DAY 2 : Page 1
The Awakening
The two images in the picture are not recovered ancient mummufied remains of another culture. These sleeping bags contain Dale and Dick contemplating and planning their day. Since the trailhead is at nearly 5000 feet altitude, it did get quite cold at night (est to be in the low 40's) and all of us crawled well down into the bags during the night. However, there was no getting out of the sun, so eventually everyone emerged and faced the coming adventure.
Waking up at Wirepass
After a breakfast of bacon and eggs (and juice and corn tortillas) we packed up the campsite and stowed it away in Dick's truck (mine was at the Paria Ranger Station). Packed and checked the backpacks and camera equipment (critical; how to carry the tripods on the outer part of the pack where we could get to them easily) and grabbed the walking sticks. Off we went up the Wirepass wash through the high desert scenary.
Starting up Wirepass wash
Wirepass trail is about 1.7 miles long before joining with Buckskin. It rapidly gains tall walls, and there are two drops before getting to the confluence, each of them about 5-6 feet deep. These require some agility and help to pass the packs down, and then carefully letting oneself down through the narrow passage. The walking sticks came in handy here, as they aided in letting yourself down the drops.
The steep sections often give way to wider sections of various colors; here is a section of Wirepass just before the confluence. Note the scale with the hiker in the foreground.
Red rock in Wirepass
This picturesque view soon gives way to more narrow passages as enter into Buckskin Canyon. Evidence of the torrent of water that enters these canyons is often seen as debris high overhead.
Dale under debris
After a mile or two we are in the section of the Canyon called "The Dive" followed by a section called "The Cesspool". These are so called because of the amount of standing water in pools during the late Spring and Summer months. This water was uniformly muddy; or one could say that this mud was uniformly watery. The pools probably averaged 20-24" deep with a couple coming up to my waist. We were warned of this situation from the web bulletin board so we secured the packs with our bedrolls on top, and the ground pads on the bottom. The net result was that my pad go a little soiled, but dried quickly before bedtime. Walking sticks were an important asset here, as they were used as probes to find the bottom contour before stepping.
