day 9, Coyote Buttes and Grand Canyon

I went to bed with snow on the ground, and my little cabin was cold. I didn't sleep well at all, woke up a lot, especially in the morning. I should have gotten up earlier, but when I'm cold, I don't feel like getting up. Even though I would probably get warmer. Eventually, I got up. The room wasn't really that cold, I just cool off when I sleep because my metabolism slows down. The little bathroom was really cold, though, so I didn't take a shower. I just got my gear together and left. Didn't buy breakfast either.

When you rent a car in Vegas, you don't get a snow brush with it. It had snowed a little more since I arrived, so I had to warm up the car to get the snow off the windows.

I drove down to House Rock Road. This is the main dirt road that runs south out of the middle of Grand Staircase-Escalante N.M. It goes through the Paria Canyon - Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness area and Vermillion Cliffs National Monument. And some other BLM land. Their was a some rain in the area, and I was told the south end of the road is in better shape than the north end. I came in from the south. In the middle of the PC-VC Wilderness, are North Coyote Buttes and South Coyote Buttes. The iconic Wave is in the North part, but I wanted to see the South more, so I made sure I had a permit the day before. There wasn't really a question about getting one, as it turned out, but then I also didn't have to go all the way up to the Contact Station to get it today.

House Rock road starts out straight and flat, and runs alongside some of the Vermillion Cliffs. It's a deep red cliff wall that starts along the Colorado River near the Navajo Bride, heads southwest, then west, and turns north here, near House Rock Road. The wide flat valley is cattle land. I was a little surprised to see a "wayside" with an outhouse and picnic table, and a little shelter. In all the vast open space of GS-E, I had only seen such facilities one place - The Devil's Garden. And there were no interesting features her, but the cliffs. I pulled over to see, and it turned out to be a California condor viewing spot. No condors were to be seen, of course. The road got a bit hillier, and eventually I found my turnoff.

I wasn't sure what to expect on my backcountry-type treks. I didn't know how easy it would be to get lost. The first such place was in GS-E, down Hole-in-the-Rock Road. I wasn't too worried about it, and it turned out to be more well-traveled than I expected. That gave me a little more confidence about this day's trip. The main thing is to have food and water to last a day or two, in case I get lost or stuck. I did. And I had my compass. But that's about it.

I had gotten maps and directions from the contact station when I got my backcountry permit. All of these kinds of areas said "high-clearance four-wheel-drive only", so the ranger had asked if I had four-wheel-drive. I didn't say yes, I said I had a Jeep Grand Cherokee. The ranger indicated I'd be just fine. *shrug* Such an SUV (a Jeep, no less) seems like a 4x4, but it doesn't really have high clearance - it's about nine inches to the plastic "skidplate". And it's not exactly four-wheel-drive - it's "on-demand all-wheel-drive".

I had my little map, and some of the roads were marked, so I was able to find my way, for the most part. As I went on, the road got sandier and rockier. The rock was bedrock. Ridged sandstone. Very rough. The "road" usually went wide around this stuff. And the sand was fairly deep. I could hear the bottom of the Jeep scraping quite often. I learned very quickly to keep the wheels turning. Just give her the gas.

After a while I came to the abandoned ranch and oil well at Poverty Flat. I took some photos, of course. That's one place I made a wrong turn. I didn't go too far before realizing it and coming back down to the ranch. When I turning around, I saw another vehicle (Jeep Cherokee) - the first one I'd seen in over an hour. After driving a while longer, I came to a wide spot in the road. It looked kinda like a parking area, but I wasn't sure if it was, or if it was the place I was looking for. The map said I was looking for the Cottonwood Cove trailhead. There was no sign. Nor were there cottonwoods, much less a cove. I decided to drive on a bit and see what was up ahead. I got back in the Jeep and started down the hill. When I started, I was a little zoned, and it took me a moment to process that the hill had some deep sand. I had gone down it a little way, when I realized there were no tracks on it. FUCK. Stop. There were tire tracks on the roads that I had been following, even in the sand. The hill was kinda steep. Okay, very steep, considering how deep the sand was. Okay, now what? I do not want to have to let the air out of these tires, and drive 200 miles to fill them up again. Or sit here and wait until someone shows up and hope they have a tow strap. Only one thing to do - try to back up the hill. Give her some gas. Not too much, because you don't want to dig in. (Keeping your foot on the gas only works when you're already moving.) Go, go, go... damn. Move forward a little bit to make a path. Go, go, go... damn. Forward a little. I did this about four times, and made it out. Whew. I parked and got out to look around. I bet those buttes right there are where I need to go. Oh look, a trail. Funny how it looks right when you've decided that it *is* right.

