The path down Dark Canyon
Backpacking is the perfect recipe for misery: the majority of the trip you’re tired, sore, hungry and thirsty. Not only are you hiking long distances, day after day, over varying terrain, you’re doing it all with a 20 to 30 pound monkey on your back. Why would anybody put their bodies through such a wringer, on vacation, no less? Because despite all the aches, pains and annoyances, backpacking can take you some totally awesome places, places that aren’t reachable by any other means except your own two feet. Like Utah’s Dark Canyon Wilderness!
Into the Dark Canyon Wilderness! Just east of Natural Bridges National Monument in southeast Utah
A few weeks ago my trusty adventure pal Drew and I spent 4 days hiking a 42 mile loop down Woodenshoe Canyon to Dark Canyon and out Peavine Canyon. We saw two people the first day and none the rest. The only signs of humanity were three Anasazi ruins, some pottery and a set of barefoot human footprints that we followed for more than 20 miles.
Barefoot track! About my size, but with a long stride. They were cruising!
Bobcat track. Lots of cat tracks in these canyons! Notice the lack of toenail marks, which help differentiate cat tracks from coyote tracks.
The Bachelor Pad, tucked up under an overhang in Woodenshoe Canyon
A Room With A View
Goat Petroglyphs above the Bachelor Pad
Pottery! A very nice piece. I left it in a special place where I might revisit it someday.
The third set of ruins we found: two storage rooms under an overhang in dark Canyon, about a days walk from the first set in Woodenshoe.
Self Portrait as an Anasazi
Broken Room
Fingerprints in Mud Wall
For the first 12 miles in Woodenshoe, we were flush with water, the deep canyon fed by the fast-melting snow drifts we has driven past up on the canyon rim. As we hiked down canyon, springs appeared in rocky basins and disappeared under gravel. We drank our fill of water and pumped more with my mechanical filter; further treating the clear, cold water with Aqua Mira chlorine drops. Better safe than sorry! But as the canyon opened up, nearing the confluence with Dark Canyon, we didn’t top off our reservoirs, and when we hit the main canyon, we were two liters shy of our full capacity of 8.5 liters. Oops.
Water in Woodenshoe
Limestone Basin
Water in Woodenshoe
Two Toads!
Sandstone Basin
Lunch Break. Shoulda filled up here!
Day three was thirsty; Dark Canyon was bone dry. By the time we found water – a night and 12 miles after our last Woodenshoe source – we were down to a swig. The little creek was Salvation Water. Hallelujah! I nearly dropped to my knees and guzzled it raw. It was sparkling, clean enough to host several huge toads. We sat by that water for several hours, splashing our dusty faces and guzzling liters of lemonade-flavored toad water as fast as we could pump it and treat it. There’s no thirst like desert thirst; no water like Salvation Water!
At the confluence with Dark Canyon
Jasper Vein in Sandstone
Dark Canyon Self Portrait
We go thataway! At times, the trail was hard to track through the sand, but it stuck close to the arroyo.
Admit it, we make backpacking look cool.
After a long, fantastically warm winter off grid in New Mexico, I’m back on the road in the Teardrop! Stay tuned for some dispatches from Northern New Mexico!
Travels with the Blonde Coyote 
Nice piece of Anasazi pottery there Mary. Spectacular photography Thanks for sharing.
Fabulous photos and great narrative. Yes, you make backpacking look cool! So much so, that I want to go back to Utah’s canyon country – soon. My partner and I spent some time there in 2011, walking in the Moab region and at Natural Bridges. I’d hoped to spend a few days exploring the Dixie forest and Grand Escalante, but time ran out on us. I love your blog and sense of adventure. It’s good that we can share our experiences like this. Susan
“Spectacular” doesn’t do justice to this brilliant and awe-inspiring post Mary. Thanks for sharing your amazing adventure. It makes our two hour hike to Chimney Rock at The Ghost Ranch in New Mexico look like a walk in the park. In admiration and best wishes 🙂
Reblogged this on Mistrz i Małgorzata.
I haven’t been to Dark Canyon since 2005. Thanks for posting this. It brought back a lot of memories. I need to get my tail back to the southwest. All glaciers and no desert makes Bubba a very dull boy…
I live vicariously through your posts. You keep doing you, girl!
I can see that there would be a lot of archeological and geological interests there.
Leslie
Reblogged this on Disconnected Landscapes.
What an amazing place! Thanks for sharing.
Fabulous adventure! I’ve been waiting to see what you’d post next. A lady of many adventures.
Can’t wait for your summer teardrop travel adventures. I’ve missed you posting on a regular basis.
Great story. I had chuckle at the first lines of your account. Every time we’re out backpacking, that is exactly what I think, and then we do it again for the very same reasons.
Full with colurful and their are still natural,their enviorment must.
fresher
It wasn’
t a simply. Buy. tommorow still this memory remind. My how your journal to cross over gran canyon.and develop personal,, reputasion.salute.