2012 - May 1st - Perseverance Arch, McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area/Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness

In March of 2012, I was doing some research on area canyons and stumbled upon a photo from Rough Canyon which I did not recognize.  It had been posted by a man named Stan Wagon whose natural arch images I had viewed before while doing other research.  I e-mailed him about Rough Canyon but the topic of conversation turned to Perseverance Arch.  Stan had been there once before but planned a return visit in April to approach it from the bottom.  After discussing our mutual interest in the area's arches, he invited me along.

As March ended and April began, I found myself quite excited by the prospect of the journey as well as being slightly intimidated by the 17+ mile length.  The longest hike I had been on before that was the 14.5 mile trip to the Rattlesnake Arches the previous April (2011).  As the day approached, however, I felt pretty confident that I wouldn't hold everyone up, so I was ready to go!

After a last minute planning change, we ended up meeting early on the morning of May 1st.  Stan had two companions with him, John and Elke.  I left my car at the Lunch Loops parking lot and we drove up into Glade Park with our destination being the Jones Canyon Trailhead.

It was a cloudy day and within an hour or so of sunrise when we arrived and began to hike.  The trail is made of sandy double-track lined with grassland and patches of previously burned and never reclaimed piñon-juniper (p-j).  Originally overlooking Sieber Canyon, the trail then follows the canyon carved by the Little Dolores River, eventually approaching the rim as it continues west.

Eventually, we were in live p-j.  After a few miles or so, we stopped for a break along the canyon's edge.  I had an apple and some pumpkin seeds and we sat for ten minutes or so.

Back on the path, the p-j started to get a little more thick and the road a little more rocky.  Eventually, it was to drop quickly in elevation and intersect an old airstrip on the Utah border.  But we weren't there quite yet.  We continued to pass Entrada sandstone monuments which rose from the side of the path. I also found myself in preoccupied with black splotches on the road which I originally thought to be tar.  I eventually realized that they were scat from some animal.

The road was obviously once used more frequently, but it now exists as the boundary and within the Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness and the McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area.  Thus, no motorized travel is permitted in the area aside from the occasional "official" vehicle.

Finally, the trail began to descend over rocky switchbacks affording us a view into the Jones Canyon drainage and Utah.

We took our next break at the airstrip, which was mostly overgrown.  A fence bound the end of the airstrip and a home or ranch was a bit beyond to the southwest.  I snapped a few photos of an Entrada monument to the west which doesn't seem to have an official name as far as I can tell.

Down the airstrip

Unnamed monument over the Little Dolores River

The road that led to the airstrip disappeared off to the west and we were left to continue on, cross-country to the northwest.  Perseverance Arch exists in a side-canyon of Jones, just west of the Utah border.  As I mentioned, Stan had been to the arch before, viewing it from the top.  His objective this time was to reach it from the bottom and had scouted a cliff break that he though we would be able to descend.  It was our goal to find that break on the far side of the canyon.

We had to navigate around the small north-south gulches draining into this "southwestern" fork of Jones Canyon.  The group was occasionally steering astray but we kept together and soon found ourselves with a view north, into the canyon and the stunning Perseverance Arch!

The first view of Perseverance Arch

Stan's scouting turned out to be correct.  The break in the cliff was steep but not impossible to descend without trouble.  Once at the bottom, we followed the wash for a while.

We did eventually leave the wash and continued along on a bench above it all the way to the base of the arch.  There was another break over the slickrock at the base which we scaled up.

It's difficult to explain the awe which this arch inspires.  It's just hard to believe one of such size goes virtually unknown to the world.  I was a little winded on the way up, so I took a few breaks to catch my breath and an image or two.  The sun seemed to come out at the right moments to really add some color to the scene.

Perseverance Arch is comprised of Wingate Sandstone with a Kayenta cap.  Its opening is 55ft wide and 100ft tall and is considered a "buttress natural arch."

Elke and John were content to have their lunch under the arch, while myself and Stan, both quick to grab our cameras continued capturing frames of the enormous arch.

Stan, making a portrait of John & Elke

Finally, I sat down under the arch's span for my lunch which consisted of an other apple, a protein bar, some wheat thins, more pumpkin seeds and plenty to drink.  The wind occasionally picked up, blasting us with sand leaving it easy to understand how such a feature could be carved!

Before we headed back, I hiked to the other side to capture one poorly-lit image of the arch.

The other side

John and Elke were quick to head down into the bottom of the canyon while Stan and I lingered, trying to get a few more angles. These turned out to be my favorite shots. 

We met John and Elke at the canyon's bottom where they were cooling their toes in the clear water of running length of the wash.

As we continued onward, there was some discussion as to whether we could find an alternative route out of the top of the canyon, but in the end we traced our footsteps.  I was grateful for this since I knew we had a long way to go and wasn't looking forward to experimenting with other routes.

Looking back

It was a tiresome climb back out of the canyon but I still had quite a bit of energy for the trek back.  I stopped to catch my breath and get one more image of the canyon and arch from the rim.

Back on the rim

Our cross-country route back to the airstrip wasn't quite the same... perhaps a little more southerly, which was probably for the better.  Oh, I also saw some cacti in bloom, so here are my "pretty flower pictures" of the day...

As we approached the airstrip, I realized one of my water bottles was missing.  I had finished its contents while we sat there, so I figured I had left it there but I could never find it.  I think it must have fallen out while we climbed back out of the canyon.

Back on the road now, I continued on with Stan while John and Elke led the way out of sight.  I was beginning to tire and Stan nursed a sore hamstring.

The last seven miles of that road seemed to stretch on forever as I steadily worked through my water supply.  Aside from the two ascents in the canyon, my lungs were never really tested but my legs and especially feet grew fatigued.  Still, our spirits remained high with the accomplishment of seeing such a dramatic natural feature. 

