Thursday, Oct 13 - Exploring the Escalante

Annie's Place

We joined a group of bikers and another couple for Jared’s breakfast: yogurt with homemade peach jam, baked puffy pancake with buttermilk foamy sauce with fried eggs from our chickens who live behind the pig pen. Enough to keep us going for quite a while! 

 This morning we wanted to drive the Hell”s Backbone gravel road from Boulder (6700’) back to the town of Escalante (5800’) that we passed yesterday afternoon. Hell’s Backbone is mostly the original summer vehicle road which must have been quite an ordeal as it rises up almost 2500 feet to 9200’ and back down again almost 4000 feet! We wound up through piñon pine and juniper with flashes of golden yellow cottonwood leaves, until the forest turned to Ponderosa pine with rocky outcroppings. 

 Occasionally we enjoyed spectacular views northward to a thick golden band of aspens on the south slope of the Aquarius Plateau. Eventually we reached Hells’ Backbone, a narrow ridge that ends at a 1500’ drop off across from a rocky cliff. In the 30s a wooden bridge was built to cross the gap so as to speed up the route to Escalante. Two large Ponderosa pines were somehow laid across the gap, and a bulldozer drove across them to start construction. The wooden bridge lasted until the 60s when it started to groan and creak! The bridge is now concrete and metal, but still quite a spectacular sight.

View from Hell's Backbone Bridge

 We reached the crest and started down, finally seeing some other traffic as that side has several trail heads and campgrounds. The scenery continued to be outstanding all the way to Escalante, and we started back to Boulder on Beehive 12, which was also constructed in the 30s as Hells Backbone road has to close in the winter due to snow. 

 We came around a bend and once again my breath was taken away at the sudden sight of miles of the sandstone plateau above Escalante! We stopped at an overlook this time and tried to photograph it - not easy as it’s so huge - and drove back to Annie’s Place to rest for a bit. 

Escalante Canyon

 We set off at 2:30 backtracking on Beehive 12 again eleven miles to Calf Creek Canyon where Bob and I had hiked 20 years ago. I remembered it as one of the most beautiful hikes ever! The small parking lot was crowded, but we found a space and set off on a good trail along a bubbling stream with high red and white stripped sandstone walls. There are petroglyphs on the walls and other evidence of past habitation.

Bob & Hil at Calf Creek

We followed the numbered stations along the trail with explanations from the trail pamphlet, and managed to see, impossibly high on a wall, a small cave granary partially sealed off with a stone wall! We had to stop and return before we reached the petroglyphs as it was getting late, but had a lovely hike along this beautiful canyon. 

Granary high on Calf Creek wall

 We got back to Annie’s Place, cleaned up, had drinks and crackers, and went into dinner at 6:15. Some local ladies, friends of Jared’s aunt, were having dinner, also. Jared served us coleslaw with pine nuts, sliced tomatoes from his garden, followed by local pot roast, green beans, mashed potatoes and Yorkshire pudding! He brought us raspberry clafouti with just-picked raspberries on top! A lovely dinner!