Reverse Mountaineering: The Canyon

This past week I've been back in the "canyonlands" of northern AZ and southern UT. Last Sunday, Dave and I hiked into Canyon de Chelly, AZ on the only trail that allows hiking without a Navajo guide. We walked to the "white house", an Anasazi ancestral home and it may be hard to believe, but these cliffs are rising about 200 metres above us. It was a lovely hike over a great trail and we were glad to have started early - we got to walk on frozen earth on the way down but it was getting muddy on the return hike.

Two days ago we hiked around a few of the tourist trails in Arches NP and yesterday we did our first challenging canyon hike in Canyonlands NP. We walked on a road normally used in the summer by bikers and 4 x 4 vehicles and the road took us down to the next "level" of the canyon, about 400 metres below the top. It was awesome and I felt pretty relaxed walking but would hate to drive these roads with some of the visible dropoffs. We hiked 5.5 miles to the Colorado River overlook - the Colorado was another 300 - 400 metres below us. Our return trip only took about 30 minutes longer than the downhill trek. This was my first hike where I had some distance and some elevation gain - my feet felt great and we had incredible blue skies and a perfect temperature. About an hour after returning to the camper the clouds started to roll in and the wind began to blow. There was a light snowfall last night. My pictures for this hike are still in the camera.

Much as it was fun to do some "reverse mountaineering", this a.m. we hiked a canyon with an actual flowing stream in it. How nice to hear the brook and think about my favourite hikes of the Canadian mountains while admiring some of the best of Utah!