Underway on Government Trail | First Backpack #1

"I want to do something epic for @mini.turbodb's spring break," @mrs.turbodb mentioned to me a few weeks ago.

At the time, I think we were on our way home from a day of skiing, and I jokingly suggested that we could take @mini.turbodb on her first ever backpacking trip, through the Grand Gulch. After all, I'd recently created a goal around hiking the length of this amazing gash on the Earth's surface.

Anyone who has followed along for a while will likely recall that I don't like carrying weight on my shoulders. In fact, I have a collection of variously-sized fanny packs that keep the weight on my hips for exactly that reason. Certainly, @mrs.turbodb knows this well, and I assumed that my joke would land as I intended, and that we'd end up discussing other options.

Plus, given that we had no backpacks, no sleeping bags, no sleeping pads - and didn't even own a ground tent - I was shocked when my joke suddenly became "the perfect plan."

"Character building," "a life experience," "something she's never done," and "something she'll remember forever," were all reasons that this was a fantastic opportunity.

"She doesn't like camping," "water is going to be extremely scarce - to the point we might go to bed thirsty," "we have no gear at all," and "even if she looks back and appreciates it when she's 30, we're all going to be miserable while we do it," I countered.

And so, it was settled. We were going.

- - -

After acquiring a ton of new gear, booking plane tickets, and renting a car so we could shuttle between trailheads, the day finally came that our adventure would begin. We'd landed in Las Vegas the previous morning and driven nine hours to the Kane Gulch Ranger Station so we could check in with the BLM staff and then get an early start the next morning.

Who needs high clearance 4WD? A Nissan Versa can get you most of the way to the Government Trail parking area.

Arriving at the trailhead just before 11:00am, the conversation as we donned our packs - the heaviest they'd be - was predictable: @mini.turbodb informed us that this most definitely qualified as torture, @mrs.turbodb assured her that it would be fun, and I did my best to stay out of the way. Regardless, we were all smiles and in good moods - how could we not be, with fresh legs and plenty of fresh water?

All decked out.

It was immediately apparent that even as a first-timer, @mini.turbodb had way more style than her parents. (left) | The official start. (right)

The hike into Grand Gulch along Government Trail was deceptive. For three miles, the world stretched out in front of us, seemingly flat. Of course, as with any large canyon, the ground suddenly dropped away as we reached the rim, and it was fun to see @mini.turbodb reaching for her camera as the splendor caught her off guard.

Nothing to see here.

Just kidding! Plenty to see here!

The great thing about hiking in at Government Trail was that - in addition to the dramatic introduction to Grand Gulch - we also go to see our first ruin as we reached the rim of the canyon. There - perched high on the wall of Pollys Island - an old cliff dwelling was out of reach from all but our cameras. Still, it garnered plenty of attention before we started down the narrow path that would lead us to the wash we'd call home for the next five days.

Hidden in plain sight.

But for the descent into the Gulch and the climb out at the end, most of the hike would be reasonably flat.

A closer view.

Halfway through our descent - as I snapped a few photos of the Pollys Island ruin - we encountered our only real near-disaster of the trip. Bending over to adjust her pants, one of the 1-liter bottles of water that @mini.turbodb was carrying fell out of the pocket of her backpack and onto the slickrock. About 10 feet from the edge, she watched as it rolled slowly toward the 60-foot plunge to the level below. "Grab it," exclaimed @mrs.turbodb, knowing that every liter of water we carried would be helpful in the days to come. Unfamiliar with the stability and balance of her pack, @mini stumbled a bit as she reached down for the rolling bottle, realizing fractions of a second too late that the slickrock ledge sloped downwards more than she'd expected.

I'm not sure exactly how or why, but as soon as I'd seen the bottle hit the ground, I'd known how the situation was about to play out. Already in movement, I grabbed the kiddo as she stumbled toward the edge, pulling her back a fraction of a second before the bottle of water rolled over, out of her reach. Two seconds later, it exploded on the rocks below.

A close call, luckily resulting in only a bit of shock and a bruised ego. A good reminder that even seemingly trivial situations can quickly turn dangerous.

