The Opinionated Hikers on Patrol for You

The Hole-in-the-Rock Road (HITRR) departs Highway 12 near Escalante, Utah. Running southeast into the desert, below and parallel to the Kaiparowits Plateau, it slices through Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument and probes Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.

Where the HITRR departs pavement, it looks like any of the hundreds of humble dirt roads in Utah. But for canyon-country hikers, this is THE road, because it leads to trailheads for numerous premier hikes. Along the way, it provides access to lots of unofficial but superb campsites.

In May, while on a backcountry-research trip to update our book Hiking from Here to WOW: Utah Canyon Country, we once again drove down the HITRR. We re-hiked…

Trip 23  Peek-a-boo, Spooky, & Brimstone Gulches
Trip 26  Willow & Fortymile Gulches
Trip 27  Davis Gulch

We also re-hiked the actual Hole in the Rock: from road’s end, down to the shore of Lake Powell. It’s a hike that, for various reasons, we did not include in Hiking from Here to WOW: Utah Canyon Country. Now we can supplement the book with this up-to-the-minute field report.

As of last week, a low-clearance 2WD vehicle can negotiate the HITRR to Dance Hall Rock at 36 mi (58 km). In a few places, you’ll have to cautiously work around minor obstacles, or keep your speed up through sand. Beyond Dance Hall, you need a high clearance vehicle. Beyond Davis Gulch, 4WD is advisable.

We comfortably drove our Toyota RAV4 (7.5 inches of clearance) to about 51 mi (82 km), just past Davis Gulch. A steep slickrock ramp discouraged us from driving farther. We parked, resumed on foot, and soon encountered a patch of deeply corrugated slickrock we definitely would not have driven. It didn’t matter. We enjoyed hiking the final 4.5 mi (7.2 km) through desolate high-desert.

The panorama was engaging. Fiftymile and Navajo mountains are the dominant sights. Still draped with snow, Navajo was especially dramatic. Not a single vehicle passed us. We saw no other hikers. The solitude was delicious.

The road is obvious, and there are no forks, so navigation is not an issue. Just keep walking, or driving, to road’s end: 55.5 mi (89.2 km). Immediately ahead is a prominent cleft in the sandstone cliffs. Hike into it. This is where Mormon pilgrims in the Hole-in-the-Rock Expedition built a “hanging road” and safely, miraculously, lowered all their wagons and stock to the Escalante River.

Read a description of the expedition (pages 140 through 143 in Hiking from Here to WOW: Utah Canyon Country), and you’re in awe of their superhuman feat. Stand here, and see how impossibly vertical, rough, and forbidding their ascent route actually was, and your response soars beyond awe into speechlessness. This is where Mormon missionaries, keen to up their success rate, should bring their conversion prospects.

It’s a moderate scramble (no exposure, but frequent hands-on moves) most of the way down to Lake Powell. The final descent to the lake is on a steep, sandy trail strewn with loose rock. Distance from the top of the “hole” to the lakeshore: 1 mi (1.6 km). Elevation loss: 800 ft (244 m). Even in May, it’s hot, thirsty work. Carry at least three quarts (liters) of water per person.

Lake Powell remains cold until June. We “swam” for all of about three minutes. But after May, the weather can be too hot (90° F / 32° C) for hiking. So it’s best to wait until late September to hike here. The weather will be cooler, the lake warmer.

After several weeks at home in Canmore—working long days, getting minimal exercise, chafed by the reality that little hiking is available in the Canadian Rockies until June—we felt strange, unsettled. The nomadic life is strong in us. So after taking care of essential business and stacking the rest onto our laptops, we migrated south. Early spring is ideal hiking time in southern Utah.

Leaving the icy mountains behind, we headed to the land of sun-pounded slickrock domes and sandy-floored, sinuous canyons. We traded a palette of grey and straw, for red, orange and yellow. We pitched our tent under grand cottonwoods, sat out late beneath the starry, cobalt sky, woke up to temperatures that invite hiking in shorts.

We hope you can take time this year to visit Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, or Zion national parks, or the vast, high-desert regions surrounding Moab, Torrey, Boulder, or Escalante. Bring our book Hiking from Here to WOW: Utah Canyon Country. It will ensure you make the most out of each day. You live in western Canada? A 20-hour drive is all that stands between you and another planet: southern Utah. If your home is in the northwest U.S., you’re close enough that four or five days is all you need for a quick but fulfilling canyon-country adventure.

While driving through the outskirts of Calgary, we passed a housing development with a huge sign: FINAL PHASE! Our interpretation was, yes, this is indeed the historic, final phase for these absurdly huge, utterly unsustainable, hilariously boxy, anti-architecture mansions. Even a dim awareness of reality (peak oil, climate change, global economic decline) is sufficient to recognize that these trophy homes are monuments to excess and will soon be unwanted embarrassments. Besides, homes and mortgages of that magnitude have always been anchors that severely curtail one’s independence. They represent the final phase of whatever liberty their owners previously enjoyed.

Continuing our drive south of Calgary, we saw other housing developments spilling across the prairie. All the homes are boxes. All are “detached” but none is more than a couple meters from the nearly identical box next door. All are drab shades of the drabbest colours: taupe and grey. We could not live there. Such pervasive monotony would quash our creativity. The comforts those boxes provide would not compensate us for the soul-deadening affects of uniformity, repetition, and predictability.

We’d rather be in a downtown Calgary condo, where we’d have the Bow River and several big parks nearby, and where we could participate in stimulating city life.

Approaching Lethbridge, we could see the weather was worse on the southern horizon. We stopped for gas and discovered the approaching snow storm had already knocked out the city’s electricity. Without electricity, gas pumps are inoperable. Plus the Coutts border crossing was closed, as was the highway in northern Montana. “Don’t try it,” someone told us. “Cars in the ditch everywhere.”

It seemed the snow had defeated us. Our four-hour drive south was wasted. We turned back north. But nomad determination kicked in. “I bet we can outflank this storm,” Kath said. “We’ll drive west over Crowsnest Pass into B.C., then probe south.”

It was longer by four hours, but it worked. It was a more interesting drive, too. And it allowed us to keep moving. That’s the nomad philosophy: Keep moving.