The climb up Monday was interesting, boulder hopping through rock-falls, climbing up and around pour offs, and bushwhacking through thick oaks and maple toward the top. Traces of cow and devil bush dwindled as we gained elevation. Despite the difficultly of the terrain, I had a great time. The scenery was interesting and I got into a zone, singing U2 to myself, as I glided across, over, and through the boulders, timing hops and placing my feet in order to use my momentum to carry my way through. My mind and body seemed perfectly in tune, nothing but the canyon and myself moving through it existed, except for the background music pinging in my mind featuring the instrumental of “With or Without You.” I seemed to be floating up the canyon, all the way to the edge of a cliff.
“Why do I always make the stupid decision?”
“I think jumping would be the stupid decision. I don’t want to have to clean you off the rocks.”
Repeat. In the zone, cliff, pour-off, climb down and around. Repeat again. Five hours to travel 7 grueling miles. Whew.
Finally, we reached the top. Rather than try to find the ephemeral pack trail, we simply took a bearing and traveled easily through sagebrush, aspens, and pinion/juniper forest to the newly refurbished Pocket Hollow Spring. We had expected to find a dank mud hole that reeked of cattle, but instead we found a fenced off spring piped into a brand new basin. The water was cool and sweet . . .ahhhh!
The pack trail from Pocket Hollow to the inappropriately named Mudhole Spring was distinguished and easy to follow. Mudhole Spring piped into a small barrel that is even equipped with a spigot. It is next to an old cabin with a variety of adornments, including an old belt, horseshoes, and a cow’s tail.
A maze of cattle/hunter/etc trails led from the Mud-hole Spring to the Middle Trail, which was our route down 80 mile Mountain. We took a bearing again, taking us just north of where the trail was on the map. Nothing. We walked south along the plateau on the top of 500ft cliffs, enjoying the view of the Escalante Canyons 1500 ft below, but becoming more than a bit anxious about the trip down. Nothing. We came back to where we were before. Hm, what’s this? We found an old abandoned section of trail.
After checking it out a bit, I spotted the real trail below. The old trail (where the topo indicated it was--was almost indistinct) took us right to it. A steep descent brought us to a junction. The mapped route was a two-track road that went south before curving back around. However, a well-used trail appeared to go straight down. We followed this down a steep, windy, narrow ridge (awesome!) to the flats below. After a seemingly endless walk through relatively dull sagebrush and cows, we finally reached Hole-In-the-Rock Road.
No cars were on the road this evening. We made it two hours north of the trailhead before we were forced to stop due to lack of light. Another amazing sunset tonight, though the clouds moved in so there’s no moon. It’s going to be a cold night.
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