Off I went, toward the buttes. I was a bit unhappy because it was cloudy. Not a good day for photos. It was also windy and chilly, but that was secondary. I went up a little canyon among the buttes. I was pretty impressed by the scenery. And there were more of them. Conical hills of yellow sandstone. Intricately layered, in both color and texture. There were good views of the surrounding canyons and hills too. It was nice. And then I got to a point where I could see down into the canyon directly below me. oh, there's more here than I thought. And it's getting better! As I went down into the canyon the sun came out! Things were looking up. And when I got down there, the rock got even more impressive. More colors and more intricate layering, with cross-bedding and other interesting features.

I climbed around the area for a while. The canyon kinda led to a ledge that looked out into an open area. I could see more interesting sandstone in the distance, and assumed it was North Coyote Buttes, with The Wave in it somewhere (it was). Instead of going back up the canyon the way I came, I decided to be adventurous, and climb a steep hill on the east side of the canyon. On top of this ridge were some of the most interesting formations there. There were quite a few little rock formations, where the layers were all twisted and turned over. Amazing. And in an open area in the middle of it all, was a smallish pillar of cross-bedded rock fins. Delicate and twisted. Bizarre. By this time, the sun had gone away. I got very lucky with my timing here. I think I've got some good pictures.

This whole trip, I had seen so many amazing sights. Almost every time I looked up, I would see something that made me say "wow." By the time I got here, instead of "wow," I was laughing. I have a tendency to laugh at the absurd, whether it's humorous or not. Not only were some of these places simply absurd, it was absurd that there was so much of it. It was like a running joke with myself - look, there's another one!

When I was up on the ridge, I saw a couple down in the canyon. When I was going down, they were coming up, so I directed them to the wild formations. They were the first people I'd seen, aside from the other Jeep, since leaving the highway. When I got back to my car, there were five other vehicles, three of them being Jeep Cherokees. I talked with a (professional) photographer and his wife. They and another couple were camping there, I guess. He had a *real* high-clearance 4WD van. :-)

There were a couple of other sites in the area that I kinda wanted to see, but I didn't really feel like driving to them. I just went out the way I came. I was happy that I didn't run into anyone coming my way, since there wasn't often room for someone to get by. I got back down to the main road. I really wanted to go north to see the Paria Town Site, but there was a lot of rain in the direction. I decided to head back south and go the Grand Canyon. I drove back to Jacob Lake, and went south.

This was down (up?) the Kaibab Plateau, and through the Kaibab National forest. There's not much out there but trees. Oh, and cattle. I was a little surprised to see herds of cattle lounging among the Douglas Fir and aspen. They had had some pretty bad forest fires a few years ago. It had been so long since there were fires, that the flames were so strong that the trees didn't survive. Some of the trees were charred black. Some of them, the charred bark had fallen off, and they were bone white. Some were patchy black and white. So I was driving along a ridge, and was surrounded by these tree skeletons. But at that point, it was snowing. So the bones were fading in and out of view. Kinda spooky.

It's a good hour's drive from Jacob Lake down to the park entrance. It was only snowing for a bit, about halfway down. But the closer I got, the more snow there was on the ground. They had gotten several inches the day before. I had heard they got a foot in places, and I wouldn't be surprised if that were true.

I drove down to the Grand Canyon Lodge on the North Rim. It was an old lodge - big, open, log walls and beams, huge Navajo rugs on the walls. There's theater sort of place on the left of the lobby, a big (and expensive, I imagine) restaurant on the left, and down some stairs are some huge windows that look out on the canyon from a sitting area with a big fireplace and comfy furniture. This is the first view of the canyon at the North Rim. It's impressive.

I went out on the patio. It was damn cold, damn windy, and damn cloudy. But it was still impressive. The canyon is so big, you can hardly get a feel for it. You just gaze out there and... it's big. You read one of the signs, and it says that point out there is three miles away. Okay? How far is three miles? You don't really have context. I walked to a couple of vista points. Same canyon. You continue to look. It was cloudy, so it was still not photogenic. But I took pics anyway. I wandered slowly around the area. The restrooms were small. The gift shop sold books. The book store sold more books, but also happened to be the Visitor's Center where the rangers hung out to provide info. There were rows of little cabins. I got a sandwich at the deli and headed out. I drove out a winding hilly road to Point Imperial. Another vista, but it was looking east. You can actually see the Colorado River from there. Still damn cold. I was very glad I had some warm clothes and a knit winter hat.

As I exited the park, it was snowing. It was really coming down. Before too long, it was sticking to the ground. There were even a couple of slippery spots on the winding, hilly road. I stopped in Jacob Lake again and talked with Cyn for a bit. I was heading back to Kanab for the night. I got behind a couple of semis on the winding, hilly, snowy, four-mile six percent grades. It was a slow trip, but at least the snow stopped when we got back down below 7000 feet. I got back to Kanab around 10:30. The office at the motel closes at 11:00, so I was a little worried that I wouldn't make it in time, but I did. This motel had only a space heater in the room, so I asked for an extra blanket. I had told the woman about the snow at Grand Canyon, so she brought me two blankets. It was the best night of sleep I had the whole trip.

Two days left!