A few minutes later, we made it to Grand Gulch.

By now, it was a little after noon. And - as any parent of an athletic teenager knows - that meant it was lunch time, lest said teenager "starve to death." So, we found a bit of shade provided by Pollys Island and busted out the PB&J that would be a delicious mid-day meal for the remainder of the week. And, with a large, reasonably clear pool of water nearby - and no idea when we'd find water next - we also broke out the First Need XL Elite water filter to refill and top off the containers of water that had survived the descent. Then, we headed upstream.

Even from the beginning, my favorite parts of the trail were those along vertical sandstone walls.

In the wash, tree tunnels were the name of the game.

Before long, we spotted our first little granary above the wash.

Ruins are always fun to see, but it was especially fun to show some of the "little things" - like indentations where fingers pressed mud between rocks, and the stick "headers" that supported the opening - to the kiddo; this being the first ruin she'd seen.

We climbed up for a closer look.

Soon - but not for long - we were back on the trail, discussion now about our next destination. The Big Man Panel would be the first rock art that we'd encounter along the way, and it had two things going for it: first, it was a named panel. We didn't realize at the time, but named panels and ruins were somehow "better" in the mind of the small one, and by day three we were naming everything. Second, it was an impressively large panel, with some x-rated - or maybe it's just PG-13 these days - elements on the "Man," and that was entertaining for the teen.

As we followed the trail to the Big Man Panel, spring was in the air.
Cushion Phlox (Phlox pulvinata). (left) | So-close-to-blooming Claret Cup Catus. (right)

This peeling sandstone was really cool.

Big Man Panel. (And Big Woman, too.)

 

The Big Man Panel archaeological site contains three panels of pictographs and petroglyphs with more than 105 elements located on the vertical cliff and on two boulders in front.

Pictographs are designs painted onto the surface of rocks with natural materials. Petroglyphs are designs carved into the rock by pecking, incising, scratching and chiseling with flint or other stone chisels and hammers into the surface of the rock.

Big Man and Big Woman are the central elements of this 11-meter-long panel. Both figures have rounded heads with ghostly eyes and pigtail hair. Their shoulders are broad and square. Their torsos include outlining and detailing in white.

The female has a braided necklace and a braided skirt. The details of these elements are somewhat obscured by white chalking or painting. It is difficult to tell what is original pigment and what is not. The figure itself is painted in red and several hand prints are visible at the shoulder of her torso.

The male has no clothing, and his genitals are prominently displayed. His face is a darker red, giving the appearance of wearing a partial mask.

Larger than life.

Working from the left, there are a series of smaller, rectangular and trapezoidal anthropomorphic petroglyphs. A row of painted hand prints is located above these figures. The hand prints form two slight arcs, and in one is a faint anthropomorph in the general rectangular bodied style, only formed by thin red lines. Its head is lost beneath the hand prints.

Another much smaller figure done in the same linear red style is covered by a painted white zigzag to the left of the large female. To the right of the Big Man are two smaller figures painted in red, several zigzags, more geometrics, and another open-bodied anthropomorph. These figures are similar to the Glen Canyon Linear Style petroglyphs found in the San Juan region. In addition to the anthropomorphs, there are scattered geometric figures including zigzags, concentric circles, and figures that may be bags of some sort.

This site and other cultural sites of Grand Gulch continue to be visited by modern day Puebloan people for whom the sites have sacred spiritual value. Please be respectful.

BLM Info Sheet

Learning the finer points of rock art photography.

The reflected light was really nice while we were at Big Man.

Silly tree, you're growing wrong.

By now it was starting to get later in the afternoon, and we probably should have started looking for camp, but instead we pushed onward, hoping to get more miles behind us, giving us a better shot at completing the crazy journey we'd undertaken. And, over the next few hours, we'd establish a sort of rhythm that would persist through the remainder of the trip: hike a bit along the trail towards the next rock art or ruin waypoint I'd marked; let Dan search for said point of interest when we got close; slough off our packs and waste valuable daylight scampering up and down the slickrock to see ancient graffiti and tiny homes. It was awesome.

