Four days in the central Escalante last week. I intended to be out two days longer but a snow-covered mandatory bypass around a dryfall had me backtracking long enough that there weren’t many logical ways to extend the trip, and I hiked out. A good thing too; a big storm blew in and it was only with the assistance of chains and 4×4 that I got back to pavement at all.
Video here.
It had been over 13 years since I’d been into that part of the Escalante, so some nostalgia was in order. On the last night I camped in the exact spot my group stayed at in March of 2003, and it was little changed which was nice to see of a site near one of the marquee features in the area. On the other hand, cattle were in a few sections rampant along the river bottom, and had chewed up extensive sections of vegetation, in a way that reminded me of wild pig damage in Appalachia. The persistence of grazing leases in those few areas, where they seem wildly inappropriate, is sad to see.
On that last trip we came out and the US had invaded Iraq. On this one I came out and Trump was president. As the last mapped river in the lower 48 the Escalante seems like a good place to hide during the end of the world. Maybe those cattle will come in handy after all.
