Zebra Slot Canyon

A few years ago, i was browsing Google Earth, looking at remote areas in the desert that were well away from roads and trails, just to see what was there. I came across some some interesting sand dunes in the Escalante area that i had never heard of. Open fields of dunes are somewhat rare in the American Southwest, and these appeared large enough from space that i was intrigued. The problem was they were miles away from the nearest road, and getting to them would be a cross country trek across very hot terrain.

Since my Blackstone Bay experience i've become more interested in cross country hiking. Last year, revisiting the sand dunes in Earth, a few photos had been added to the area, revealing that the sand dunes were indeed large and interesting. Additionally i found the location of two noteworthy slot canyons very close by. I had heard rumors of, and occasionally seen a photo of Zebra and Tunnel slot canyons, but i never knew where they were. It turns out they are both within a mile of each other and some distance to the south of the big dunes.

 

The normal way to get to Zebra Slot is to hike in from the Hole in the Wall Road, over 3 miles away, and return via the same route. I don't like backtracking, and if i wanted to see Tunnel Slot and the Dunes that would add on miles of backtracking. I thought it would be fun to design a loop hike using sattelite imagery.  I found a less used sand road to the east that would make a great starting point for the loop, incorporating all three destinations and offering a look at bare rock wildlands in between. The total hike would be between 10 and 12 miles, depending on how far along the dunes i wanted to go.

The route that i actually ended up hiking. The black line is one mile long.

A closer view of the "wildlands" that i traversed on the way from the Start to the Dunes and Tunnel.  The beige patches are old sand dunes that are generally stabilized with plants. I tried to stay in the white bare rock areas, which was sometimes not easy because the horizon was often obscured in the sand. The large green plants are Juniper trees. The smaller speckles are mostly Sagebrush.  

When i first got to the rocks i followed a long drainage with larger and larger waterholes. Some were dry, some were wet.

Starting at one of the ends of the Spencer Flats road i made the three mile walk to Tunnel Slot.  I'm still bad about bringing maps with me, so i was using my iphone as a gps from time to time. I highly recommend NOT doing that, as the iphone (at least the iphone3) is a terrible navigational aid. You have to be moving for it pinpoint your position and show your direction. As soon as you stop moving it looses your direction. So if you are walking off trail, through endless small obstacles, you can only glance at the screen for a second or two to get your bearings. It also uses immense amounts of battery power.

It was a cold, windy morning (it had been 25F that night) but I made it to Tunnel Slot without any major problems. In fact, i was hugely surprised that i navigated so accurately across the terrain. I came right up to the back of the Tunnel, which was nice because the front of the Tunnel was flooded, so i didn't have to feel disappointment in not knowing where the tunnel went.

Acres and acres of open bare rock. I love it. In the foreground are what they call Moki Marbles. They are iron rich mineral deposits, some of them perfect spheres. In some areas there were so many of them that you literally had to watch your step.

The beginning of the Tunnel Slot wash is fairly unappealing and somewhat choked with dead willow bushes. If i hadn't just walked back along the top i would never assume this led anywhere of interest.

The canyon opens up briefly and then squeezes shut abruptly. You can see the tomb like entrance to the tunnel up ahead.

The tunnel looked about 60 feet long and was full of water. The water at the entrance looked more than 3 feet deep, and was hard to avoid unless you ran along the wall bouncing back and forth Prince of Persia style.

From the front of Tunnel Slot to the front of Zebra Slot is 1.5 miles. This was the only part of the hike where there was any semblance of a trail. The trail was largely just the sandy riverbed, so there may as well have been no trail at all.

Looking back down the "trail" between Tunnel and Zebra slots.

During this time i came across two pairs of people. The first pair was an older couple with a dog who didn't seem like they had the strength to make it all the way to Tunnel Slot. I am sure they perished. The second pair of people were a couple from Amsterdam, and the guy was a photographer. They unfortunately arrived at Zebra Slot exactly as i was getting ready to enter it. They were very pleasant, and being a photographer, he was patient about waiting while i went up ahead. The slot was far too narrow for more than one or two people to be in it. In fact, there are only a couple of spots where two people might be able to get around each other.

