Hole in the Rock, Thanksgiving 2016

I Lean

Mbryson's hairdresser
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A break from school that actually matches up with my time off from work seems like a rarity, so having Thanksgiving week off seemed like an opportunity too good to waste staying home. :) A few other people were invited, but in the end it was just Mesha and his family, and me and mine.
The first stop for us was at the Hite overlook--interesting to me since I've never been there before, I've always headed down toward Bullfrog whenever I go through Hanksville. But, since the ferry isn't running, we made the drive.
Kids are getting big



Pretty amazing how far out of the water the (former) marina is. Not much chance of launching a boat from here.



We camped the first night right off the road where we were leaving the tow rigs. After some delay getting rolling in the morning, we drove in next to Cal Black Airport, to investigate the "old" way of going into the trail, the now-impassable route across Lake Canyon. This is the ruin known as the "Fortress" overlooking the canyon.



Kids at the ruin



Heading away from the Fortress, down into the canyon



We never actually found the "impassable" part we were looking for since there are a maze of roads in that are, but we did stumble on a rock with this on it.



We were looking around for more petroglyphs or whatever else, and my daughter found this piece of pottery



A short search around found several more pieces



We turned around to take the roads around the canyon that will get us to the rest of the trail. Nothing too interesting for the most part, but this was neat





- - - Updated - - -

Here is a well-known landmark



The kids enjoyed climbing around it



At camp that night--Davy and Jami preparing part of the Thanksgiving dinner. Heating up mashed potatos, and whipping cream to go on the pumpkin pie. :cool:



Best Thanksgiving ever. :greg:





Our view the next morning





Back on the road





Finally back to the trail.

 

I Lean

Mbryson's hairdresser
Vendor
Location
Utah
Neat stuff.



We camped just before the top of Grey Mesa, in a nifty little amphitheater-type area. No pics of it, since it was basically dark when we got there. We got up early the next morning and dropped the trailers, to try to get as far as we could with the time we had left--the short daylight hours were really putting the hurt on our progress, compared to what we had expected. We set ourselves a time limit to get as far as we could before turning around--that ended up being just past The Chute. So we stopped there and the kids got busy messing around.



Heading back, looking up the Chute:



The views from the top of Grey Mesa looking over the San Juan arm of Lake Powell were stunning. Little hazy that day, but you'll get some idea anyway.





We got back to our camp to pack up, and found a raven had taken an undue interest in Davy's tent





This is a fairly tough spot on the way back out



After Davy showed me the line, I made short work of it





So in the end, it was an enjoyable time on the trail. We did see one other group of 5 vehicles on our way out, but other than that we had the whole area to ourselves. We will need to go back another time with more daylight hours, and actually make it all the way to Cottonwood Canyon. :) It's among my favorite areas of the state though, so that doesn't make me sad. :)

There are many more pics in the Photobucket album if you care to check them out, these are just a sampling.
 

Greg

Make RME Rockcrawling Again!
Admin
Looks like an excellent trip, great pics... thanks for sharing the report!

Love Davy whipping the cream with an electric drill.... :rofl:
 
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