At first, I thought we'd missed this Kokopelli Man pictograph, but I gleefully spotted it as I made my second pass along this stretch of wash.

Sometimes, even mother nature's rock art is breathtaking.

A bloom! (Claret Cup)

Inaccessibly high granaries.

I wasn't sure how long @mini.turbodb would be interested in the rock art and ruins - and to some extent, she lost a bit of interest even on day one - but even so, she quickly picked up on the fact that the views from the alcoves where the Ancestral Puebloans spent much of their time were sometimes even more amazing than the history they left behind. This was an especially nice reminder for me, since I often find myself laser-focused on my goal, and forget to look around to enjoy the present-day experience.

Endless alcove windows.

Three Yellow Men.

Falling Man, Grand Gulch edition.

Fading bullseye.

Hands.

Yellow Sheep.

Surprisingly, we found most of the rock art and ruins that I'd marked. I'd compiled my points as accurately as I could, but knew that they were wildly approximate given that I'd tried to overlay old topo maps from the USGS and hand drawn maps from Kelsey's Non-Technical Canyon Hiking Guide to the Colorado Plateau on Google Earth in order to triangulate the positions.

Electric ceiling.

I loved being able to see the interior construction of this wall, and explain it to @mini.turbodb.

V's.

Still, I knew that as we pushed our way generally northeast - the path actually meandered in all directions over the course of every mile - we were only seeing a fraction of what this wonderful place has to offer. Certainly, we passed many more panels and structures than we saw along the way.

Also, by this point it was only about 45 minutes before sunset and the ladies were ready to find camp. I'd suggested that we push onward - to Cow Trail Canyon, where we'd heard that there was water - so that we wouldn't need to worry about consuming our remaining water with dinner, knowing that we could refill everything in the morning for the next day's trek. @mrs.turbodb agreed that it seemed like a good idea, so the two of them pushed onward up the main trail as I zigzagged my way back and forth across the wash, hoping to miss as few ancestral sites as possible!

This big ruin was a nice discovery, and I really liked the water staining above it on the sandstone.

Twenty-seven dots and a duck.

Guys on a ledge.

Pairs of prints.

With less than a quarter mile to go, I wandered by the Birds and Hands panel alone, wondering if my companions had noticed it - located twenty feet above their heads - as they strolled through this bend in the wash in search of somewhere to spend the night. They hadn't, unfortunately, but they'd found an even cooler panel in Cow Trail Canyon when I met up with them a few minutes later, so it wasn't too big of a deal.

Beneath a glowing wall. (left) | Birds (top right) and Hands (bottom right) of the Birds and Hands Panel.

With daylight fading as I entered Cow Trail Canyon, I was greeted by a pair of packs. Knowing that a search for water was underway, I too sloughed off my ULA Ultra Circuit and - without even grabbing my camera - set off in pursuit. I'd find them a quarter mile further - still without water - having stumbled on a large rock art panel.

At this point - given that we'd seen scant water since entering Grand Gulch earlier in the day - I was starting to become a little concerned. I'd known this was a possibility and because of it, I'd refrained from drinking much of anything all afternoon. Still, the 4 liters of water I was carrying wasn't much in the overall scheme of things. While it might get us through dinner and breakfast, we needed to find more soon. So, after a quick look at the panel and a few cell phone photos, I continued up-canyon while the ladies headed back to the packs to find a spot to setup camp for the night.

First night's camp.

The hikeable portion of Cow Trail Canyon - from the Grand Gulch side - isn't very long and ends at a 15-foot spillover requiring ropes, so mere minutes after splitting up I was relieved when I found an enormous pool of water below the spillover. The mouth of the canyon would be the perfect spot to camp, allowing us to admire the large rock art panel and gather water in the morning!

Soon, I too was back at camp, relating my discovery as we unfurled our sleeping bags and pulled sandy shoes off our tired feet. Dinner - of Chicken Pesto Pasta from Peak Refuel - was soon rehydrating as we discussed everything we'd seen, and our progress for the day.

And then, our bodies tired and bellies full, we slipped into our sleeping bags under a blanket of stars. We still had a long way to go, but we were doing it!

Slickrock under the stars.

 

 

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