We woke up this morning in one of the coolest places I’ve ever woken up: in the middle of the desert. We wanted to get an early start on the day since the forecast was for temperatures to be nearing 100 degrees by noon. Our alarms went off at 5 and I was up and out of my tent by about 10 after. Just in time to see the sun starting to rise above the horizon. I poked my head into Molly and Zoe’s tent to make sure they were moving a bit and started the process of packing up camp. Packing went pretty smoothly and we were ready to hit the trail before 6:30.
The first part of the Horseshoe Canyon trail is a 700 foot descent through a mix of rocky and sandy passages that descend down into the canyon. Since the sun had barely risen and we were walking downhill it was an easy start to the day, although there were a few comments about how on the ascent, and in full sun this portion would be rough. After passing through a wooden gate we were in the dry river bed at the bottom of the canyon in search of the first gallery of pictographs. We had GPS coordinates for all four of the galleries, plus we were looking for giant collections of paintings so this should have been an easy task. However, when we reached the first marked location we could find a single sketch.
Hoping we’d just been unlucky and not lost we pressed on the the second, the Horseshoe Gallery. Fortunately, this one was located right where it was supposed to be and right on our sightline from the trail. The third gallery, the Alcove Gallery was my favorite. It is located on a natural stage under an alcove at a bend in the canyon. If not for it’s remote and protected location as well as the threat of mountain lions it would have been a perfect place for a concert. The reason I liked it so much though is that because the gallery was located on the stage area of the alcove there was no erosion under it as there is at all the other galleries we’ve seen across the west. This meant that we could walk right up next to it and stand in the same place that its creators did. We even sat on the same rocks that were likely there thousands of years ago. It was easy to picture those people working on creating the images.
Our final destination was the famous Great Gallery. This is said to be the best panel of Fremont pictographs anywhere and it is easy to see why. The panel contains a huge number of perfectly preserved images including the “Holy Ghost” image. After a lot of pictures and a quick snack we turned around and headed out.
Even though it was getting to be a bit later in the day, 9:00 or so, we still had plenty of shade to hike back in. On a fluke at one rest stop I pulled out the GPS and noticed we were near the location of the High Gallery, the one that we had not been able to find. I started to tell the others saying “the gallery we missed should be around…” and as I looked up it was on the canyon wall right in front of me “duh”. I’m not sure how we missed it on the way in, but it was there and spectacular.
The last part of the hike was rough. We had to climb the 700 feet we had lost at the beginning, it was 10:30 and the temperature was already over 80. Obviously, we made it out, but it wasn’t easy.
Our track and pictures are posted here. Since we were in a canyon there’s a lot of error in the GPS data, but the overall track is pretty close to what we hiked.
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. We made it out the 40 mile dirt road without getting stuck and arrived in Moab before 2. We did some laundry, repacked the car, and got some beer and appetizers/dinner.
We’re planning another cool hike for Arches NP tomorrow morning. We’ll be tackling the Fiery Furnace section with a ranger so we don’t die. There is supposed to be lots of fun crawling through small passages. I’m sure there’ll also be some climbing after after the initial descent: another day of “way down we go”.