Paria Death March!!!!!

So, what a trip! We went for quite a hike three weeks ago. If any of you have heard of Paria Canyon, that is where we went. We took the Wire Pass to Buckskin Gulch to the Paria River all of the way to Lee's Ferry. It is about 43 miles and you go from elevation 6300 to 3100. There are some sections that you can touch both walls and it goes up for hundreds of feet. We left on Wednesday night and drove Salt Lake and then the rest of the way down on Thursday. Erica met me, Morgan, Sophie, and Devin in Kanab with our new van she picked up in Las Vegas. It worked out pretty slick that she picked it up and we used it for our shuttle vehicle. We dropped one car at Lee's Ferry and drove around to the trailhead.

We started hiking about 6:40 pm on Thursday night and we made it to Lee's Ferry about 6:30 pm on Sunday night. So 43 miles in about 72 hours (which includes sleeping at eating time). It is pretty amazing. Wire Pass and Buckskin Gulch are really narrow slot canyons and then the Paria River widens out a little. A lot of the walking you do is slogging through mud. The last few miles is out of the slot canyon in a wider canyon which during August is about 95 degrees. We about cooked that last day. That was quite the site to see the Colorado River and go get in and take a bath. It felt so good. The water is really cold since it comes out of the bottom of Lake Powell not too far upstream. Even though it was so cold it was so refreshing to get the stink from 3 days of hiking off.

So it was quite the adventure. Sophie was worried that we would never go hiking with her again, but even though it was tough and we were slightly uninformed, we had a lot of fun. There is just something about spending time with close friends, especially when they are your brothers. Erica had never been backpacking before and she enjoyed it. It is fun to carry everything you need to survive on your back. We were always dead tired when we got to camp, but we found things to laugh at. What a blast! I am already looking forward to our next trip. It probably won't be quite as long though. I had started writing another entry but it was getting really long, and Erica said that no one would read it. My first thought was that people will read whatever I write, but then I thought about it and decided to give the shortened version. There are some interesting articles and trip logs if you search for Buckskin Gulch and Paria Canyon.

Hopefully this will motivate some of you to get outdoors and enjoy something. Before you go on this hike, I would recommend talking to someone who has done it recently, like us. I love being outside!

I don't know how else to describe it so I'll share some pictures. Enjoy!!! There are a lot, but we took a whole lot more. If you click on the picture you can see a bigger view of it and then just click back to finish looking at the rest.

Here we are at the trailhead just after we told Devin how far it was.

This is kind of the entrance to Wire Pass.

Our first camp, the morning after.

This is just somewhere with a picture of Morgan that I like.

This is just the way it is.

Group picture in Buckskin Gulch

We love our muddy feet!

I have no description for the awesomeness of this picture.

"We like short shorts!"

They don't help when the water is up to your waist though. This is just one of many mud holes in Buckskin Gulch.

Just follow the path Erica! It will lead you into more mud holes and eventually out of the canyon.

The Wall of Death, as Erica refers to it.

This is the confluence of Buckskin Gulch (to the left) and the Paria River (to the other left).

Camp the second night in Paria Canyon.

Some cool rock formations. The river cuts through these several times. It is interesting to think that I just looked at these a few mud holes ago.

I like these panarama shots at corners of the canyon.

Morgan found this bucket and was thinking of trying to float out instead of walking. If only, Morgan.

It would have beat the alternative of walking through this hole though.

Camp on the last night.

This is at the last spring before you enter the Burning Desert of Death section of the hike.

Devin was pretending to be the Grim Reaper. Morgan was volunteering I think.

Here is our fearless leader, Guru Sophie.

The Paria Canyon starts to widen out and it is kind of pretty.

Climbing through these boulder fields was almost as much fun as wading through knee deep mud along the river.

Lunch time. Devin was hoping a California Condor would come eat him. Right, Sophie?

Ah, the blessed end. The Colorado River at Lee's Ferry.

No comments here. It is what it is. We survived the Paria Death March.