A mile and a half later i was approaching the outlet of Zebra Slot up ahead.

Wait, is that a bit of blue sky?

I  spent about 40 minutes around Zebra Slot, and then continued on to see if i could make it to the dunes. The rock landscape was getting more interesting as i followed the wash north of Zebra Slot, but it also was getting more confusing. I followed the sand for over two miles before i came upon the large dunes. Along the way i passed a fantastic oasis, with two trees growing out of wet sand, and a small pool at the base of a slide.

Zebra Slot Canyon. On the right you can see some of those Moki Marbles embedded in the wall.

The canyon continues for a while and then ends at a dirty pool and dry waterfall.  

Looking up. Zebra Slot gets it's name from the stripes in the walls.

The sun had come out and the wind died down. The temperature on the rocks skyrocketed until i wanted to take off my shirt. Amazing, considering i started out wearing a coat and gloves. The area must be an inferno in the middle of summer. After i got hot i had to do some steep climbing and i ended up dizzy enough that i had to take a break, realizing for sure that i was sick with a cold. I'd been denying it until that point.

 Above the oasis i came upon this landscape of fantastic smooth white rock withe red stripes and pink hues. It the bright sun it was almost to much to bear.

It wasn't much longer before i reached the dunes. I had planned on walking along to their northern end, but i was tired and low on water, so i headed back. I made my way 3 miles across stabilized dunes and patches of bare rock, and i erred on the side of caution, coming back onto the sand road about 1/4 mile from the truck, which was at the end of the road. I didn't want to miss the end of the road.

This was a crucial decision point that i hadn't planned on having to make. Looking at the imagery i knew that i would encounter a pyramid shaped mesa and that i would need to walk to the left of it to get to the sand dunes. I never expected to walk up to TWO pyramid shaped mesas that were a near mirror image of each other! By this point i was getting tired, so choosing the wrong path would probably have used up the rest of my recreational willpower reserves. This was where i had to choose because the watershed divided, forking off toward each distant monument. I chose correctly.

Finally, the Big Dunes! I was too tired to bother climbing up them. Once again i've taken a picture with nothing for scale. The top of the cliffs over there is 300 feet higher than the rock i was on, and i still had at least three miles of walking through sand to get back to the truck.

On the way back i'd only driven about a mile before i came across a compact Chevy sedan, bottomed out and abandoned in the middle of the road. I couldn't believe someone would even attempt take that car all the way out here, so i got out to take pictures of it. While i was taking pictures the driver of the car came walking down the road. He was a German tourist (actually a teacher on a sort of exchange program) and he wanted to know if i could help him.

Of course i helped him. He was about 11 miles from the nearest paved road and it was close to sunset. Although i was impressed with how far he got the car before it became stuck i berated him for being foolish enough to try it. I just walked 10 miles and i was hungry, sick and dirty. I didn't want to do anything but take a shower and get some dinner before the restaurants closed in Escalante.

First i just offered him a ride back to town where he could get a tow or buy a tow line. I told him i'd come back tomorrow with him if he needed me to. He was freaking out because he claimed he had to catch a plane the next afternoon (the next day i doubted this was true because i saw him walking into the Capital Reef visitor center at the same time he said he had to be on the plane).

ATTENTION TOURISTS: NOT THE RIGHT CAR FOR THE JOB.

So we tried to dig his car out for a while, which was hopeless. I told him i'd seen a large camp halfway up the road, and that those guys might have a tow rope. The camp was still there and the guys camping were making dinner. We had arrived at exactly the wrong time, but one of them was generous enough to put aside his dinner, get on his ATV, and follow us back. He had a winch but for some reason he thought the best thing to do was try and tow the car even farther down the road to this turn out area. The sand was deeper down there so i couldn't understand why he thought that was the thing to do. He was being very generous with his time though, so i was patient while he failed.

