As I mentioned in my last post, food and footpaths are primary attractions in Torrey. We couldn’t jump right onto a trail the instant we arrived, but we didn’t waste any time getting to the eating. That evening we dined at my favorite section of Hell. Hell’s Backbone Grill & Farm has been a beloved out-of-the-way dining location for us since we first discovered it about 15 years ago. The required 50-minute drive up Boulder Mountain is quickly forgotten when the Jenchiladas, Blue Ribbon Black-Powder Biscuits, blueberry bread pudding, and seasonal favorites hit the tongue. This time, those seasonal offerings included asparagus and peas from the Hell’s Backbone Farm. Delish! We loaded up past our max fill lines and then dodged black free-range cattle on the dark trip back to Torrey.
The next day, we hiked in Capitol Reef National Park on the Navajo Knobs Trail. The Navajo Knobs are a cluster of bumpy outcroppings at the tippy top of one of the park’s many plateaus. Hikers can bail halfway up this path to complete just the Rim Overlook or continue another 2.4 miles to reach the top. We weren’t sure how 2,400 feet of elevation change would go over with my testy, recovering knee. Hence, we’d settled on ending at that halfway point and only 1,110 feet of altitude variation. However, once we reached the Rim Overlook, I could tell we would decide to go all the way, 9.4 miles RT, knee aside. Why waste all the already-exerted effort?
The Castle, one of Capitol Reef’s many impressive geological features, towers 800 feet above the park’s visitor center.
Past the Rim Overlook, the route to the Navajo Knobs keeps mostly to cliff edges but rarely close enough to make the typical person nervous. (That includes me in this case!) Although the trail is almost exclusively uphill, the grade stays below 30% except during a short, final scramble up one of the knobs. While some guidebooks claim there are two knobs, that’s not true as there are a whole cluster of bulbous bulges of varying sizes protruding from the plateau top. The trail leads you up the westernmost one.
The views along this path were spectacular and alien even to us, Utah natives. The plateau traversed is not straight but noticeably angled, giving a greater appreciation for the wrinkled nature of the Waterpocket Fold, Capitol Reef’s defining geological feature. This lovely setting must be too strenuous for most as we saw just two people in total once we passed the Rim Overlook. I was okay with that.
Up close, the Navajo Knobs are more intimidating but still knobby.
It took us five hours and 40 minutes to complete the Navajo Knobs, which apparently is in the “normal” window. Also in our normal window is not making it back before dark. We were typical in that regard as well. We only needed flashlights for the last third of a mile though, and that’s better than our average.
For our last day in Capitol Reef, we decided to hike another route classified as strenuous, the Freemont Gorge Overlook, even though we’d pushed my knee and our legs in general the day before. (For the record, my knee handled the challenge with dignity and only a little swelling.) The path to the Fremont Gorge Overlook, according to the park’s trail guide, is identical in length and almost equivalent in elevation change to the Rim Overlook. Therefore, we were expecting another enduring uphill workout. Instead, we got ups on either end of a long section of level.
Johnson Mesa is topped with black boulders and abundant grasses.
The route climbs one steep 300-foot hill and then kicks back for an extensive, nearly flat traverse across the meadow topping Johnson Mesa. Johnson Mesa’s crown is strewn with desert grasses and lava rocks spewed from Boulder Mountain 20-30 million years ago. Glaciers brought those giant stones to Capitol Reef at the end of the last ice age where they now look completely out of place. That curious meadow is followed by another long climb, about 700 feet in elevation.
The Fremont Gorge Overlook is about 4.5 miles RT. It took us a bit under three hours and required less energy than the Rim Overlook portion of the Navajo Knobs Trail, despite their supposed similarities in length and elevation change.
The Fremont River has dug a trench 800 feet deep over eons, and it’s all on display from the overlook at trail’s end.
Please note, the Fremont Gorge Overlook has absolutely no shade on it. If you hike it in the summer, I’d highly recommend going early or late in the day. The other thing it had absolutely none of? People. We saw exactly no one on it, which made it all the better.
That sums up the Torrey piece of our desert extravaganza. The entire holiday pie was magnificent and memorable from its smallest corridors to its vastest vistas! I’ll end with one final comment on luck. Spring weather in Utah can be temperamental, but it was nearly ideal during our entire trip. It oscillated from the low 70s to the mid-80s and was almost always windy. It never got uncomfortably hot, but we did make use of jackets on occasion. The day we left, temperatures dropped down into the 50s, and it started raining. The luck of the slickrock was on our side!
