Jason, Michael and I hiked nearly 50 miles in 4 days, from Utah to Arizona, through Buckskin Gulch and Paria Canyon. This was one of the most unique backpacking trips I’ve ever taken.
We drove up through Flagstaff on May 29th, checking the weather one last time at the NAU Library. There was a 10% chance of showers on the 30st, but all clear after that. One can never be too careful since there is a very large area that funnels into Paria Canyon, and once you’re in, there’s no getting out. We dropped one of the cars off at Lees Ferry and drove my Xterra to Utah. We car camped that night, full of anticipation.
The next day we started our trek into Buckskin Gulch. We had to make it 12 miles to the first campsite and the first high ground. The walls quickly closed in on us and we were hiking most of the distance with the canyon width equal to our wingspan, sometimes less. Most of the hike was through sand, which is especially tiring. By mile 10 we were getting tired, but around that time the thin strip of sky above our heads that had been blue all day suddenly turned to gray. We felt some light rain make it down the crevasse. We then heard some loud booming. Our worst fears were becoming realized–that 10% chance of rain turned into a thunderstorm, and we were going to be washed away!
We booked the last two miles in record time, only to realize that those light sprinkles were the first and last of the rain, the loud booming was because we were in a flight corridor, and there was no reason to panic. We set up camp near the confluence of Buckskin and Paria and helped ourselves to some well-deserved dehydrated dinners.
The next day we set out for the confluence and turned left (upstream) to make a quick side-trip to see a large chunk of rock that had broken off to form Slide Arch. We went back downstream and continued on to Lees Ferry. We came across Judd Hollow Pump, an ill-fated attempt to pump Paria River water out of the canyon. Near our second campsite we took another side trip to see Wrather Arch in Wrather Canyon. You barely make out Jason at the bottom of the second picture of this gigantic formation.
On the third day we began to tire of the constant fording of the river, which seemed to make a sine wave from one side of the canyon to another. The hike became river-sandbar-river-sandbar-river-sandbar ad nauseum. On top of that, the silty water had shredded my filter and Jason’s was broken, so we were stuck using iodine tablets and drinking gritty water.
On the fourth day we left the river and hiked the rest of the way out. We came across some petroglyphs, snapped some pictures, but mostly did a march out of the canyon. We were exhausted having walked that far in so few days, but felt very fulfilled having seen all the sights.
