Woke up at 6am to some strong winds and thought it best to take the tent down as quickly as possible. Hard to leave this spot as the view was just spectacular.
We were packed up in a record 30 minutes and drove to the Zebra Slot Canyon trailhead, meaning, we had to go back to Hole in the Rock Road – our nemesis. Zebra Slot was about 8 miles down the road and we were the first to get to the trailhead at 7am. With the winds not as strong at this location, we had a quick breakfast. Another family with 4 kids pulled in just after us and started the hike ahead of us.
The hike was about 2.5 miles to get to the mouth of the
slot canyon – for the most part, it was
level, had an easy to follow path that did not involve as much deep sand, and
since we had left so early, a relatively comfortable temperature. Random Tumbleweed Cool wavy stripes
It should go without saying that this time,
we brought double the water and a first aid kit. We eventually passed up the family and made
it to the head of Zebra as the first hikers of the day. I had read on-line that 4 days earlier, the
slots were filled with water and people had to turn back because it was too
deep; I was hoping that at least some of the water would have evaporated. Of course, no such luck for us.
Within 10’ of the canyon opening, we could see the first pool of water followed by a little sandbar, and then more water. That was pretty much all we could see as the narrow slots were zig-zaggy and we couldn’t see too far ahead. We decided to go for it and see how far we could get – we knew the slots were fairly short, and that it was possible to get to the end where the cool zebra part gets its name even if there was water.
We entered the first pool and holy hell that water was cold! Not sure if we were supposed to take it as an omen that there were tadpoles swimming in the water next to us. We got to the sandbar and kept going. I made Damon go first. He is taller.
The first section got to about waist high and then started to get shallow again to thigh high. Good sign! Then as we kept going, it just got deeper and deeper until the water was chest high on Damon.
Given that we were trying to hold packs and
shoes over our heads, and the fact that the water was crazy cold, we thought it
most prudent to throw in the towel and head back. By the time we got back, the family had made
it. The dad really wanted to give it a
try as he had heard the end of the slot (the zebra part) was amazing. He left everything behind and was using the
walls to hold himself up, but eventually even he gave up. The kids thoroughly enjoyed themselves
catching tadpoles in Ziploc baggies, a Dorito’s bag and a cardboard animal
crackers box.
The family had told us about another hike we could do to see moqui balls close by. Disappointed by our second failed slot canyon attempt we thought, what the heck. moqui balls are nearly perfectly spherical chunks of iron roughly the size of a golf ball and some, if not all, seem to be hollow. They are naturally occurring and for some reason, there was a huge accumulation of them in this area.
With a general idea of where to go, we started walking, hit a barbed wire fence, and undeterred, scampered up a rock face next to the fence (it was a cattle fence, not a property fence, so no laws broken). We got to the top of the rock face and as far as the eye could see where these smooth white relatively flat rocks. Way off in the distance, Damon thought he saw some balls, so we investigated. Sure enough, balls galore. They sort of pooled together in different areas but there were tons of them. Mission accomplished.
My hidden talent - juggling moqui balls.
On the way back, we tried a different route – down a 20’ rock fall as opposed to the hill and rock face. The rock fall was narrow and just had a bunch of huge rocks that had piled up, we climbed down them for a slightly quicker retreat.
The hike back was uneventful,
and we made it back to the car spirits intact with lots of water to spare.
Our next stop was a few more miles down HITRR – Devil’s
Garden. We drove there and set up the
Pterodactyl (my official name for the monster awning) and had ourselves a
picnic. The Devil’s Garden is a small
area that has a concentrated grouping of large hoodoo-ish rock formations. Really a beautiful area with several paths
that wandered all through the area. We explored
for a bit, but it was mid-afternoon, so very hot, and then called it a day.
We drove back to the Escalante Visitor Center for another parking lot nap, clean bathrooms, and another hour working on the blog. What we didn’t do with much coveted access to four bars of 4G, was figure out where we wanted to spend the night. We had a general idea of where we wanted to be for tomorrow’s hike in Capitol Reef National Park and went in that direction. Lucky for us, the direction was on Route 12, a national scenic highway. Route 12 winds you through beautiful landscapes – every time you crest a hill or turn a corner, the landscape and colors change. This is our 3rd time on Route 12 and it never disappoints.
We passed a few campgrounds that had too many people, then
headed to the one we wanted to be in, but it was full, so we had to backtrack
and find a BLM road we had passed earlier and hoped for the best. On a positive note, Capitol Reef scenery is
utterly stunning (more on that later); however, it was after 7pm and I was
getting hangry.
The spot we ultimately found was awesome. Although not too far off the road so there was still some traffic noise, the view was great and generally the spot was private.
I started making dinner and in another wonderful turn of events – no bees and because we were over 9,000 feet, it cooled down quickly. Damon had promised me that I would never have to go more than 2 days without washing my hair and time was up. We had brought an outdoor shower, and this was its inaugural event. We didn’t go full shower since the body wipes are doing their thing, but I did get the most wonderful spa day in the dessert with our little shower set-up with Damon washing my hair salon style.
Armed with a clean head and a moderately clean body, we relaxed until dark, saw an amazing array of stars – and the milky way was visible – and went to sleep.
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