One Corner of Fun - Part II

This the second part of my 2007 vacation travelogue. On Wednesday April 18th I chose to relax a little bit, primarily because I was worn out from the long "pasture" track hike. So I slept in a little and then went exploring upriver from my car, on a little geocaching expedition. Prior to the trip I found a geocache item near North Bend, WA called "Big Cat & Little Cat say Hi". These two are just a couple of toy cats chained together with a couple other cacheing items. Since I new I was going to go on a trip to a faraway place and the two cats appeared to like to travel I thought I would take them along and see if I could find a cache to leave them at.

I have never actually geocached before and my GPS unit is about as simple as they come. Most of the time I only use the GPS to alleviate my worries when I go off trail for a long ways. I like to set waypoints as I go, leaving cookie crumbs, as some might say so that I may be able to find my way home if I forget landmarks. Or sometimes I use it just to see how far I have gone.

Anyway I decided to try and find my first geocache using the GPS. It ended up not being much of an adventure as the cache was probably only a mile upstream in the middle of a broad valley. I was a little surprised at what I found on top of the rock covering the geocache! Lets just say that some of these geocachers must not really need their GPS units, and surely don't need them to get home, because one was left right at the cache location! I am not totally sold on geocaching as a worthwhile or exciting activity, but I guess if it takes a little treasure hunt to get a few buts off the couch then maybe it is helpful for some people. Based upon my limited experience, however, it sure doesn't seem like the caches are all that remote. In fact, you could probably ride an ATV right to this particular cache and I am certain that quite a few people already have! Why not hide caches on vertical walls of sandstone, under the water or at the top of a tree. Now that would make the trip a little more exciting.

After finishing the cacheing I wandered over to a old mining/ranching cabin (shown above) and pondered why the previous inhabitants left. This looks like a great place for a cabin to me. I think I might fix the place up a little, but otherwise this looks like a stunning place to do a little living!

Speaking of caches. Since I cancelled my plans to do the Muddy loop I had to drive over to another area where I had cached some water a couple days before. By the time I picked up my water and extra food near Cistern Canyon there were some serious storm clouds on the horizon and the wind was already kicking up a small dust storm. Once again I felt forced by the weather to change my plans. So instead of staying in the southern part of the swell I hightailed it to the east. I quickly drove to the eastern part of the San Rafael Swell near Goblin Valley State Park, and finally found some people!

Unfortunately, most of the campers I found at Little Wildhorse Canyon appeared to be of the ATV ridin, RV sleeping variety. I am sure they were good people just a little to hopped up on noise and fumes for me! I took a quick hike in a dust storm down Little Wildhorse Canyon before calling it a day and escaping to camp at the head of Chute Canyon. Here I had the place and all the wind and dust to myself!

The morning of April 19 dawned clear, cold and thank-goodness not windy! So I took off down Chute Canyon with a plan to hike Chute, find my way over to Crack Canyon, and hike back up Crack to the eastern side of the swell where I could hike the road back to my car. I enjoyed wandering down Chute canyon in the shade of the canyon walls, even traversing through a couple of nice narrow places. But I guess somebody else wasn't so excited about my visit! While walking the canyon I heard a bit of noise somewhere above me but couldn't pinpoint where it came from. I walked another 20 feet stopped and turned just in time to see a rock land just where I had been standing. After about a minute of looking I finally made out 5 bighorn sheep scrambing on the rocks above me (shown above). If not for the rock missile I am sure I would never have noticed these majestic animals. Their coloring allowed them to blend in perfectly with the rocks and their generally nimble and quiet climbing made them hard to find even when listening for their footsteps. Now that is what I call shock and awe!

Before long I came to a side canyon where I thought I could traverse to Crack Canyon. So off I went exploring unknown territory. Surprisingly I ran into my first fellow hiker of the entire trip in this un-named canyon. Interestingly enough he was also the organizer of a volunteer effort to install signage in the canyons. It seems that alot of people seem to get lost making the traverse from Chute to Crack and vice-versa so he was planning on putting in some signs for the BLM. He explained where I need to go to make it to Crack and we parted going opposite directions. Suffice it to say that I was not prepared to do the route finding without a map. I never found the correct route to get to Crack so I climbed up high on top of the rocky plateau and enjoyed the view. I couldn't see back to the western side of the Swell but I could make out the Goblin Valley area and a lot of open land between me and the Maze in Canyonlands N.P. It was awesome.

I gave up on the planned loop and just found my way back up Chute Canyon to the car. A full days effort for a full days adventure. I decided I had seen enough of the San Rafael Swell and decided to drive to Moab that night. To be continued . . .