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Crack Canyon Revisited

On my first day of hiking in the San Rafael Swell I started with a trip through Crack Canyon. It was supposed to be pretty easy, mainly a hike but with some easy scrambling to make it interesting. The guidebook said any strong hiker should be able to make it through with no problem. But I didn't make it all the way. I got stopped at a vertical step and had to turn around. It didn't bother me though. The hike to that point had been fun and very scenic. There was another easy canyon hike nearby that I could do so I had a full day of excellent hiking. Getting stopped in Crack Canyon really was no big deal.

Except that it was. When I try to do a hike or climb, I really like to finish it. From all the descriptions that I read it seemed like I should have been able to go all the way through Crack Canyon. By the time I was driving back to town at the end of the day I was already thinking about when I could go back and try again and what I could do differently next time to make it all the way through.

That night after dinner I spent a lot of time on the internet trying to get more information about Crack Canyon. I found a lot of websites that described the route and most of them were consistent, saying that it was not that hard. They weren't helping me feel better, especially the one with the pictures of a little kid hiking the canyon. I did find one website with a picture of "the hardest spot" with a fixed rope on it. It did look to me like the spot where I had stopped. When I was there a sling was hanging on the rock rather than a rope. So now I was thinking that maybe there would be a way to use that to get by the obstacle.

As I thought about the sling that I had seen, I realized something. I could picture it in my mind and there were knots tied in the webbing to make it into an etrier. That's a piece of climbing equipment that is used for aid climbing. Usually it's made by sewing two pieces of webbing together in a series of loops so it can be used like a rope ladder. This one wasn't very fancy but it might be just enough to help me get down and/or up the steep section.

I had to chuckle when I visualized the sling and etrier in my memory. Sandy and I watch a lot of mystery shows on tv and it seems there are often scenes where a character thinks back to something and in their mind sees a detail that they had missed originally. I always claim that those scenes are bogus, that human memory doesn't work that way. Well, here I had experienced it myself. I guess I have to take back all those nasty things that I said about Castle, who does it all the time.

At one point I found a website with a key bit of information. While I thought it was very important I didn't see it anywhere else. The site claimed that there was a way to bypass the whole section where I had been stopped. Back a short distance from the crux of the route there is a gully that climbs up to a ledge. Cairns mark a way that can be followed along the ledge above the floor of the canyon past the hardest spot.

This sounded really promising. Although it was only mentioned on one hikers blog, it seemed plausible. Just before I had turned around I noticed a cairn on the lip of the inner canyon about thirty feet above the bottom. There was only sheer cliff at that spot so I wondered how it had got there. It made sense that it was part of a bypass route that was accessed from further back. This sounded like a good alternative if I went back and still couldn't figure out how to get down the steep step. It was also a good backup in case I got down and had trouble climbing back up.

With all this extra info I was pretty sure that I was going to go back and try Crack Canyon again. The question was when. I only had one day left and I really wanted to see Goblin Valley, someplace I'd never been before. Crack Canyon might have to wait for another trip. That would be ok. The first time I tried Little Wildhorse Canyon I was stopped by a flooded section and didn't complete the route until I came back with Sandy three years later. I decided that I would sleep on it and decide what I was going to do in the morning.

When I left Hanksville the next morning it was mostly overcast. The clouds weren't heavy though and since the forecast was for clearing skies I expected that the clouds would burn off. Looking far to the north over the mountains there were dark clouds. Even though they looked very far away, I decided that it might not be the best time to hike through a slot canyon. I don't have much experience with the conditions that cause flash floods so I wanted to be super conservative. I opted to spend the morning at Goblin Valley State Park.

After doing a hike there I was back at my car and ready to leave at 1 pm. The sky had indeed cleared and was bright blue. I still felt good and had energy for more hiking. If I started back now I'd be home sometime in the evening, or I could go back to Crack Canyon. If I did another hike I could still get back to Boise but it would be very late that night or even early next morning. I decided that since I was this close, I might as well go for it. By 1:30 I had parked my car at the trailhead and was hiking towards the entrance to Crack Canyon again.

With the sun high in the sky the canyon walls were in the bright sunshine and even though I had been here the day before the scenery seemed new. I was able to take more pictures and better pictures. It was a different experience than in the early morning. But while I enjoyed the views, I was focused on thinking about the obstacle that I knew was ahead. Would I be able to find the bypass? Would I be able to get down the rock step? Would I be able to climb back up it?

I passed spots that were familiar from the day before. I got down the initial three-step pouroff. I reached the first narrows and went through the overhanging tunnel. I climbed over/down a couple of easy obstacles in the second narrows. As I got close to the point that I had turned around last time, I kept an eye out for the cairn marking the bypass. Sure enough, I spotted it at the base of a gully filled with large rocks, steep but easily climbable. Ok, that was good news. I now had the bypass in reserve if I couldn't get down the dropoff that had stopped me before.

