Escalante: Spanish for The Grand Canyon

Just if you wanted to know, Escalante is not spanish for The Grand Canyon but it was one of our jokes for the weekend. This was one of the most amazing weeks of my life. I did something I didn't know I could do, and I did it all the way. We ended up having 22 people on the trip!

We left at 6:00 pm on Wednesday night. We were told it was a 4 1/2 hour drive, but when we arrived at our camp at 2 am we decided they had tricked us. We ended up sleeping in the car that night because we were all cold and tired. We woke up first thing Thursday morning and started on our "short" hike for the day.






We went to a place called Neon Canyon.  It was in a place called Egypt and we didn't really understand why until we began hiking.  It was about an 8 mile hike in 3 inch deep sand.  I know that doesn't sound too bad but honestly, it was harder than the backpacking hike. About halfway along, there was a river we had to cross that was about mid-thigh deep, FREEZING cold, and fast moving. I stubbed my toe and it was bruised and swollen the whole rest of the trip.








We got to the end of the canyon at a place called the Golden Cathedral.  Bishop Kilgrow and Dallin rappelled down through it. We hiked back out and went back to the cars.

We drove to the top of Coyote Gulch, put on our packs, covered them with garbage bags, and headed out on our 2 mile hike down into the canyon.  We camped on a little sand spot for the night. It was cold and rainy and disgusting but we survived.

That night we camped right underneath this huge rock!
It was interesting to learn that sand is, in fact, NOT softer than regular ground.
It felt good on the feet but honestly, if I never had to lay on it again,
I think I would be satisfied!! :)
















The next day was definitely the most fun day of the trip. There was little ground to cover and a LOT of time so we got to play around a lot! We were walking up and down the little river that's down in the canyon, skipping rocks, sight seeing, etc. It was really amazing! There are so many beautiful things in nature. I really wish the trip had been longer because I could have stayed there for lots more days and been totally happy! The only thing about this day is that I got a really sore arm from learning to skip rocks. I am pretty good at it now, but since I did it wrong so much, my arm was pretty much dead!! All of these next pics are from day 2!

That night we hiked to the bathroom!!! We camped a little earlier
in the evening and had time to get completely set up before dark. We were playing card games and eating food for a couple hours then we had our own little fireside! We learned about 'hole in the rock' and what the pioneers went through.  If you don't know what the story behind that is, I suggest looking it up, it is an amazing story! It was fun to actually be around a fire having a fireside though, it made me feel all authentic! It wasn't raining that night (unlike the first night) so we slept a little better.  I think what was keeping us up is that we knew we had to hike out in the morning. It was pretty bitter sweet. We didn't want to leave and we knew it was going to be a hard hike the next day, but on the other hand, we all REALLY wanted our beds!! The hike out was about 20 minutes of climbing up steep rocks then almost another two hours to get out by the cars. It was very trying and really hard but I am so glad I made it out.  I was a little worried I would not be able to.

I knew that I wasn't as strong as I thought I was and I knew that this was something I had never done before. All this being said...I FINISHED!!! :)