An Evergreen Life: Grand Gulch

It has been a while since my last post, but I have not figured out how to work blogging in to my life. But now there is so much to catch up on.

Our latest trip started with a backpack in Grand Gulch. We left on a Friday afternoon, overnight in Grand Junction where we visited Kannah Creek Brewing Co. http://kannahcreekbrewingco.com/ where we had a great meal and sampled their Black Bridge Stout and Pigasus Porter, both very good. Next day up early and after breakfast in Moab at the Love Muffin, mmmmm, on to Blanding. Not the most exciting place to visit but a good place to spend the night, close to the BLM station at Grand Gulch. We visited a few small ruins near Blanding.

Montezuma Creek ruin, a very pretty granary high above the creek.

Westwater Five Kivas ruin, close to town.
Next day we arrived at the Kane Gulch station early and picked up our permit. Got lucky and Bruce was able to get a ride to the Bullet Canyon Trailhead where I was waiting with the gear. This saved him an 8 mile bike ride after he left the car at the Kane Gulch end of our trip. Our trip down Bullet canyon was harder than I expected. Steep slickrock sections and we were not paying enough attention to the map.

Bullet Canyon

We hiked till about 5 when we ran into a group of guys and when we asked where they were coming from we found out that we had passed our trail. We had not been paying attention and passed the intersection of Bullet and Grand Gulch and were heading down Grand in the wrong direction. Not good. We were tired and upset that we had made such a potentially bad mistake. We backtracked and realized that the confluence was not marked and not at all obvious. Even though it was getting late we continued on to find a campsite. We found a small flat area above the wash where we would not be worried about flooding. Finally, a long day!

Dinner and into the tent early. We were pretty down, still shaking our heads about how we could have been going the wrong way.

Next morning we got water and started hiking. We ran into about 4 groups that day, and were able to relax a little since we were on the right trail.

Shiek's canyon

Looking up Shiek's Canyon from the ruins

The trail towards Split Level Ruin

Split Level Ruin

We hiked as far as Turkey Pen Ruin, now partially blocked off because of recent rockfall. There is a quiet campsite across the gulch where we spent our last night. Cozy in our tent as a storm came rumbling through. The next morning everything was damp and beautiful.

Camp at Turkey Pen Ruin