My family routinely slides through slot canyons. While some of these are too tight for my tastes, all are an excuse to travel to exquisite desert terrain with people I love. Such was the purpose of an outing we took to Hanksville, a little town in southeastern Utah, last spring. Jason and I extended this trip to Torrey to celebrate our anniversary. It was the American Southwest for adventurous families at its finest.
If you aren’t a Utah native (We prefer the term Utahan.), you may not be familiar with the concept of a slot canyon. Slot canyons are formed over millions of years by water exploiting cracks or weaknesses in rock, typically through violent flashfloods. Utah’s unique, arid ecosystems contain over 1,000 slot canyons, the highest concentration of these curious fractures in the world.
While Long Dong Silver is gorgeous, it doesn’t provide much space for photographic creativity.
Before slipping into slots though, we need to discuss spires. After arriving in Hanksville, a group of us set about photographing an elegant spire with a graceless name, Long Dong Silver. Long Dong Silver is close to Hanksville but still remote. Hiking to it is easy if you can figure out where to start. While the name sounds like something a junior high student came up with, the spire itself is magnificent. Furthermore, the entire landscape around Long Dong is crumbling at an extraordinary rate making it feel timeless and temporary all at once. Comprised of delicate shale, all stone surfaces disintegrate when touched, including the spire. Multiple websites claim Long Dong Silver is popular with rock climbers, but I find that hard to believe considering the feature’s fragile nature. A climber in our group said he’d never attempt it as it wouldn’t even hold an anchor. It held up great under a lens though.
The combination of slim and dry makes Little Wild Horse appealing to the casual slot explorer.
Although Baptist Draw, a 3B III slot with some of the highest walls and darkest passages in the San Rafael Swell, was the main reason for this family trip, I found some adventure add-ons in the area, which is my custom. One of these add-ons was the Little Wild Horse Canyon/Bell Canyon Loop. The next morning, we set out to conquer that pretty pony.
Little Wild Horse is classified as a 1A II slot, which means it requires no technical gear and is basically just a regular, dry hike most of the time. All that sets it apart from a trek through any wilderness is squish. As is common with slot canyons, the path through Little Wild Horse becomes tight in sections. It narrows to about three feet wide with walls 50 feet tall for around 10 minutes. This portion, a favorite for many, was my least preferred of the hike. Below I will explain the above.
Circular weathering can give sandstone a sponge-like appearance known as tafoni. It’s a common feature of slot canyons.
As I mentioned, there are over 1,000 slot canyons in Utah, but they do not receive equal attention. Little Wild Horse, for unknown reasons, has become THE slot to do in the state. By “do,” I do not mean complete. Instead, I mean hike precisely 1.1 miles to reach the slimmest section of the canyon, get your Instagram pictures, turn around, and then push against the flow of all the people heading the other direction in that same three-foot-wide gap. Just to be clear, three feet is roomy enough to fit through without turning sideways, but it is not wide enough for two-way traffic. We ended up waiting a while at the start of that segment for about 30 people to exit before entering, and then we still had to try to squeeze past more groups as we went through. It didn’t work well. I think websites and news stations need to stop promoting that U-turn as the best route for this canyon, and the BLM should make traffic in Little Wild Horse one-way on busy weekends. That’s my two unsolicited cents.
We did eventually make it past that clog and back to enjoying the slender wonders around us. Beyond that popular turnaround point, the people thinned drastically, and we only saw a sprinkling of parties the rest of our trek. What constituted the rest of our trek? Hikers can emerge from Little Wild Horse and travel down a dirt road to access Bell Canyon, another slot. Through Bell they can complete a loop that will return them to the parking lot. This is the path we followed.
Bell Canyon is a Class 3 hike, just one step away from rope requirements. It has more obstacles than Little Wild Horse, in the form of chokestones and pouroffs, making it more challenging and fun. We also appreciated it for what it lacked, namely people. That shortage instantly promoted it to our preferred canyon of the day.
Overhanging rock makes a portion of Crack Canyon truly glorious.
