Buckskin Gulch and Paria Canyon Photo Essay

Thanks for the tantalizing photos! Hopefully I'll be able to make a trip like that someday…you keep me inspired.

I have an REI Flash 30 and was wondering how you managed to pare it down to 12 oz. Did you cut out the back panel and other major surgery? Just wondering.

Happy trails!

That hike looks like one of those "hikes of a lifetime."
Thanks,
Tom

Thanks for the great report! I would imagine you're carefully checking weather reports right up to launch. But then again, that part of the country can look sunny and beautiful at lunchtime, and by early afternoon a thunderstorm hits! Is there a service that alerts you to hi/med/lo flash flood danger, or would you simply abort the hike if you saw cloudy skies? How did you decide your go/no-go?

Beautiful, outstanding photos, until…

I came to the photo which had great big foot holes chipped into the rockface.
Am I the only one that thinks such damage to a beautiful natural feature looks awful?

Often, if it weren't for notches like that, for hanging ropes, rails, and other helpers, places would be entirely inaccessible, or the death toll for visiting them would be much higher. I personally see no difference between notches in rocks left by homo sapiens and burrows dug by rodents or nests left by birds (and surrounded by landscape-marring white guano).

Many of these places we currently treat as wilderness were the stomping grounds of primitive tribes. Nature is not a museum, it's our home.