Coyote Gulch - Spring 2012

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Nineteen of us left Salt Lake City early on March 31st for four days of backpacking in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. This is one of the most popular backpacking spots in southern Utah and the perfect place to take a large group as there was plenty of water. In fact, we hiked through water for most of the trip and if you think you can try avoiding the water, think again. Avoiding stepping into water is not an option on this hike.

Make sure to wear a very sturdy pair of ventilating boots. I have a pair of Merrill Moab Ventilators that drain water very quickly and also dry very quickly. These boots, along with a pair of SmartWool socks are the perfect combination when walking through the ankle deep (and sometimes calf or knee deep, depending on what time of year you happen to be in Coyote Gulch) water.

We had such a great time on this trip and it was enormously fun for the kids to get to walk through water, splashing as much as they wanted. The hikes were long and sometimes hot, but the water cooled things off tremendously.

The hike out was quite treacherous as we all had to scale a rock face that terrified a few people in our group. Our youngest hiker is only 5 years old, but she didn't seem to have any trouble climbing up the wall...her dad told her where the hand-holds and foot-holds were and he climbed along behind her (without a pack on) to keep her safe. It really was quite an adrenaline rush to climb the rock face. There were one or two spots that I used my knees to pull myself up. Once at the top, we were all very excited at what we had just accomplished and stayed in the danger-zone by doing yoga poses on one of the rocks on the top of the cliff. Haha! I'm sure all family members reading this will appreciate knowing that I'm living on the edge! But the photos are really great!

Once out of the Gulch we made the long trek back to our cars across a ridge with sweeping views of Glen Canyon. It was quite stunning!

On the ride home we all stopped at the Burr Trail Grill, a little restaurant in Boulder, Utah. A little on the pricey side but the food was really good and the beer was very cold.

There are a lot of photos but going through them all is time consuming and so I just uploaded everything. Hope you guys love the photos!

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Photos

Pit stop
In Southern Utah, all dogs are allowed in convenience stores.

MaryAnne & Hunter
Dancing in the parking lot.