While no one hurt themselves navigating the mild obstructions in Bell, I fell and hit my head on a rock while trying to take a picture. Photography is a precarious pastime! Jason was over to me in a jiffy afraid I’d be spouting blood, but no open wounds were generated. I just had a headache and felt a little funky the rest of the night.
We finished the 8-mile Little Wild Horse/Bell loop in about seven hours. I liked Little Wild Horse but felt it was overrated and overused. Bell was better.
The following day was earmarked for Baptist Draw. However, four of us decided not to attempt it based on concerns over the claustrophobic characteristics of the canyon and some irritating injuries. Instead, Jason found Crack for us.
I could become hooked to this crack.
Crack Canyon is another slot that doesn’t require technical gear at a 2A II classification, at least until a chokestone with a 10-foot drop blocks the way a couple miles in. It took us five hours to complete 4.9 miles RT going through three sections of narrows. We loved this canyon. Everyone agreed they fancied it over those the day before with its bright colors and contrasting whites. Along with tint it provided texture in the form of tafoni, spherical rock cavities resembling the abandoned stone villages of some ancient, miniature civilization. Although the chokestone plunge requiring ropes eventually halted our downstream progress, we experienced the best of the slot beforehand.
Despite its beauty, we saw only a handful of people in Crack. It’s interesting how crowds flock to outdoor destinations selected by their Instagram feeds and miss nature’s true nature.
Digging for rocks is an addicting, time-warping activity.
The next day, my sister was planning on returning home after we made a quick stop with her at a local rock shop, but then the owner told us about a nearby area bursting with jasper due to a recent flood. We couldn’t resist checking it out. Regrettably, we hadn’t brought any of our tools for rockhounding on our vacation. That’s how we ended up with the closest items we could find at Hanksville’s tiny market including gloves, buckets, scrapers, kids’ beach shovels, and even a metal stick of unknown purpose. Our unusual gear worked well enough, and we found buckets of jasper and other forms of chalcedony during two hours that felt like half an hour as rockhounding is a labor of discovery that conceals the passage of time.
After rockhounding, Jason and I headed to Torrey and the next section of our trip. Torrey is a small, artsy town at the mouth of Capitol Reef National Park with excellent food and classy lodgings. We used it as a base for hiking all day and eating all night. That footwork and those gastrointestinal endeavors will be the topics of my next post.
Twin Falls, one of southern Idaho’s biggest cities and the “gateway to Snake River Canyon,” has never been a primary destination for Jason and me, until last spring. We won a stay there at a charity event, and now, having enjoyed the national monuments and natural curiosities within its vicinity, I’m not sure why we never went before. Here’s my take on a few of those attractions.
Craters of the Moon got its name because of its resemblance to the surface of the moon.
Unlike Twin Falls, Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve, about an hour and a half from Twin Falls, has long intrigued us. Hence, it was goal #1 on this trip. Craters of the Moon became a national monument in 1924 to safeguard “a weird and scenic landscape peculiar to itself.” The monument is positioned on the Great Rift, a volcanic rift zone. A rift zone is a spot where the earth’s crust has been stretched making it prone to basaltic lava eruptions. At Craters of the Moon, that propensity has seen fruition in terrain topped with sheets of severe, undulating crust.
Craters of the Moon becomes a land of ink and frost in winter.
In the monument’s visitor center, we learned the differences between a caldera, cinder cone, and spatter cone. Did you know the type of lava rock that forms from an eruption depends on its silicone content, temperature, and dissolved gasses? Changes in these three factors lead to vastly different rock characteristics. Geology nerds unite!
Craters of the Moon provides five miles of groomed trails and a mile-long snowshoe-only path in winter by shutting their Loop Road to vehicles.
We also discovered that Craters of the Moon is not a hospitable place. Not only is the landscape riddled with jagged lava rocks eager to tear at you, but the environment has many of the harsh aspects of both arctic and desert climates as well. For instance, with cloudless skies the norm, in winter the temperature can drop over 30 degrees within hours of sunset. We experienced a little of that. Most of Craters of the Moon is only accessible via snowshoes or skis during the winter (and spring until the snow melts), which sounded perfect to us. We started snowshoeing shortly after 3:00 and finished around 7:45, about four and a half hours total. Although temperatures were in the mid-40s when we headed out, we soon began shedding beanies and coats. As the sun got lower in the sky, we eagerly put all those layers back on.
