"Duckie Time" for 7 days and 75 miles! Awesome!
My Rig= 1 water jug (in front), 1 dry bag (in back), 1 waterproof fanny pack (around my waist)
Chris and I hiked two to three side canyons a day. If we saw something that made us curious we would pull over, tie up and hike. This I call a side-hike-workout-scramble.
Escalante River day 1 before it converged with Boulder Creek which doubled it's little size to a bigger little size. We were grateful for catching the peak flow of the Esclante River which peaked and made the river runnable on June 4- June 11
This side hike was around a tall butte loaded with soft orange sand. I liked it a lot!
I believe this side hike to be Scorpion Gulch; it was so overgrown with Poison Ivy that it was impossible to hike. I was so bummed but at the mouth of the canyon we got to hike through really tall Snake Grass.
Before we ventured down the Escalante River we were told we had to hike Neon Canyon. Chris had heard of this canyon before because of it's canyon rapelling, but the hard part was knowing where Neon Canyon was. I will admit, we never really knew where we were on the map because the river has so many turns and side canyons! Lets say we got lucky because we ended up camping at the mouth of Neon Canyon without even knowing it! It was so breathtaking!
This is why canyoneering people go to Neon Canyon to rapell through the waterhole, untie from the end of the rope and drop into a cold pool. I'm in the bottom corner standing below the waterhole: it gives a good scale of the alcove! "Wow!"
Another side hike
Another side hike
Frog Head
We took two, three gallon water jugs and filtered a few times. We scored on our fourth day when we kayaked by a spring that was gushing out of a three hundred foot wall; you couldn't help smiling and being excited about the beautiful water that was clear and cold.
Yoga in an open field of sand. Soon after I was attacked by deer flies! I had to run as fast as I could and jump in the river to get rid of them!
I'm naming this the "Squeeze Drop!"
We portaged a couple times. Once was because of a dangerous rapid, this portage was because gigantic boulders filled the river. We were able to turn the boats sideways and push them through without unloading our gear. Good thing we packed "backpack" style.
River Soaking was apart of our daily minutes
One of the hardest things I've ever done- backpacking our gear out of Crack In the Wall, Coyote Gulch. We hiked it three times because we had two loads.
We made a stretcher out of the kayak paddles and leap frogged our gear; everyone thought we were carrying out a body. This is Chris taking a break on the pile of crap :) at the half way point. It took us 7 hours. We HOTELed IT after that!