TripReport

I had planned a trip from Hall's Creek to the Escalante River, but for various reasons we changed it to an out-and-back trip from Hall's. The choice was wise as we got to see great terrain twice. David and Vicki Nebel, who had no desert hiking experience, joined me.

March 21. We started at 10:30 at the Burts Spring shortcut to Hall's Creek. This descent went fine, and it saves almost 4 miles from the standard way. It gets used, but not much. There are some cairns after one passes the tricky steep spot. The drive was fine, though high clearance is needed.

We reached camp at Hall's Divide at around 3:30, so we were a bit slow here. It was very hot and dry. Potholes I had used before were dry, but still we camped a couple hundred feet up on Hall's Divide, which is far superior to the campsite that everyone uses by the creek. We treated water from the creek with AquaMira here (this is the only spot on the trip where we treated water). A photo of this campsite appears in the Hall's Narrows section elsewhere at this web site. We camped at the exact same spot. There was no evidence of anyone having camped here.

In the late afternoon I went on a short exploration of the next day's route but got trapped in the other fork of Hall's Narrows, which ends at a very steep pouroff into the normal narrows. There were some footsteps in here, and also a nice large petrified log. So I backtracked home.

March 22. After a pleasant night (warm), we carried to near the spring high on the Waterpocket Fold. This was a hard day in beautiful and complex terrain. We saw a half dozen bighorn sheep down low. And there were many nice full potholes in the small canyons. In places there were strings of them, so we could bathe in one. The GPS was certainly helpful as we worked our way up the 1700 feet of the day. We could not find the ruin that we had heard about. David and I got water from a deep canyon with caves and returned to our camp, which was higher on the north bank of that wash, but then I went to the spring marked on the map, which had much better water.

March 23. We headed out carrying little to find the way through the upper cliffs of the Fold. After one false start we found the right route, which seemed to go on and on. It was amazingly intricate in here: some of the nicest Navajo sandstone terrain I have ever seen. Then we walked the 2+ miles mostly on sand to Cliff Point, the high point of the Waterpocket Fold. Several spots on this walk were rich in arrowheads. The point had great views, as expected, and the reliable water hole just SW of the point was flush with water. The return was uneventful, but even so following the exact route through the passage was not so easy. This outing took all day. It was very nice to have this day of packless travel, but we still managed to tire ourselves out.

March 24. We retraced down to our first camp on Hall's Divide. Again, the route was tricky to follow in spots, and the GPS helped. I had marked several points on the way up, and so could bear to them on the way down. The fact that the Fold is folded makes the Navajo domes very intricate, with lots of steep blockages. We then went through Hall's Narrows. Water levels were as they were several years ago. I took a shortcut to cut off one meander as I had done on a prior trip, but that turned out to be a mistake, with nasty bushwhacking near the end. Three feet was maximum water depth. During our trip at least two other parties were doing this. They all seem to camp right by the creek, which is not at all the best campsite. Just as the sun set I noticed a speck in the western sky and was certain it was Mercury, which I had never seen before. It turns out that this night was almost optimal for seeing Mercury.

March 25. To the lookout on Hall's Divide, and then out to the car the same way we came in (it seemed easier to go up this steep gully than down as far as avoiding hard sections), and a drive home by way of Ticaboo and Hanksville.

Summary: It can be quite cold in March, but this week was unseasonably warm. Thus the trip seemed more like a late-April trip. Of course, it gets dark early, so each day we found ourselves rushing a bit to get to camp in time. Water is a perennial concern, and things were drier than usual, but there was in fact ample water in potholes.