Fine in 09: Packin' It In - Escalante, Capitol Reef, Leprechaun, and the Anasazi - April 2009

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Partway across Antone Flat, we encountered an old telephone line. This was a one-strand bare metal wire that was installed in 1910, and ran between the hamlets of Escalante and Boulder. It provided a single party line between the two towns. The wire was attached to whatever tree was conveniently nearby, and held up by metal posts across the stretches of slickrock. Strange seeing a wire attached via an electrical insulator to a tree branch!

courtesy CDoucet

Beautiful Weathered Wood

The old Telephone Line

Crossing a Brushy Flat

Imaginative wiring

Colorful knoll

From this point on, the wire was never too far away. In some places, it had fallen onto the ground, and in others, the path deviated from it, but by and large, it was always somewhere about us. Amazingly enough, this single-strand tree-strung telephone wire was used right up until the mid 50s!

courtesy BConnell

Single-file hiking

Bob surveys the landscape

Sandstone Brains

courtesy PChen

Down to Mamie Creek

Pu checks out the rock

Approaching Mamie Creek

courtesy PChen

Tortured Tree

Presently we came to one of the more major drainages along our route - Mamie creek. This is one of the spots that is purported to be good for camping (although our plan was to forge on and camp in Death Hollow), but as we descended into and crossed it, we found it pretty dry. There were only a few somewhat less-than-clean looking potholes to choose from. Still, it would be a passable place to camp. Although Mamie Natural Bridge is only a short distance down-creek, our timeline for today didn't really permit it. Some other time!

After crossing Mamie creek, the route climbed up some fairly steep slickrock to another short bit of semi-wooded sandy flats. Once up here, it was a fairly short walk before we once again emerged into slickrock, and in the distance we could see a much more spectacular and interesting drainage - Death Hollow!

courtesy PChen

Sandy windings

Mamie Creek dryfall

BMT Topo

Death Hollow is the biggest and deepest canyon along the stretch of territory we were covering on our backpack. It starts way up in the high country near Boulder Mountain and the Aquarius Plateau, and cuts it's way down through the thick Navajo Sandstone, all the way until it joins the Escalante River not far upstream from UT-12. The stretch of the Boulder Mail trail into and out of Death Hollow was and is considered the most challenging and scenic part of the route.

courtesy BConnell

So happy with his camera

Grand old tree

Distant Death Hollow

As we approached, it soon became clear to us that this was no exaggeration. Death Hollow was clearly much deeper [than the other drainages we had crossed thus far], and spectacular domes of cross-bedded and jointed Navajo Sandstone formed rounded buttresses that stood above it's depths.

The trail deviated somewhat from it's northeasterly course to descend a steep rib that provided access to the canyon bottom. In places, you could clearly see how sections of steep sandstone had been cut into a short set of switchbacks to form a passable trail to the bottom. On the descent in, I looked north [upstream] and could see the huge alcove that marked the spot where we would ascend back out of the Hollow. That would be for tomorrow, though -- our destination for today was to find a cozy campsite somewhere in Death Hollow, next to the clear, perennial stream that burbled along it's bottom.

courtesy PChen

Nearing Death Hollow

Pu's woohoo!

Bob above Death Hollow

courtesy BConnell

Death Hollow

Looking north to the Alcove

Descent into the Hollow

The bottom of Death Hollow has much riparian vegetation. Spring was coming a bit later this year, though, and most of it had not yet sprung. Only a few trees and plants were showing the barest hints of budding. This was probably good, as I recalled that there were stretches in Death Hollow that had "unavoidable poision ivy" (although I wasn't sure if this was one of the stretches).

Huge walls of Death Hollow

Beautiful Death Hollow

Easy creek crossings

We wound our way upstream, following a use-path through thickets, crossing and re-crossing the creek, the soaring white sandstone cliffs now stretching far above us. Again we did not have to use our water shoes: the water level was low enough that we managed to cross on stepping stones with our hiking boots. This being the largest remaining watercourse we'd cross, it looked now as if bringing our water shoes had been redundant. But hey, that's what being prepared sometimes entails.

courtesy PChen

Easy creek crossings

Strip of riparian vegetation

Idyllic Campsite

After a pleasant 30+ minutes of streamside hiking in the shady canyon depths, we approached the exit point [i.e. the point where the Boulder Mail Trail exits and climbs up to the northeast]. In the various guidebooks that I'd read, there was talk of a popular camping spot under the huge alcove on the east side of the creek. I scrambled up to it (and it is indeed impressive and huge), but I found that the amount of flat camping space was limited, and it was also quite a trek up from the creek (thus making going and coming to the creek for water a bit of a pain).

I came back down to the group (who were waiting down below at the creek), and we decided to backtrack a few minutes to a superb sandy bench shaded by large, tall pine trees. It was an idyllic spot, with plenty of flat camping space. Everybody was pretty pleased with the arrangement here, so this became our spot for the night. We had come about almost ten miles today (16km) -- a respectable distance for a day of backpacking.

Impressive Alcove

Campsite from above

Lounging at camp

We had arrived at a very pleasant 5pm, and so we had plenty of time to set up, chat, filter water, eat, and chat some more. Although it had been brilliantly sunny and not windy all day, it had been fairly cool, and as the shadows deepened and sunset approached, it became downright chilly. We expected a below-freezing temperature for the next morning. As dusk fell and we settled into our tents, I watched for a while as the waxing gibbous moon shone a pattern of pine tree branches on the fly of our tent. A fine end to a fine first day of our outings!