Kolob Canyons/ Buckskin Gulch

Happy Fourth! Celebrating sans fireworks today.. extreme fire danger up here on the Kaibab plateau... not that we're allowed to have fireworkds when fire danger isn't extreme but that's ok. NPS and Forever Resorts usually celebrate with a water fight but I think they've scaled that back too. I just want to eat barbequed goodness and play some volleyball...


Anyway... still behind. A few weeks ago Jesse and I had a permit to hike Buckskin gulch over two days and stay overnight. However, with the slight chance of rain and Buckskin being one of the slottiest slot canyons around, we decided not ot risk it. Headed up to Kolob in Zion instead (sort of like the North Rim of Zion... less people, no shuttles, more remote, a bit smaller but still cool).




Did the Taylor Creek Trail, a delightful little hike along Taylor Creek that takes you to Double Arch Alcove. We got caught in a rainstorm about a half mile from the alcove and had to hover under a little overhang along the creek because we came ill-prepared without rain jackets. After about 20 minutes it cleared up and we got to the Alcove; two huge arches right on top of each other. Pretty cool.



Finished the hike and headed up to the end of the scenic drive to make some dinner. Really cool view but it was getting cold so we finished up and drove back through Zion all the way to the Buckskin Gulch trailhead to stay the night and start our dayhike in the canyon nice and early.





Up with the sun and drove down to the Wirepass trailhead and began our hike into Wirepass and then Buckskin. Beautiful little slot canyon.


Start of the slottiness..a bit eerie looking









Jesse walking through on right. There was one part where it was a pretty tight squeeze with both shoulders touching the walls.







The patterns of how water has carved the rocks over the years was really beautiful. Hard to capture in there without a tripod- it was pretty dark in a lot of spots.













Jesse under a bunch of flood debris on right. There were a lot of places where you could see logs and debris lodged between the walls way up above our heads. Glad we were in there when it was dry with absolutely no chance of rain. I probably would have been pretty freaked out if we had gone in the day before, knowing how high the water gets in there somtimes.



The baby rattlesnake I almost stepped on with bare feet (wanted to hike barefoot in the really soft sandy parts). He must have fallen in because it was too cold in there for snakes- he was moving pretty slow, a mix of the cool air and the fall I'd guess. He was so small that he was shaking his rattle but not making any noise. Good thing I didn't step on him cause young rattlers can't control how much venom they inject when they bite. Wouldn't have been fun getting a ton of venom in my foot.