Coyote Gulch: Day 1

Coyote Gulch: Day 1

5/24/2024

Denver - Escalante - Water Tank Trailhead - Sandy Ledge Camp

Miles hiked: 5.2 mi

Elevation gained: 85 ft

Animals seen: large-ass desert beetles, creepy spiders, night gnats

Elevation chart & topo map created on Alltrails.com

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Our alarm went off at 4:30am, which was way too early after our not-so-early night previous night. I quickly pressed snoozed and rolled over. That didn’t last long though. Jake got up before the next snooze was hit while I pretended I hadn’t heard it. My reasoning: one bathroom and three people so I silently volunteered to be the last one up. Adam must’ve had the same idea but Jake was soon calling out to both of us to get moving. Ugh. 

Our goal was to be on the road by 5am. Hah! Our tramily made it into the car a little after 6am. Thankfully I-70 traffic was still light for the start of the holiday weekend so the trail deities must have been on our side. We stopped a few hours later for brek (bagel sammies) and even more coffee before continuing through the Rockies. 

Jake took the wheel in Grand Junction, just as my coffee was wearing off and I quickly dozed off. I woke up to Jake and Adam excitedly talking about the landscape. We were driving on a harrowing backbone ridge with crazy views in all directions. At the first pull off we got out and took the obligatory pic.

There was much discussion on how we would tackle this “trail”. We had decided on Escalante-Grand Staircase National Monument about a month back. I narrowed the options to three and the guys picked Coyote Gulch with a week to spare for research. I found the most obvious Sandra-friendly route which would have a nice 5-mile easy descent to the gulch canyon where we could take our time exploring our way to the Escalante River and back. Nothing hard, no steep elevation gains/losses and a lax timetable. 

Until I napped. The guys looked up the route I picked, called the ranger station, looked some more than picked a different route that looped the canyon instead. Upon hearing their choice when I woke up, I realized they had picked the route I had pointedly rejected. Why, you ask? It is a canyoneering route. Yes, canyoneering. Not even a climbing route, an actual canyoneering route.

So we made our way to the ranger station in Escalante and talked to the ranger there and came up with a game plan for the evening. We would drive to Water Tank trailhead and do the roadwalk part of the loop to the sand dunes and descend into the canyon via the infamous “Crack in the Wall”. Plan set, we filled water bottles and set off for the outfitters for some food, beverages and last minute gear check. 

Well, we did stop at the outfitters. They didn’t carry the socks Jake was looking for. They only sold individual wag bags so we were going to stick to the bulk box of knock off brands I found earlier. Adam added the logic that we were quickly losing sunlight and still needed to bust out some miles before camp so no food or beer. 

The dirt road leading to the various trailheads for Coyote Gulch was 30+ miles of the absolute worst washboard any of us had ever experienced. Halfway to our designated trailhead we pulled over so the guys could let air out of the tires. I’m told this helps with off road/washboard driving.

The guys hard at work

I felt zero difference.

We made it to Water Tank trailhead in one piece, shaken like a Bond Martini, but still in one piece. We changed into trail clothes, filled out a permit, took the obligatory starting pic and hit the dirt road. Well, sand road.

Token trailhead pic

Long road walk

The road walk was inevitable with the loop the guys chose, and I think we timed it well. There was no way we would have been able to drive through the deep sand and we had the sun at our backs in moderate temperature. Walking in sand is still tough. By the time we made the next trailhead, we were all carrying an extra pound of sand in each of our shoes.

We met a group of guys who finished pack rafting the Escalante River from New Hampshire. They had rave reviews of the area so our excitement started building as we descended the trailhead into the dunes. I thought the road had deep sand, it was nothing compared to the dunes. 

Sand dune descent

We saw some creepy desert beetles and spiders but otherwise it was all quiet in the desert. After the sand dunes were some rock formations to traverse. While we had been following a wide path of footprints, we now had to route find using cairns. It wasn’t too difficult and our pace picked up.

We reached the edge of the canyon walls and looked down at the sheer drop off to see a trail far below us. What.

Yep, we had arrived at “Crack in the Wall”. Jake started scoping the route down, Adam removed the remaining sand from his shoes and I worked at not hyperventilating. The choice before us was to descend or camp up on top of the canyon wall and descend in the morning. The guys both elected to descend so I had to buck up my courage, fast.

The Crack in the Wall is a literal crack in the wall. It is a scramble down in said crack that is crazy narrow. So narrow we needed to lower our packs via rope cord that we had brought along. Jake went first to receive the packs below while Adam lowered the packs from above and therefore descending last (he also has the most climbing experience of the group). I was squarely in the middle with the job of handing off the trekking poles. This way Jake could find the best route and I had help on either end should I need assistance. (My climbing experience is so low it is basically a negative number).

The scramble down was not so bad, more of large steps and with the walls so close I could leverage my arms against the sides. It took two times of lowering packs to reach the trail below but we made it and our egos inflated a bit.

First of two descents

Adam is basically a mountain goat

That my friends, is the trail…

Yes, the rock walls are scraping my front and back getting through

We half debated camping right there on the ledge for the evening but that was quickly shot down due to having to get up super early to clear the trail for any early day hikers. So we descended into the gulch canyon.

It was beautiful. As we continued to get closer to the water, we could hear voices. We knew it would be busy, especially with it being a holiday weekend but the noise was loud. Once we reached the river, it was crowded. We were able to find a sandy ledge that offered some privacy but the noise carried with the canyon walls and water. 

We set up camp and started dinner with headlamps. As it grew darker, some desert gnats came out and were very, very attracted to the light of our headlamps. I attempted to eat dinner (teriyaki rice) and drink my trail marg in the dark and mostly succeeded. The guys stayed out later but I needed to be lateral. I didn’t last long once I hit my air mattress and fell asleep quickly.

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