Monday 17th October 2016 With only three days left before we were due to fly out of Las Vegas back to Scotland and quite a lot of driving to do to get to Vegas, we deliberated on how to best use our remaining time. Eventually we opted for a two-day backpack in the Escalante area again – this time down Wolverine Canyon to Horse Canyon then back out via Little Death Hollow canyon – famed for it’s long narrow slot section.
Our approach to this loop was from the small town of Boulder and a drive along the tarmac Burr Trail road before turning off down the Wolverine dirt road. This was fine for a while but after a few miles it dropped into a dry sandy river wash and we were afraid of scraping the undercarriage of our nice shiny rental car. So we chose to abandon the car and start walking a bit earlier than intended!
This stop gave us 5 miles of hiking down a dirt track before reaching the canyons but the open pinyon juniper scenery was pleasant and we enjoyed the walk. Leaving the dirt track, we headed cross-country into Wolverine Canyon on gravelly, colourful Chinle rock layers and hit upon a fantastic area of petrified logs. Some of the biggest trees were about 20 meters long and one meter in diameter. The detail of bark and growth rings were amazing. Seemingly, these were conifers buried by volcanic ash and sediment around 250 million years ago and silica from the ash penetrated inside or ‘petrified’ the wood.
Continuing down Wolverine was easy following a dry sandy wash with red Wingate sandstone cliffs towering above. The canyon gradually narrowed and meandered with a number of massive alcoves and cool scooped holes in the walls.
The wind was gusting and kicking up sand as we exited Wolverine and hit Horse Canyon. Rather disappointingly there were 4WD vehicle tracks in the wide wash which spoiled our wilderness feeling a little. Hiking down canyon we were pleased to see some water surfacing in the bed and pretty soon there was enough of a trickle for us to stop and load up with water for the night and all of the next day.
We passed the vehicles that had made the tracks, parked at a point where the canyon narrowed and it was trail only from there on. It appeared as if this was a trail maintenance crew with horses. After about 10 minutes more we came to the junction with Little Death Hollow Canyon and hiked up, on the look out for a campsite. Martina found a great spot on a raised slab about 3 meters above the dry canyon floor. With a full moon it was a brilliant last wild camp of the holiday for us…
Tuesday 18th October 2016 A grand moonlit, quiet night with the moon doing a traverse along the length of the canyon, so we saw it all night. Today we were to ascend Little Death Hollow Canyon which has a long, narrow slot section which we were looking forward to.
We started up a slot with deep muddy pools and slippy, slabby walls. This got us both wet and dirty. We began to think that recent flash floods meant that we were going to find more mud and water on the way ahead. For two hours the canyon stayed tight and narrow and….muddy. On a few occasions we had to crawl under boulders jammed in the canyon walls and unfortunately that meant getting stuck into some slime and dirt. It was all fun despite both of us picking up some scrapes and bruises and the eventual opening of the canyon came too soon!
The remaining hike was more mellow as a trail began to form in the now wide canyon floor. But it was still scenic and we stopped at a petroglyph panel on a large boulder before arriving at the canyon trailhead on a dirt road.
All that remained now was about 3 hours of hiking north on the dirt road back to our car. Another excellent backpack which could probably be done in a long day (especially with a high clearance vehicle) but the overnight camp was definitely worthwhile for us.
A wee walk 
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