I finally convinced him to try and tow the car backwards to the point where the surface was more firm. The car was so well beached that the ATV just kept towing itself back to the car, instead of vice versa. So we had to dig it out some more (we found out the wheels weren't really touching the ground), and nearly burned up the engine of the car before we finally got it moving toward safety. All in all it took and hour and a half for me to help that guy with his car. He was certainly excited to be free from his predicament.

Broken Camera

Last spring i went back to Utah for some more exploring. This time around my area of concentration was going to be the more remote areas of Capital Reef National Park, since i've been to most of the easy to get to places. I also wanted to take a look around the Escalante River, possibly driving down the Hole in the Wall Road.

 

I rented a Jeep, but they didn't have it upon my arrival in Grand Junction, so they gave me a new, full size Silverado instead. I didn't want something that big, but the truck was a comfy ride and had a lot of power. It worked great in the sand.

The second bit of news for me was that on the day i arrived there was a freak blizzard. The whole region was getting pounded by snow and high winds, and the temperature plummeted 30 degrees overnight. Power was out in several of the small towns where i  planned on staying.

I decided to stick around in Grand Junction for a day or two, and visit Colorado National Monument, a little park i'd always ignored (pictured at left). This turned out to be a blessing, because not only is the park worth visiting, but i found out when i stopped for my first hike, that the brand new hiking shoes i had purchased for the trip turned out to be two left-foot shoes. I hadn't tried them on since i left the original store.

The good part was that they had the same store in Grand Junction, and i  was able to exchange them for a proper pair of shoes the next morning.

 The horse preserve. There's a nearby coal mine too.

I had never been on the interstate through south central Utah. It had some nice scenery too. Here the interstate cuts through the San Rafael Swell.

Afterwards i tried visiting a Wildlife Preserve outside Grand Junction with wild horses living in it. I thought if i was lucky enough to see wild horses, they might look pretty cool in the snow. The road though, was made of that super slippery grey clay that makes up the Book Cliffs. The road was very icy, and where it was melted it actually felt more dangerous than the ice. I was only able to get down the road a few miles before i came to a locked gate. Apparently that road becomes impassable in snowy weather.

 A view from Boulder Mountain across Capital Reef to the Henry Mountains (the last mountains in the contiguous U.S. to be put on the map. The video features the mountains from a similar distance on the other side.

My 8 days in Utah were cursed by continuing bad weather. High winds and temps in the 20's created frigid wind chills, and large sandstorms. A few days i devoted to sightseeing from the vehicle. I went on a 60 mile dirt road through capital reef, checked out some roads near the Henry Mountains, Dirty Devil River, and White Canyon, saw some interesting ruins, and revisited the Needles District of Canyonlands for two days. The Needles did not fail to impress, once again.

Down a selectively chosen dirt road near Escalante i came across a promising hiking area.

The farther i walked the more the place molded itself into my favorite type of terrain. It was close to sunset though, and i had to get a hotel room, so i decided to come back later.

Two days later i stopped by in the morning. I walked considerably farther, until i got to this place. There was a way down, but by this time i was sick with a cold, and i could tell that i really should enjoy the hike down this canyon later in the spring, or summer, or fall.

Unfortunately i don't have any pictures of most of those activities, because my camera broke on that 60 mile road trip through Capital Reef. The camera bounced off the armrest in the truck and hit the carpeted flooring. It was only a two foot drop at most, but it must have hit at just the right angle, and at the moment that the truck was bouncing back upwards. It would no longer take pictures, and it was the morning of the 4th day of the trip!

 

 The last photo i took before the camera broke. It broke somewhere in view up the road.

It would, strangely, take video without any problems. The problem was with the shutter. So i have put together a video of some of the places i visited during that time. The locations are places i visited with the truck. I decided that since it was broken there was no reason to carry it along while i went hiking (and i noticed the difference in my backpack).


Spring Roadtrip 2010 from Adam Elliott on Vimeo.

