October 3: Down Canyon

Before we left Utah, Janet and I wanted to make a couple of day trips into Grand Gulch--at least to satisfy our curiosity.  We had given up on the idea of overnight backpacking, even though we were equipped to do this.  A couple close to our age at the campground was in fact departing for a five-day backpack in Grand Gulch.  But Janet's back was giving her trouble, and there was no way I could carry water, camping gear, and supplies for both of us.  Carrying 3 gallons of water plus food, first aid, flashlights, rain gear, etc. for a day trip was heavy enough for me.  I guess we were getting soft.

Anyway, today we set out for Collins Canyon Trailhead, confident that we knew the route down into Grand Gulch (and our way up if we could locate the correct canyon exit).  It took us an hour to get to the trailhead (it was not close to Natural Bridges), and down we went once again.

We knew when we entered Grand Gulch that we needed to head right (south).

We had hoped to make it to a special petroglyph panel down canyon from Collins, but it was over four miles one-way down Grand Gulch, and we did not know if we could find our way there quickly enough.  In a winding canyon like this one, a GPS is only moderately helpful, and so we kept a close eye on landmarks to help us find the trail back.  This rock sitting up on a ledge guarding one of the crucial turns we called Humpty Dumpty.

I used these sorts of photos to recall trail markers--just in case.

We quickly looked at site 27 from yesterday and realized that we could see many more figures now that the sun was shining on the panel.  We now saw partially obscured anthropomorphs

that had earlier just looked like random markings.

This figure may have been a female.We had not even noticed this strange three-toed coyote-sheep image or the chorus line of stick figures dancing off-stage next to it.

We had not even noticed this strange three-toes coyote-sheep image or the chorus line of stick figures dancng off-stage next to it.

I was searching for another unusual panel of anthropomorphs that I had seen in specialty books.  We searched for about an hour before  we spotted a small trail disappearing up a slope of cacti.  High on a ledge, about 50 feet above us were the dancers holding hands that I was looking for.

If these are Basketmaker images, they are totally unlike the images at Butler Wash.

I contented myself with taking telephoto shots of the figures,

mostly because we still had a long way to go and could not afford the time for me to climb.  There were additional figures nearby, the most important one, I believe, being the guy with the bird head.

This is a quite common image along the San Juan River drainage.

On we drudged, fighting brush, sand, slickrock, and losing the trail often.  The BLM makes no attempt to create a trail and seldom marks it with cairns.  So a hiker just has to hunt for footprints or breaks in the tall brush growing along the creek bottom.  Following the creek bed is not always possible or advisable.  By the time we had gone a couple of miles further down Grand Gulch our legs were getting tired.  Here is Janet resting after climbing down some steep slickrock that is part of the "trail."

Thank goodness we had lots of water and beef jerky (the pepper-spiced kind is best).  And the more water we drank, the less I had to carry back up.  Or is that true?

We had given up finding the next rock art panel and decided that 3:00 p.m. had to be our turn around time, when we turned the last switchback in the canyon for the day.  There was the "Hands" panel that I was looking for.

To me, it was not as impressive as the Escalante 100 hands panel; but, hey, we worked even harder for this one and that made it just as sweet.  It gave Janet a great chance to rest.

Each hand seemed to say, "I am here.  Look at me."

And underneath the hands was another line of dancers, this time in the style we saw at Shay Canyon.  But these were pictographs, not petroglyphs.

It turns out that panels composed of hundreds of handprints are very common in the northern San Juan region.  There is a similar panel at Cave Spring in Canyonlands National Park, which we saw last summer.  To my knowledge, no one has yet tried to explain why the Basketmakers and/or Anasazi felt the need to record hundreds of handprints.  Were these like signatures, marking "deposits" at granaries?  Were they an expression of personal communion with the canyons themselves.  Or were they just amusements?  We will never know until the study of rock art links images more carefully to geological, economic, and domestic settings.

We could not make it all the way down to the site I had hoped to visit.  As it was, we ended up hiking 9-10 miles in and out of Grand Gulch.  I was worried about the time.  I did not want to climb out of Collins Canyon with a flashlight.  Fortunately, we found our way out quickly, and I was able to drive the road back without using my headlights.

It was light enough when we got to our campsite for us both to take a warm shower.  Five gallons of water is sufficient for two people, when it needs to be.  We got the sand and sweat off; opened a can of Hormel Homestyle Chili; finished our spinach; said goodnight.