April 2016 Dad 'n' Daughter Canyonlands NP Needles District
My Daughter loves to spend Spring Break in Utah. Recently, I persuaded her to acquire a hammock. (it's an ENO Doublenest; I use a Hennessey Expedition Asym.)
She returned the favor by planning our trip to Canyonlands National Park's Needles District. We spent four days and three nights there, camping in Elephant Canyon.
Lots of trails in lots of parks lead to some scenic viewpoint. We hiked almost 19 miles in four days and virtually every step of the way was a "scenic viewpoint."
Fewer than five miles per day, kinda slow? We spent a lot of time taking pictures, looking at scenery, looking at rocks and minerals, looking at trees and wildflowers, and just generally sitting around.
We were fortunate to find a source of water in the bottom of the canyon not far from our campsites on April 04. ( Located at N 38 degrees 06.707 minutes, W 109 degrees 50.260 minutes; elevation 5,302 feet. it is right along the trail and rather sheltered by some boulders; you'll have to be on the lookout or you'll walk right past it.)
I believe the waterhole still had water in it due to a large snowpack and the fact that we were there in the first week of April.
The waterhole was about 5' by 10' and perhaps two feet deep at the deepest. It was stagnant and cloudy, plenty of dead insects. Luckily we had an MSR water filter and sodium hypochlorite drops---no problems. (I kept my Steri-Pen in reserve.)
Our first night in Elephant Canyon was spent at campsite EC1. Second and third nights were spent at EC2. Reservations were made many months in advance. Each campsite featured spectacular views. It appears that virtually all campsites are sited at points above a thousand-year flash-flood.
Daytime highs ranged from low 70s to low 80s. Night-time lows were upper 30s to low 50s. There was no moon, the night sky was clear, the stars were superb and abundant. We used JetBoils to handle the cooking chores. (Coffee, tea, and freeze-dried meals from Mountain home and Backpacker's Pantry. Mid-day snacks were GORP, precooked tuna in olive oil, peanut butter, beef jerky, and candied pecans withj raisins and pineapple.)
We each carried a three-liter Camelbak and three additional one-liter bottles---six liters apiece.
Our trekking poles were, IMHO, indispensable. (Another reason we did not cover much ground was that the terrain is somewhat... interesting.)
On the way in from Squaw Campground, there were numerous places where we had to resort to all fours, whether due to fairly steep slick-rock or to broken, jumbled rock-piles. In fact, virtually every trail we took featured several such challenges.
On the second day, we hiked to Druid Arch---amazing scenery all the way there and a knockout view from the base of the Arch. On the third day, we hiked to and through The Joint.
The fourth day was our hike out, and included a traverse of The Notch. Good thing I lost weight before this trip. We had to take off our packs and scoot them along ahead of ourselves, as we had to go through sideways. In the last mile or so, the trail out (through Squaw Canyon, different than the way in but ending at the same trail-head) threw two, final, slick-rock ridges in our way just to see if we could handle it. We did, but we were tired and almost out of water when we got back to the trail-head. All in all, we felt it was a epic vacation. (We did more stuff around Moab, Utah and up in Nine-Mile Canyon, but there were no hammocks involved in that phase.)
I will now begin an effort to attach a few photos. I will also try to put a few more in my personal album/gallery/file.
Sometimes I get it right, sometimes... something else happens. Wish me luck.
NOTE TO MODERATOR AND "POWERS-THAT-BE": If these files are too big, feel free to yank 'em.
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Originally Posted by TrailSlug
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