Alaska – Canada Travels 2014, Moab, UT; Courthouse Wash and Undercover Canyon, October 16th to 18th.

October 16^th. Today we took an easy hike up Courthouse Wash in Arches National Park. We see fall in the changing colors of the clattering cottonwood leaves. The afternoon sun isn't strong but burns bright on the cliffs. Silence echoes from the walls. We are alone in the canyon and away from the tourist-crowded roads and popular trails.

Monuments in Court House Wash.

There’s not much of a trail and after the first half mile it meanders into the brush-filled wash. We’re looking for Ring Arch. In another half mile a side drainage comes in from the left. We don’t know which way to go but the left isn’t bushy so we go that way.

Buttes stand like fortresses along the wash.

The drainage becomes a shallow bedrock channel and we can see the arch in the cliff ahead of us. It’s a slender stone bridge and hard to see until its shadow on the cliff gives it away.

The delicate span of Ring Arch.

We bushwhack up the canyon until we get to an impassible pour off in the cliffs. There's a spring in the canyon and deer tracks. It’s late afternoon and time to turn back. The day has been clear and bright, the sky bushed with fine filaments of mares-tails, a great day to admire the rocks.

Skyscape over Court House Wash.

A beautiful day to admire the monuments in Court House Wash.

October 17^th. We go canyoneering with Lisa, Kim and Neil into Undercover Canyon on the north side of Arches National Park. We drive north to I-70 and locate a dirt road that will take us to the north boundary of the park. It takes us almost two hours to get to the place where we’ll start our hike into the canyon.

This is a new route for our friends who have only read a description of it so we’re all first timers on this one. This should be interesting. We hike through the desert, cross cutting shallow drainages that flow toward the unseen canyon complex we’ll be canyoneering into. Knobs and knolls of sandstone push at the sky on the humpbacked horizon. We find the drainage we’re looking for according to the directions and turn our steps to follow it down.

Following a drainage that leads to Undercover Canyon.

It’s pleasant hike, a typical desert wash with vegetation flattened against the sand showing signs of a recent flash flood.

Flattened vegetation in the drainage is a sign of a recent flash flood.

The drainage deepens until . . .

. . . it becomes a slot canyon. This is turning into a real adventure.

We suddenly have an interesting change in tactics when the drainage becomes a slot canyon not mentioned in the write-ups. 

Jim and I at the beginning of the slot.

Jim's Herculean effort to widen the slot without success. 

We squeeze ourselves and our packs between the walls, stem across cracks and pools, climb down pour offs and under knots of tree roots and debris washed into the slot.

We have to stem over cracks . . .

. . .  and squeeze under knots of roots and branches.

Our first rappel is through a hole formed by a small, jagged arch. We have to sit on the undercut ledge beneath the arch before we can put weight on the rope and go over the ledge without hitting our heads, than free hang to the bottom. The drop is only about 40 feet.

Looking 40 ft. down into the canyon through the jagged arch.

Jim ducks under the arch to rappel.

The canyon opens a little letting in the sun and then narrows to a slot again as we approach the second rappel. Lisa and Neil rig the rope in the narrow approach to the pour off. When he throws it into the chamber below a splash tells us there’s a pool below.

Lisa and Neil rig the rope for the second rappel.

Jim is the first down. He manages to get around the pool but has to drag the wet rope out of the water and climb over a log jam at the lower end to rappel the rest of the way to bottom. Everyone negotiates pool and log jam and then we have to pull the rope without getting it hung up. I couldn’t get any pictures of this rappel because the curving canyon wall blocks the view. We just hear our voices calling to each other.

The canyon narrows again.

Kim and Lisa disappear into the slot . . .

. . . and emerge into a wider passage, which narrows again before we get to the last rappel.

The canyon widens a little then narrows to a slot again before we come to the last and highest rappel.
The slot suddenly terminates and the pour off is high on a rock face opening into the air. We have to slide a few feet into a crack before we emerge from the portal onto a 4x6 ft. shelf. We perch there like ravens, looking 130 feet straight down into a sublime red sandstone canyon.

The last slot ends on a ledge looking 130 ft. down to the canyon floor.

Jim goes first and I go second, followed by Lisa, Kim and Neil. 

I'm second on rappel to the canyon floor.

This rappel is a beauty and we each work our way down the uneven rock face into Paradise Found. 

Kim on rappel into the canyon.

It's a free hang for the last half of the rappel.

Lisa almost to the bottom.

Neil dancing down the rock.

We've rappelled into a narrow sandy-bottomed, dead-end canyon. It’s a stark and stunning beautiful place. A compliment of desert trees and shrubs stands out against the bright sandstone walls, screening the way before us.

Neil, Jackie, Kim and Jim at the bottom of the rappel. Anyone hiking up this canyon
not knowing about the slot 130 ft above would think this was the end 
.

Neil, Kim, Jim, and Lisa at the bottom of the rappel.

The unevenness of the rock makes it hard to pull the rope and it gets caught in a crack. There are some anxious moments but the rope finally comes down.

A beautiful garden between stark canyon walls.

Kim, Neil, Lisa and Jim.

The rest of the canyon is easy and widens as we hike down it. 

The canyon widens. This is paradise.

Looking back up the canyon.

A bend in the canyon.

A pleasant walk down the canyon. We're almost to the confluence with the main canyon.

Canyon walls bend over us.

A last look back at the canyon we hiked down.

We exit into the main canyon and now we have to look for the route to climb out and hike back to the car. The route is almost directly across the canyon from the confluence we’re at and we can see a possible route up a steep sandy bank to a sloping rock face with a cliff band at the top.

Lisa and Jackie under the cottonwood arch.

We hike up the canyon a couple hundred yards passing under the arc of a fallen cottonwood. There’s a cairn at a little drainage and an intermittent path going up the sandy slope to the rock above.

We begin to friction up the bulging sandstone slope. After a traverse across a steep section the slope becomes even steeper with a greater risk of losing contact with the surface and falling 100 ft. to the bottom. There’s a perpendicular crack with a raised edge we can use to brace our feet but it’s kind of spooky so we decide to play it safe and use a rope.

The view down into the main canyon as we climb out.

Neil makes his way to the top where the rock rounds off and throws the rope down to use as a hand line. It’s easier to walk up holding onto the rope although we didn't need it to pull ourselves up.

Below us the afternoon sun lights up the rock and fall cottonwoods that raise their yellowing crowns above the canyon floor.

Neil and Jim anchor the rope we use as a hand line for an assist up the steep stone face.

Jim and I enjoy the view as the shadows fill the canyon.

Kim saunters his way effortlessly up the sandstone slope.

We’re almost to the top. Above us is a narrow place where sand and rubble are piled against the next ledge and also the rim rock and we find this is an easy way to climb to the top. Once out of the canyon we hike a couple miles cross country skirting the washes that become sudden pour offs into the canyon we climbed out of.

We climb a tumble of boulders to the top of the canyon rim.

Everyone is feeling the buzz of a great day in the canyons as we drive the long dirt road back to the highway in the twilight.

It’s time to leave Moab and all the fun we’ve had here. We have mixed feeling about traveling on but we want to spend a few days in the Needles District of Canyonlands before heading for home.

Join us next time for a nice hike in the Needles.

Jackie