Foiled again

Saturday was a beautiful day, so I decided that I should try to hike to the arches west of Service Road 80. I was a little concerned about being able to hike that far. In the past couple of months I've had the flu and two colds. It was too beautiful of a day to do anything but hike, though.

Maybe it was just too early in the day, or maybe I just don't know how to take a picture, but this is much prettier when you are there.

There were things to take pictures of in every direction, but you wouldn't be able to tell the foreground from the background without getting in just the right spot to take the picture.

My plan was to follow a creek bed all the way to a tall rock column, where I would start climbing. I had been to the creek bed where I was going to start out about 7 years ago, but I only had a vague recollection of what I had encountered over there.

There was a little water flowing through the creek.

There are lots of hoodoos in this area.

What I remembered was that I came to a small canyon that I didn't want to cross because it was too hot for any exertion. If I had been there on a cooler day back then, maybe I would have remembered that I didn't cross the canyon because it wasn't possible to do so. I may not have known that I couldn't even get into it by starting further upstream, which is what I did on Saturday. Everything was fine until I came to a 15 foot drop. I tried taking pictures of it but that doesn't work so I tried a video.

That didn't work too well, either, because I was afraid to move my feet while concentrating on a camera while standing on slippery rocks at the top of a 15 foot precipice. Well, if you think you can do better, go for it. I'll stand by with a rope and my Spot to signal for help.

BTW, that reminds me, if you are injured and bleeding and push the 911 button on your Spot, you are going to bleed to death if you don't stop the bleeding yourself. In this area at least, the first response to a call for help is to send rescuers on foot. They will evaluate the situation and send for a helicopter if it's necessary. The point is, even though that button says "911", don't expect an ambulance to roll up 10 minutes after you push it. You may need to fend for yourself for a few hours. If you are in a remote area with no cell service, you need to be prepared to handle whatever comes up for at least a few hours.

Anyway, I decided to try going around on the right side of the small canyon because there was a side canyon on the left. This involved a small amount of uphill hiking, which is when I found out the back-to-back colds had taken more out of me than I realized. I felt like I was hiking at 7000 feet. I was glad I had encountered that obstacle so early in the hike.

Looking back at the waterfall. You know, the best way to show what this is really like would be to fly an RC helicopter with a camera over it.

The side canyon on the left side, which looks like it has its own side canyons.

I want to be down there. There is no way to get there. Well, there is, but it involves either a long hike or long ropes.

The small canyon has steep sides for as far as I felt like hiking that day. I'll have to go back and try a different route another day. Click below for all the pictures.

2013_02_23