2 To Escalante Photo Gallery by Brian Dickson at pbase.com

2 To Escalante

Hayduke Trail 2...Now the adventure really started with 8 days to the town of Escalante! We rejoined the actual Hayduke trail to hike over our first mountain range 'The Henry's' and into snow before dropping into the wild 'Tarantula Mesa' a series of rocky cliff descents to the Waterpocket Fold of Capitol Reef National Park. From there down the amazing 'Lower Muley Twist' canyon to leave the Hayduke again down Halls Creek with its beautiful desert flowers then up rock slabs into a grand finale- Steven's Canyon, the Escalante river, Coyote Gulch and out to Hurricane Wash trailhead. Check out our blog and 5 minute video too!
1 To Hanksville....2 To Escalante....3 To Arizona....4 Grand Canyon-Zion

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Hiking up towards the Henry mountains	Bad weather approaches!	looking back down east from the lower slopes	We camp beneath aspens in snow	Hiking on jeep tracks the next morning
The Henry's	We divert round the 11,400ft summit due to high winds and snow	Circling the west side on jeep tracks	Descending down under the snow	Easy hiking away from the Henry's
Easy hiking away from the Henry's	We find our water source	Camp in pinyon juniper	At the top of the Tarantula Mesa cliff band- we find a cairn -hoorah!	Navigating down washes below the cliffs
Prickly pear	Below Tarantula Mesa upper cliff band	Looking for the drop into Swap Canyon -complex rocky terrain made for slow going	Beautiful spring flowers	Red rock on a black coal layers
Swap Canyon	Campsite in Swap Canyon wash (hoping we don't get any overnight rain!)	Approaching Capital Reef NP and the 'Waterpocket fold'	Waterpocket fold	Looking back east to the Henry's from the Burr Trail jeep road
Signing the register before heading into Lower Muley Twist canyon	Lower Muley Twist	Lower Muley Twist	Potholes in Lower Muley Twist	Lower Muley Twist
Weird rock shapes	Hiking down under alcoves	Alcove magic	Brian reads more maps	Muley Twist alcove
Dried mud in the stream bed	Muley Twist	Cowboy camp alcove	Cowboy camp artefacts	Muley Twist
Rock art	Exiting Muley Twist- what a 12 miles!	Muley Tanks - a beautiful spot and historic water source in these dry parts	Halls Creek with flood debris	Halls Creek - open vistas
	Halls Creek		Quick sand abounded in the creek bed and sometimes we got sucked in....
Looking back north in Halls Creek
		Green sage meadows in Halls Creek	Camp at the southern end of Halls Creek before it merges with Lake Powell	Climbing the rock slabs from Halls Creek into the Escalante drainage
Fantastic hiking!	Two shadows	Descending into Stevens Canyon	Martina looks down into Stevens Canyon	Down in the canyon bottom
Loving the red rock!	Red walls	We find water in the potholes	We had to climb up on to slabs above the canyon bottom some times to make progress	Water!
We loved this canyon...
A dip!			The lower part of Stevens is more green but full of poison ivy	Our favourite camp in Stevens Canyon with a croaking frog chorus
What a great place to shave!	Some scrambling, bushwacking and wading was required	Stevens Arch high above as we near the confluence with the Escalante river	We arrive at the Escalante river and have to wade for about 1.5 miles	7am in the Escalante
Steven's arch looms above again. An aircraft has flown through the arch	Martina dwarfed by Steven's arch	It's 7.30 and our feet are getting cold with the constant wading	We split off the Escalante to join beautiful Coyote Gulch	Coyote Gulch is a fairly popular canyon (ie we see other people!)
Columbine			Splashing up Coyote Gulch
Coyote Gulch, Escalante southern utah		Two lizards face off in Hurricane Wash	After 8 fantastic tough days we hitch out on a 30 mile dirt road to the small town of Escalante	In Escalante town What more could we want!

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