The canyon of the Little Dolores

An Entrada monument from the southwest

Now from the southeast

Two miles to go!

Down Sieber Canyon toward the Little D

My feet became quite heavy and I ran out of water nearing the end.  We hadn't seen John or Elke in two hours or so but did see their footprints in the sand.  We almost stepped on a Great Basin Gopher Snake which was lying across the path.  It escaped before I could snap a picture.

The last two miles were grueling.  On any other day, they would have been an easy trot, but with more than fifteen miles on my feet, I was exhausted.  The lack of water wasn't helping matters either.  I carried roughly 3.5 liters with me and managed to go through it quickly despite being hydrated at the start.

Eventually, we reached the car and Stan was kind enough to share some ice-cold seltzer water with me which tasted amazing.  We arrived roughly 20-30 minutes after John & Elke and around 9 hours after embarking. 

Here are a couple of maps:

I believe Stan measured 17.3 miles via GPS, though my crude Google Earth measurements show less.  I'll defer to his length.

Trailhead elevation: 6126ft
Bottom of the canyon: 4730ft
Arch base: 4900ft

This is still one of the most satisfying and accomplishing hikes I have ever been on!

Here's some information from Stan: http://stanwagon.com/wagon/Utah/BlackRidgeCanyonArches/HTMLLinks/BlackRidgeCanyonArches_1.html

Dann.

2012 - April 2nd - East Fork Pollock Canyon, McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area/Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness

About a month prior to this day, I had visited the West Fork of Pollock Canyon.  On that trip, I though I might have time to explore the east fork as well, but it didn't work out.  So, it remained on my list of desired destinations.

On this particular April morning, a Monday if I'm not mistaken, I enlisted the company of my co-worker Shannon for an adventure into the east fork... promising the possibility of a waterfall.  If you'll recall (as detailed in my post for the west fork), faulting in the area has exposed the hard, Precambrian era stone.  While the water that only occasionally flows through these canyons has an exceptional ability to erode the attendant sandstones and shales, it seems to have a difficulty with the Precambrian stone.  It is that reason, in combination with the vertical depth of the faulting that causes natural drops in the canyons where they cross the fault. There are exposures of the Precambrian stone in many area canyons and these are the locations that I have found waterfalls; several, in fact. 

So, we hit the trail by late morning on this particular "Adventure Monday"... that's what we call it when we head out for an expedition on a Monday since we share(d) Mondays off.  On a previous adventure on the Pollock Bench (detailed here), I had explained to her about the fun of climbing in and out of Pollock Canyon.  This would be the day to show her in person! 

We made good time, though I was slightly annoyed with the cloudcover.  It's always cloudy in Pollock Canyon, apparently.  Route-finding into the canyon was easy and fun and soon we were on the canyon bottom and headed for the east fork. 

To my disappointment, there wasn't any water in the wash.  Once in the east fork, however, we did find a couple of muddy pools... but that was it.

On a great bend in the canyon, we discovered an alcove high up on the canyon wall and speculated that we might be able to climb into it.  The sandstone seemed manageable, so we began to ascend.  It was a little more steep than we had initially thought, however, and soon we found ourselves at a level where we could no longer proceed. 

Shannon sat down for a while and I decided to hike along at the same elevation on the slickrock wall to see if there was another way up.  I snapped the following picture after I realized I wouldn't be able to safely get any higher.  I think it's a good example of how steep the stone was!

Shannon or Spider Man?

We gave up trying to climb and hit headed back down into the wash, our destination still upstream.  Soon, we caught sight of a Precambrian stone wall up-canyon.

I noticed soon that there was a small amount of water trickling along in the wash as well, which was promising... but not near enough to have any sort of waterfall.  As we approached, it became obvious that there was a little notch in the wall that the water had carved or at least used as the path of least resistance.  It was like a short slot canyon which opened up to a little hollow.  Water trickled down the far side of the hollow at what would be the waterfall if the flow was higher.

Into the hollow.

Looking up the "trickles"

A little wider shot.

We decided to take a bit of a rest here and have a snack.  I enjoyed some tropical trail mix and ad libbed a little tune about it.  Then, I tried to take some creative photos with relatively mixed results.

We also took each other's picture at the pool.  Not sure where mine went, but here's Shannon for scale...

No scale!  What's the scale?  Nobody knows!

After hanging out there for a while, we headed back.  Walking along the wash, Shannon was suddenly startled by something to our left.  It turned out to be an abandoned shepherd's cabin!  I'm not sure how we missed it the first time by... I had actually noticed an old fenceline nearby which was on the edge of a relatively clear park above the wash. 

We decided to explore the little cabin and its contents.

Old trash heap.

Old stove.

Some sort of animal trap.

Shelf contents.

This was my favorite image from the day.  

 

The area had been historically utilized for sheep farming, though it is no longer and is now a conservation area.  There is a similar cabin in Devils Canyon ... which I talk about in this post from 2011.

A muddy obstacle course on the way out of the East Fork

Shannon vs. the mud trap

Flowers back up on the Pollock Bench.

The rest of the hike was uneventful.  We made our way out of the canyon, back up on to the bench and to the car.  There may have been a stop for lunch at Wendy's on the way out in Fruita... but that's not too exciting and I'm beginning to wonder why I even included it can't stop typingggg.  Alright, I'm done. 

Here's a useful map:

At 8.8 miles round-trip, the hike was a little on the long side, but the terrain wasn't *too* difficult.  It would have been nice to have some sunshine to work with, but it did a pretty good job of staying behind the clouds.  I would love to be in the area during a strong runoff or during a flash flood to see what the falls are really capable of.

Dann.