This photo was taken in the early afternoon, heading back towards Kodachrome Basin State Park.
But before we got that far, we turned off Cottonwood Road onto Skutumpah Road.

Skutumpah Road and Cottonwood Road extend southwards from the Cannonville area through the
huge, wild Eskalante-Grand Staircase National Monument. This area is administered by the BLM,
and they have identified several beautiful hiking trails along both roads with trailhead signs.
On our last trip, Gary and I had hiked Cottonwood Narrows but didn't get a chance to do any of
the other recommended hikes -- Willis Creek being one of them. So on this last afternoon of our
time in Utah we set out for it.

We had not thought to bring a map or a trail guide book with us on this outing. (Those were left
behind in the trailer, at the park.) The road was steep and rough -- definitely a 4WD road --
and seemed to go on forever, leaving us wondering if we had passed the trailhead marker someplace.
We seemed to be the only ones on the road that day. We came to a fork and were debating which way
to go, when a car came along and we flagged it down. To our surprise, there were four
ladies inside -- of the "senior citizen" category -- and all seemed very happy to give us
directions to Willis Creek, having apparently just come from there. It turned out that the
trailhead was only a few hundred yards farther.