For those of you just tuning in, I shipped my motorcycle to Salt Lake City back in mid November and flew out to meet it. Since then I’ve been riding across southern Utah hiking, camping, and occasionally stopping at a motel to dry out and get some work done. I had to check back in to the “real-world” and go to some meetings on the east coast so I dropped the bike in Las Vegas last week and flew out with the intention of picking up where I left off.

Just before I left for Vegas and the flight back East I had made it to Kanab, UT with the intention of hiking in to a spot known as The Wave, a remote sandstone formation in an empty corner of the Utah desert. Nearby to The Wave are Wire Pass and Buckskin Gulch, 2 famous slot canyons that feed into the Paria River. Only 10 people per day are allowed into the Wave through a lottery process held the day before. During the warmer months and as late as Thanksgiving weekend over 100 people show up for this lottery giving worse than a 10% chance to get in. I managed to get a permit for the weekend after Thanksgiving but ran into some trouble on the drive in involving a horrible clay road, a jammed front wheel, and a broken clutch lever. After a hasty retreat for repairs and my return from the east coast I’m back at it again.

I got my permit in Kanab again Friday morning and got an earlier start to get to the trailhead, 8 miles down a sloppy “dirt” road that starts 30 miles east of town. Unfortunately my start wasn’t early enough as the melting snow had turned the surface into a wet, slippery, bottomless muck. It took hours to cover the 8 miles and for some stretches I was intentionally riding on the snow-covered portion of the road as the dirt underneath was still somewhat frozen and offered a bit more traction than the melted soup. I made it to the trailhead just before sundown and set up camp for the night.

Bright and early the next morning I shook off the frost, heated up some breakfast, and set out on my trek across the desert. The trail itself starts out following the upper portion of the dry wash that eventually becomes the slot canyons of Wire Pass before veering up and over a ridge out into a gnarled combination of snow, sandstone, and just plain sand. There is no real trail here, just like my hike in to Coyote Gulch a few weeks ago finding The Wave involves route-finding across the terrain. This hike is renowned for getting inexperienced hikers lost as they instinctively wander downhill towards Buckskin Gulch and get lost amongst the rocks rather than staying high, close to the ridge leading to The Wave where visibility is better. Just last year this place suffered its first fatality as a hiker returning in the dark wandered downhill and eventually walked right off the cliff into the Gulch.

On my own trip I noticed a couple of Japanese hikers in the permit office who didn’t exactly look like the hiking type (the female half of the couple appeared as if she had just stepped out of a Tokyo boutique) and I became even more concerned when they showed up at the trailhead the next morning wearing jeans (cotton kills, especially this time of year) and after an attempt at conversation I determined that their command of the English language probably wasn’t sufficient to understand the directions that the permit office hands out. They hit the trail while I was still eating breakfast and later on as I took the turn-off from the dry wash towards the open desert I wondered if they had noticed it or if they were on their way deep into Wire Pass. Sure enough when I arrived at The Wave they were nowhere to be seen. Hours later another hiking party showed up with them in tow, having stumbled across the lost hikers and showed them the way.

The Wave itself was spectacular, and was matched by the various other rock formations around it. The formation is hidden high up through a notch in a hillside and I wonder how anyone could have ever stumbled across this place (and how many similar places are still undiscovered). These are apparently ancient sand dunes that were buried long ago and solidified while deep underground. Erosion has now exposed them again and it is easy to see why there are such strict limits on the number of visitors: the rock has the texture of tightly packed sand and any contact results in granules breaking away from the surface. If the hordes that visit national parks were tromping through this place every day it would be ground to dust in very short order.

On my way back out I took the admonition to “stay high” too far and crossed the last ridge back to the dry washes a bit too far up resulting in a slow climb down the steep slope. It was still early in the day so I continued on down the wash into the slot canyon of Wire Pass, which is so narrow that one can easily touch both walls at once. Although the canyon is somewhere between 50 and 100 feet deep it is barely noticeable on a topographic map, that’s the problem with such drastic terrain: the contour interval is so large (in this case 40 feet) that it is entirely possible to hide a 100 foot deep chasm between 2 contour lines. I eventually came to a 6 foot high rockfall (think waterfall without the water) and turned back as I didn’t have any rope with me and was not equipped to spend a night if I couldn’t get back up the rockfall (from above it appeared to be very deeply undercut which could make a climb difficult at best).

At this point I am back at the trailhead sorting through the day’s pictures. I plan to spend the night here again and try to make my escape in the morning when the road is frozen. The Japanese hikers managed to make it back in one piece as well, although arrived at the trailhead walking in on the road from the south which doesn’t make much sense as the trail back from The Wave comes in from the northeast. How they managed that will remain a mystery as they don’t speak enough English to explain it.

Tags: Red Roamer, Colorado Plateau, Hiking