Day 51: Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

- June 28, 2017

Sunday, May 21, 2017

Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (GSENM)

I wanted to hike the Wave in the GSENM. You can only hike the Wave if you have a permit. By the time we finalized our plans, the on-line permits were all ready taken. They are picked four months in advance. They give out 10 more permits for the next day at the GSENM visitor center in Kanab, Utah.

If I am unlucky enough to win😀 I would go tomorrow. This would mean Vicki would have to get up and take me to the hiking trail early in the morning and come back in the afternoon. Since there would be no cell connection, we would have to set a pick up time. This could be a logistic nightmare. Another thought that came to mind while I was waiting this morning would be to hire someone to guide me. This person could give me a ride maybe.

Anyway, we decide to enter the lottery and you have to be there by 9:00am for the lottery. Since we do not know exactly where we are going Vicki and I left at 7:00am to get there in time.

The lottery is held in Utah but the actual location is in Arizona. There are times during the year where they are different. Utah time is the official time used for the drawing.

I had to fill out an application giving my basic info and how many people are part of my application. There can be a maximum of 6 per application. In my case it is one. This has to happen between 8:30 and 9:00. You turn your application in and the doors are locked at 9:00. The guy sitting down up front is keeping track how many applications are handed in.

At 9:00 he calls a name for every application and gives you a number. I was number 28. I think I counted a total of 49 for the day. I try to calculate the odds of my number being called by figuring out how many numbers can be called. The worst case would be two number totaling 10 or more (6+6, 6+4, ...) would be around 4%. The best case would be ten numbers, each being a single person, would be around 20%. I am sure I am doing this wrong but you can see my best chance would be for every number to have one person on the application.

The first number is for a single person and is not my number: 9 spaces left and 48 numbers left

The second number is for two people and is not my number: 7 spaces left and 47 numbers left

The third number is for two people and is not my number: 5 spaces left and 46 numbers left

The fourth number is for two people and is not my number: 3 spaces left and 45 numbers left. The applicant who won this spot was on there fourth try.

The fifth number is for two people and is not my number: 1 spaces left and 46 numbers left

Now the man up front declares a special rule when there one spot left. If the last application picked has either one or two people on it, everyone on the application can go. Otherwise, only one person on the application gets to go. For example, if 4 people or on the application only 1 of the 4 gets to go.

The last number is called and it is NOT my number. It was for one person. 45 disappointed applicants.

It is time to eat, but on a Sunday morning in a small town there is not much of a choice. We choose a coffee shop and get some kind of egg sandwich. Since we were already at the GSENM, we decided to do a couple of hikes: one hike through a slot canyon and another to check out the double arch. None of the roads in the GSENM are paved. We drove 25 miles on this dirt road to the Cottonwood Road slot canyon trail. The slot canyon was loose sand so it was like walking at the beach.

The canyon seems to go on forever, but finally ends.

The hardest part of the whole hike was the steep up hill to get back to the car.

Vicki is contemplating whether we can make it up the hill. Then she remembers we have 4-wheel drive. At that moment I realized I was not driving to Double Arches.

On the way to Double Arches we come across the horned animal below. I had never seen anything like it before. After I got back to UTT I had to look it up. It turns out it is a Prolong Horned Antelope. One of the guides we have later on tells us it is not really an Antelope but it is the Antelope referred to in the song that goes " ... where the dear and the antelope play ..."

Prolong Horned Antelope

We finally make it to Double Arches. It is amazing how long it takes to get there being only a few inches on the map. Of course it does not help that the road is dirt.

On the way back to UTT, we go by Kodachrome Basin State Park. It has some nice landscape from the highway but there are storm clouds a brewing. So I make Vicki stop and we get some pictures.

This is the storm cloud. I like the way it arches over the mesa and white cloud.

I then take a nap and when I wake up, we are passing Red Canyon State Park. We had been by here a few times, but this time we stop for a few pictures.

We ate dinner on the way back to Hurricane in a town called Tropic and restaurant named Rustler's.

On the way back we see a rainbow. It is just outside of Zion.

As we go through Zion we stop so I can take some sunset pictures at a place I found out while on the private slot canyon tour. Katie suggested it. I tried to find it but I think I needed to go down stream further. Anyway I think they are the best I have done.