Zion's Main Canyon

After our fun little cabin adventure at the Grand Canyon we made our way over to Zion. I kind of wanted to go see Bryce but it was 18 degrees there at night, so we opted to stay warm. Last year i mentioned that i never did anything in the main canyon of Zion during my week long stay at the park, so this time, since Maree had never been to the park at all, i decided to spend the majority of my time there, where most of the official trails are.

We wanted to go to the Narrows, but the cold front that came through made that undesirable. Our first excursion into the water, to a hidden oasis i knew about, was frigid. So i took Maree up to the famous Angel's Landing, a 2,000 foot monument in the middle of the canyon.

Once again, i was shocked at how many people visit the park now. The trail was totally packed, and up near the top, where you need to hang on to chains for safety on the extemely exposed trail, we found ourselves waiting for minutes at a time as endless caravans of visitors came down from the top.

There are a lot of switchbacks up the Angels Landing trail.

Although the total height didn't seem as impressive to me after the years of other experiences i've had, the trail does still offer a frightening amount of exposure that is amplifed by loose sand on the rounded, sloped rocks. I have to admit i was a bit scared. In fact, i was shocked to be more afraid now than i used to be, which was bizarre (since i just mentioned the total height being less impressive than i remember). Maybe it was the high winds.


Maree is getting scared right when things start to get fun.

Maree, on the other hand, was frightened to death. It was too bad because she became paralyzed just a short distance from the top, and could go no further. Once someone experiences a paralyzing fear like that there isn't much you can do to talk them out of it, so i let her sit on a narrow bench of rock while i made a quick trip up to the top. At least in this instance she thought i came back much sooner than she had expected.


The view on the top looking down at the road and the Virgin River 2,000 ft below.

The next day the winds became so strong that rangers advised people not to go on the Angels Landing trail at all, and with all the sand in the air we decided to go for a drive instead of walking in the high cliffs. But we did do one other hike before leaving directly across the river from Angels Landing. Maree enjoyed Hidden Canyon, even wandering far up canyon, off trail while i went to find the way to nearby Echo Canyon.


This is where Maree could go no farther. You can see how scared she is, poor girl...

We saw California Condor Number 57. I never thought i would see a Condor!


And we saw one of these!

 












This is the piece of land i want.


I also used that day to test out a new lense. I had rented a Canon 17mm TSE lense. It's a tilt shift lense, which means it can correct for parallax like a field camera. I'd been excited about the possibilities of the lense, but the huge price tag made renting one for a week seem like a good idea. I picked it up from Las Vegas on the way out of town, and played with it a bit in our cabin, but hadn't used it since then because it was so heavy and cumbersome. Eventually i decided that the only way i could force myself to really use it was to make sure that it was the only lense i had available, so i left my others in the room that day.

This image shows how you can use the lense to make those popular "miniaturized" pictures of just about anything. It's fun. 


This image shows what you can do when the lense is used correctly. Notice that the long narrow slot canyon on the far right of the photo is nice and verticle all the way up and down the photo. This would be very distorted on a normal wide angle lense. For a 17mm lense that is impressive.

The lense has a HUGE crystal ball attached to the front of it. It looks very cool, to be honest, but there is so much glass that it seems it would be impossible for the thing to take a crisp image without any distortion. The results are exactly the opposite. It has virtually no chromatic aberration, and it is extremely sharp, if you focus it right. It's manual focus only, and i had a lot of difficulty getting the plane of focus to line up with the scenes i wanted. By the very end of the day i was finally starting to get some better results, and those are posted here.

The two images above may look the same at first glance. The top one is taken using the lense with no tilt corrections, and the bottom using the maximum tilt that the lense will allow. It may be easier to notice the cliffs and trees on the left look slightly "straighter", while the mountaintop on the top picture has been very stretched out on the right side due to the wide angle. The difference is so subtle that i don't think it is worth the price tag. The camera wasn't moved during the two shots.




We found this bridge that had been destroyed by a HUGE flash flood at some point.