Fall Family Vacation--Paria Canyon

Our long planned adventure involved a trek down Paria Canyon.  Kanab, UT was the closest starting point and we were going to hike 38 miles to where the Paria River meets the Grand Canyon in Arizona.  This little junction is also known as Lee's Ferry--a place steeped in history for Keith's family. More on that later.

We met Keith's parent's in Kanab as well as Keith's longtime friend and favorite mission companion, Jordon Roberts.  Keith's parents generously offered to watch our kids and run our shuttle to pick us up on the other side.

We got up early to start our hike.  I didn't realize that 3:30 am actually existed anymore but apparently it does.  We left our kids sleeping in warm beds in a motel room and walked out into a cold, dark night.  It was a little tricky finding the trail head in the dark but we managed to find it and be geared up and ready to start hiking at 4:30.

One word about this hike:  it's long.  And not only that, it's hard terrain.  Much of the hike is through water and a lot of the rest involves rocky terrain.  It's not a clear cut, wide, well traveled path.  And once again, it's long.  Once you get into the canyon, there's nowhere to bail out and give up.  You are committed to the end.   The guidebooks all recommend doing the hike in 3-5 days.  One guidebook even indicated that a fast hiker could do it in 2 days.  Well......we were going to do it in one.  You would have needed a permit for overnighting in the canyon and you have to apply for those (and possibly not get one) well in advance.  And who has that much time off work anyway?

But Keith told me it would be all downhill since we are following a river.  And since I had just done a triathlon, how bad could it be?  **Note to readers: consider how many times this blog has mentioned Keith's ridiculously long hikes.  Also consider that there were many, many other long hikes that were not documented.  He does this kind of stuff for fun.  A lot.

About 100 yards from where we parked at the trail head, we came to the river.  It was wide.  And we had no idea how deep it was.  We did not have a guidebook with us but from our best recollections of the bad trail advice we (Keith) had studied, we weren't planning to see water yet.  And especially not this much, this soon.  We considered our options.

1) We keep going.  If we get into the canyon where it becomes very narrow, the water could become very deep.  If it becomes so deep that it is impassible, we would have to make it back to the car before Keith's parents came to shuttle our car away.  We calculated the time frame in which we would be at the point of no return.  It was a risky scenario.

2)  We get back in the still-warm car and go back to our warm beds and consider it a bust.  We could possibly find another, drier hike to do once it got light enough to figure out another alternative.  Or we could just go find a donut shop and tell stories of the old days.

We shivered in the cold as we considered the possibilities.  Both Jordon and I were willing to give the donut shop a chance.  Keith was less quick to back away from a cold river on a cold morning.

Keith decided we needed to explore a little more before giving up and pushed past the bush next to us to follow the bank of the river.  None of us wanted to get wet at 4:30 in the morning when we were already cold.  But I guess the donut shop wouldn't have been open so early anyway.

We were able to hug the bank for a little while to avoid getting wet but it wasn't long before we were up against a cliff.  Time to poop or get off the pot.  Or in this case, cross the river or get a donut.  Darn Keith for being so determined!  He took a deep breath and hoped the water wasn't too deep.

Turns out, the river was about mid-calf.  And it was so bloody cold.  But once you are wet, you're wet so we kept going.  After that we criss-crossed the river every few minutes.

I lost feeling in my feet after a while so it wasn't quite so bad (and that's actually a bad thing).

We hiked for a couple of hours in the dark and cold.  I'm sure our surroundings were stunning but it was too dark to see anything beyond the dim glow of our headlamps.

And then the sun came up.  Hallelujah to the sun!!!  Being deep down in the slot canyon, it didn't make it any warmer.  But at least we could see where we were.

 Our risky decision ended up working out for us.  Only a few times did we get into water that was thigh high.  Mostly it stayed calf to knee deep.  Other than the aforementioned occasional loss of feeling in my feet, this hike was turning out to be awesome.  Well played on the decision to press forward, Card.

Loving that sunshine!  And we even had hats off and t-shirts for part of the afternoon.  It was an absolutely gorgeous day.

There was a big panel of rock art along the way.  There were apparently other panels in the canyon that we missed seeing.  Doing the entire 38 miles in one day means you hustle past the scenic detours.

This was one bit of rock art/graffiti that we definitely took note of.  This carving is from Keith's great uncle, carved 100 years ago.  We are likely to be the first random hikers to have passed by this name and known who FT Johnson was.  We know this because Keith's great-grandma was born at the end of Paria Canyon and her dad ran Lee's Ferry for many years.  We showed this picture to Keith's mom and she was able to track down exactly who FT Johnson was and how old he was on May 30, 1912.  Considering how far up the canyon we were at this point is proof that Keith comes from a long line of mountain goats.

 That's pretty stinking cool.

See how it's starting to get dark?  We figured we had to get about as far as you can see in this picture--to the end of the rocks on the right.  Our best guess indicated that we had about 6 miles to go.  This would have meant that we had already traveled 32 miles that day.  We had told our rescue party that we were going to be off the trail between 6 and 8 pm and by our estimation, we were going to make it on time--although a little closer to 8pm--if we hustled.

We were finally away from the river so we weren't going to be crossing it anymore.  We stopped to put on our long awaited dry pair of socks and we put the camera away and ran for awhile.  "Running" is a strange way to classify our movement after that much distance and that much cold water.  It wasn't pretty but it was faster.

Just as the last bit of daylight slipped away, we came upon a hiker who was zipping into her tent for the night.  Why on earth would a hiker have set up camp right here when we were so obviously close to the parking lot??

We then found out what true idiots we really are.  Turns out we had EIGHT miles left to go.  And many more river crossings.  At the point that I thought we only had 6 miles left to go...we actually had 14.  Had I known that then, I would have laid down next to FT Johnson's rock and let my bones become one with his long forgotten footsteps.

Those last 8 miles were excruciating.  Route finding became particularly difficult after the sun went down.  There was a full moon that night but it took uncomfortably long for it to raise above the rock walls to shed any bit of light.  My feet were feeling all messed up now that we were back in and out of the water again.  I tried to walk as fast as I could but they just. couldn't. go. faster.

Finally we started to see signs of life.  Remnants of an abandoned farmhouse.  A rock wall.  And finally a fence and a dirt road.  The dirt road led us past the graveyard of Keith's ancestors and the fruit orchard they had planted.  We hobbled passed the old cabin where Keith's great-grandma was born and across the water flume his great-great-grandpa built to get water for his garden.

And finally.  Finally, we got to a car.  Waiting there was Keith's dad, Jordon's girlfriend, and our two big kids that tried so hard to stay away for our welcoming party.

We made it.