Then I was at the spot that I had turned around yesterday. Looking at it again, it didn't look all that bad. Maybe it was because I read all those accounts on the web that talked about little kids that made it. I grabbed the sling hanging down from the rock and pulled on it as hard as I could. It didn't budge. I looked it over carefully. I couldn't see any frayed or worn spots and it looked to be quite new. It was in a spot that never got hit by the sun, which is significant since ultraviolet light causes nylon to deteriorate. It looked fine to use. It's not like I was doing a big wall climb with a thousand feet of exposure. For a little help to get past the toughest spot I figured it was ok.

I sat on the top of the rock, put my foot through one of the loops and swung out over the drop. There were great big bucket holds on top and I just lightly weighted my foot in the loop, just enough to keep my balance as I reached down to a sloping hold with my other foot. The surface of the rock was rough and the sole of my boot gripped securely. One more quick step and I was down.

Wow. It had been so easy that now I was a little embarrassed that I had turned around the day before. I'm not sure why I thought that it looked so hard. That didn't change the fact that I was happy to have come back, given it another try and gotten down the steep section. Since that was the last obstacle mentioned in all the accounts I had read, I figured that there wouldn't be any more problems.

Turns out that I figured wrong. Not just a little bit, but really, really wrong. There was still another problem.

Only a short distance past the step there was a flooded area. It wasn't very big but it filled the canyon from side to side. It was maybe eight feet across, not much but way too far to jump. The walls were maybe eight feet apart so stemming wasn't feasible. The water was maybe three inches deep and there were two logs in the water that looked like they might have been used by other hikers to get past this spot. They weren't nearly long enough to stretch all the way across so using them risked getting wet feet. It was kind of ironic because if I had been stopped by the water yesterday I wouldn't have thought twice about it. I would have just planned to come back in the fall sometime when there wouldn't be any water in the canyon. That's what I did with Little Wildhorse Canyon. But now that I had already come back once, and had managed to get past my last stopping point, I wasn't of a mind to turn around. Not again.

I used my foot to nudge the first log so it was pointing directly at the other side, so I could get as far as possible on it. I started to go across. The log wasn't very stable and sank a bit. The water came up high enough that it was getting in my boots so I couldn't dally. By the time I reached the end of the log I couldn't keep my hand on the wall anymore for balance. I couldn't go back. I couldn't stay where I was. It looked like I was going to get wet. I would have to take one step in the water and then I could get on the other log. Oh well. I've done it before on stream crossings. If you step quickly enough in the water you don't really get that wet. I didn't really have much choice, or even any time to think about it. I took the one step...

...and sank into deep mud. One more step and I was out on the other side. But when I looked down, I was covered in mud up to my crotch. It was wet, slimey mud and to add insult to injury, it stank something terrible. After uttering a long string of profanities there really wasn't anything else to do. Since I was already as wet and messy as I could possibly get, I figured I might as well finish the hike. At this point I knew that I definitely would NOT want to come back another time to try again.

The lower part of the canyon was beautiful and I really enjoyed hiking through it, at least as much as you can enjoy a hike when you are soaking wet and covered with stinky, slimey mud. I guess I should have worn my "Dirty Dogs Have More Fun" tshirt. The third narrows was the most impressive, eight or ten feet wide but with walls that shot straight up for two or three hundred feet. It was cool and dark walking through. The sun never made it down here. Beyond the narrows the canyon walls were a beautiful gray/white color. Further on was a series of rock domes that were a warm golden color. The canyon continued for quite a while before I finally came out into a dry wash at the southern end. That's where I turned around and headed back.

When I reached the lake/swamp/mudhole I didn't even think about trying to get across. On this side the bypass route was obvious. I climbed up a gradual ramp onto a broad ledge about fifty feet above the canyon floor. It was very easy to get around both of the spots where I had problems coming down the canyon. Shortly after I passed them I heard voices down below. I got closer to the edge and saw two hikers heading down canyon. I shouted down to them "You can't get through. You need to go around." They both looked pretty startled. Here was this booming voice coming from the sky, reverberating from the canyon walls, warning them not to go any further. I was tempted to try Bill Cosby's old Noah routine on them. (I must have listened to it a million times on record when I was a kid.). But I was nice. "Up above you" I yelled and waved when they looked up. I explained to them about the mudhole up ahead. By now a third hiker with a dog had joined them. They said they didn't think the dog could get up the gully so they would just go ahead and turn around if they had to.

Once I was down the access gully and on the floor of the canyon, the rest of the hike out was easy. The wet jeans didn't bother me nearly as much as the smell. It was pretty strong. Near the car I met a lone hiker just starting out. He agreed to take my picture so I could show people that I wasn't kidding about how deep the mud was. When I got back to the car I changed into clean pants, socks and shoes. I threw the muddy jeans and socks into a plastic bag. The first gas station that stopped at on the way home, they went right into the trash.

I still had a long drive back to Boise and didn't get home until 1 am. But I was glad that I had gone back to Crack Canyon and been able to finish off the hike, even with my fall into the mud and the horrible mess. I was pretty happy as I drove home.