San Rafael River backpack

Sweetbabyjebus, I love fall.  It seems like we spend all summer running away from the bone-dry, scorching-hot desert.  Don't get me wrong, I love summer vacations to far-away places, weekends up in the mountains, and splashing around in the kayak.  But as summer winds down and there's a break in the relentless heat, I fall in love with southern Utah all over again.  THIS is why I live out here.  I love feeling my feet move over grippy slickrock as I gaze up at soaring red cliffs.  I love tucking into hidden canyons to find 2,000-year old rock art.  I love epic sunsets followed by inky black, star-peppered skies.  This, ladies and gentlemen, is what it's all about.

Whoa.  Sorry about the melodramatic preamble.  Anyway, we backpacked the San Rafael River Gorge this weekend.  It was neat.

View from the top -- we backpacked down in the gorge.

San Rafael River

The San Rafael River is a beautiful little river that meanders through a gigantic uplift in the earth's crust.  We hiked the 16.6 mile hunk known as the "Little Grand Canyon," where the canyon walls rise a thousand feet above the river to form the Wedge Plateau.  There's lots of epic canyons, interesting rock art, and an abandoned mine.  Supercool.

Hiking the San Rafael River is a little logistically funky.  First of all, you have to check the water levels (the USGS updates them here.)  During the hike, you'll ford the river about 15 times, and that's easiest to do when the river is running below 120 cfs.  If it's over 150 cfs you might as well float it in a ducky!  Late summer and early fall have the lowest water levels.  We lucked out -- this has been one of the driest years on record, so the river was only 13 cfs.  No problemo.

13 cfs = superlow water

Next, you have to do the shuttle BS.  Take two cars, then drop one off at the San Rafael swinging bridge, where you'll finish the hike.  After that, drive together 18.3 miles (about 1 hour) to Fuller Bottom and drop your other car here.  A 2WD can make it, but it's pretty sandy, so keep the speed up!  We did all the shuttling business the night before so we could start at a decent time.

At long last, it's time to hike!  Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.  The trail isn't really marked, but there's a decent path you can follow most of the way.  There are a couple places that are choked with tamarisk and some annoying river crossing with steep muddy banks, but don't get discouraged -- for the most part it's flat and easy to follow.  The silty water is pretty murky and would probably clog your filter in a couple pumps, but it's fun to slosh through!  And the hike is wonderful.  The red-rock canyon walls are steep and impressive.  You pass a little copper mind from the late 1800s that burrows 2,000 feet into the mountain.  After 7.2 miles, you'll get to Virgin Spring Canyon.  It's one of the few places that isn't heavily grazed by cattle, and there's a reliable spring not too far from its entrance.  There's also a pictograph panel about 1/4 mile from the mouth of the canyon.  We set up camp here and spent the night being serenading by frogs.  :)

Virgin Spring Canyon rock art

The next day, we hiked 9.4 miles back to the Swinging Bridge.  On this day, we entered the deepest section of the canyon that lies just below the Wedge Overlook.  People can drive to an overlook on the cliff's edge, and we saw an ant-sized guy waving at us from the top!  The trail was gorgeous, the rabbit brush were blooming yellow, and we saw a bighorn sheep.  It rained a little bit in the afternoon, but not enough to make us worry about flash floods.

RAIN!?!?

desert bighorn

All in all, it was a great trip.  It feels good to be out in the desert again.  I'm pretty obsessed with the northern San Rafael Swell right now and I'm itching to explore more places up there.