Our first day’s hike was up the Escalante River to the creatively named Escalante Natural Bridge and Escalante Arch. Our hike began where Utah Highway 12 crosses the river north of town.
A sign at the trailhead issued an ominous warning.
I guess that’s fair. Choose the wrong path and a three-mile walk to the arch could be a 70-mile endurance run to Powell Reservoir. Cheating death, we took the route to the right.
The trail to the natural bridge and arch required wading across the Escalante River several times. The first crossing came just a couple hundred yards from the trailhead.
Back in the old days, we wore army-surplus Vietnam-era jungle boots (“Cong Stompers”) when hiking down canyon rivers. They had lug soles and screen-covered openings in the bottom to let water out.
(Still available for $151.96 from McRae Footwear)
Here, we had to resort to old, ratty pairs of sand-collecting tennie-runners.
After a few more river crossings…
…we reached the natural bridge. Blending into the cliffs behind, it was a bit hard to spot from a distance…
…but was spectacular when viewed up close.
Farther up the canyon, we spotted some ancient Anasazi granaries high on a cliff…
…with Indian rock art gracing the cliffs below.
A short distance beyond stood Escalante Arch, our turnaround point.
Returning to the trailhead, we took a short hike up the nearby cliffs to more ancient Indian rock art. At the first site, someone had apparently tried to cut out and remove a section of the artwork.
Fortunately, the 100 hands pictograph panel (no, I didn’t count them) located a short distance away remained intact…
…as did the petroglyph panel that stood beyond.
Then it was back to the trailhead parking lot for the drive back to camp.
