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Escalante Adventure 2006 – Journey Home

Synopsis: Drive to Las Vegas and fly home. Friday, June 2 and Saturday, June 3.

My trip home was largely uneventful. It was somewhat slower, but much less stressful. I was confident that the truck would make it, and there was little time pressure on the drive. I was able to get quite a few nice photos, which are featured on this page.

This is a roadside overlook featuring the sprawling Escalante country. The Henry Mountains are on the horizon.

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The drive from Boulder to Cedar City goes over two mountain ranges. This is one. The photo was taken from near the top. The mountain forests fall away and away down into the misty Zion National Park. One of the great things about these mountains were the lava flows; the high country is littered with clearings in the aspen forest made by prodigious piles of black basalt lava. I’d like to return some day.

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I arrived in Las Vegas in the evening, and it was incredibly hot. Charles gave me good directions to his house, and his roommate let me in. I showered, etc., and puttered, then went off to bed. As I was sitting down, the phone rang, and it was Charles leaving the airport. He arrived a few minutes later and we hung out for a while, both inside and in the hot tub.

Charles’ bunny and me.

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Charles’ bunny loves lettuce.

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In the morning Charles we had breakfast at Terrible’s, and Charles gave me a tour of UNLV and his radiation laboratory. Then, I went to the airport and got on a plane.

It turned out that the flight path led almost directly over the Escalante country!

Town of Escalante, Utah.

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I spent almost all of my last six days within this frame. “River” is the white ridge emerging down from the wing pod at right; directly below that is the meandering Boulder Creek. At the top end of the largest green patch along the Escalante River is our camp. As this photo was being taken, the rest of the party was probably loading the llamas. On the south end of the mesa just below and to the left of the center is the crack system we tried to get to: the large, dark cleft was our destination. The first smaller crack to the right of that is what stopped our progress.

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Town of Boulder, Utah (fields at lower right). The large white area dominating the center of the photo is two canyons: Death Hollow and Sand Creek.

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The Henry Mountains.

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The Dirty Devil River. The large, forked side canyon at right is Robber’s Roost Canyon; the dark fleck across the river from the mouth of Robber’s Roost is a gently overhanging alcove over 500 feet high.

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Not long after, it clouded over, and when those cleared there was nothing but fields of corn for the remaining two hours home.

That’s all folks! I hope you enjoyed my trip report. (Return to the Main Index if you like.)

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