confluence Arch there is a small petroglyph panel that is really fascinating. We stopped to admire it and took several photographs. This panel is the work of the Anasazi and dates back to around the 1200's.
At one point I set up my view camera to take some macro photographs of the petroglyphs. While I was doing this, Margarit and the girls wandered off to explore Buckskin Gulch. Picture this... I have a large wooden tripod set up. My view camera with a large lens is set up on the tripod, and my backpack with the rest of my gear is spread out on the ground beside me. The camera is pointed at the sandstone wall on which the petroglyphs are carved, at a distance of about 6 feet from the wall. Some bone-headed tourist walks by me, looks at me, grunts a hello and continues on. Then he stops, turns back, comes up to me and says... "isn't there supposed to be some sort of archaeological site around here somewhere?" I just looked at him, pointed to the sandstone wall and the petroglyphs and said, "exactly what did you think I was photographing? The petroglyphs are right here!" Sheesh...!
By this time it was getting to be late afternoon. The sky was getting cloudier, though it did not appear that rain was imminent. The wind was remaining brisk and it was cooling off a little. I packed up my camera gear and we made our way back up the slot canyons to the trailhead where we had parked. From there it took us about an hour to drive back up to the highway and back to the house in Kanab. That was the end of our adventure in the slot canyons for this day. The girls did really well with the hiking and we were looking forward to more exploring in the coming days.
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