Craters of the Moon’s “ocean of lava” was largely hidden below an ocean of frozen water.
We trekked about 4.5 miles including the entire snowshoe trail, which is just a 1.1-mile loop, an unwanted detour down a service road we found indistinguishable from the ski trail, and finally the real ski trail all the way past the Devil’s Orchard. Minimally motivated tourists only ventured down the ski trail for a minute or two past the visitor center. Beyond that, we saw no one our entire excursion. Yeah! While I’m sure this landscape is sharp and amazing in the summer, in the winter it is a stunning study of contrast with dark basalt iced in shimmering snow.
Past a certain point on our Craters’ journey, paw prints became almost as common as footprints.
Our second day, we altered course and stayed on Earth. We started off with a visit to the Shoshone Falls viewpoint. (Apparently, this is pronounced by locals as show-shown even though the tribe its name comes from is pronounced show-shown-ee.) Shoshone Falls, however you want to pronounce it, is the most popular attraction in the Twin Falls area. It has a 212-foot cascade that is often compared to Niagara since it too is horseshoe-shaped. It is 45-feet taller than that more famous cascade but has a significantly smaller flow rate. Shoshone’s rim is almost 1,000 feet wide, but water rarely flows across the entire block. Instead, it typically separates into several spouts. Apparently, spring is the best time to see the falls as water is diverted heavily in the summer for agricultural and hydroelectric needs. Although it had an impressive pour, it was our least favorite waterfall we encountered that day as we didn’t appreciate all the tourists. Yes, I know I was one of those tourists, so you can call me out for being a self-loathing hypocrite.
Shoshone Falls has been a tourist attraction since the 1860s. Getting to it then was quite an ordeal. Getting to it now requires about a 30-second walk.
The next cascade we viewed was Twin Falls. Twin Falls, the feature that gave the city its name, hasn’t been a pair since the hydroelectric dam stopped one prong of its 125-foot drop back in the 1930s. Its one side was pumping something fierce that day, but it was a bit sad to see the other all parched and unfulfilled. Like Shoshone, Twin Falls is most impressive between March and early June; water is routed elsewhere after that. Jason liked Twin Falls better than Shoshone because we could gawk at it in peace.
Perrine Bridge’s 1,500-foot span is a popular spot for BASE jumping.
Our last spray of the day was Pillar Falls. Pillar Falls is more spectacular as a pillar than a falls, but I get ahead of myself. First, we must discuss getting to it. Its path starts at the rim of Snake River Canyon then drops about 400 feet in a short distance. Eventually, it gets even wilder through some concentrated trees and a few creek crossings until it reaches a strange island in the middle of Snake River dominated by volcanic stone columns and rock-lined pools. Those giant rhyolite boulders, products of volcanic eruptions, were deposited in the river during the Bonneville Flood some 17,400 years ago, like confetti tossed about by a party popper. Multiple respected trail apps and sites report that only 1.1-miles RT and 45 minutes are required to reach Pillar Falls. However, that is incorrect. Based on our experience and mileage trackers, the route is more like 2.2-2.5 miles RT depending on how far it’s possible to navigate around the island at the time of your visit.
A large portion of the path to Pillar Falls is more of a road than a trail, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
Since this peculiar island typically gets swallowed up by the river until water levels drop in the middle of summer, walking through its bizarre boulder towers and weaving ribbons of water was a rare spring treat. As to the falls, they topple unceremoniously from a small ledge on one side of that island into the river. Honestly, they are inconsequential amongst the colossal, warped stones. Please be aware that drownings happen frequently on this island due to underestimates of the currents in its many streams and pools. Be careful if you visit and use good judgement.
The pillars of Pillar Falls, misplaced columns of rhyolite, are much more extraordinary than the falls.
Given that I was still recovering from a broken talus bone and lesion, I hiked backward up the steep sections of the route on our return journey from Pillar Falls to keep from irritating my ankle. Have you ever tried to walk over half a mile backward? It looked silly and felt equally awkward, but it seemed to work. My ankle didn’t hurt much after our trek.
The Snake River is the ninth-longest river in the United States. Its canyon runs up to 500 feet deep near Twin Falls.
Minidoka National Historic Site is also near Twin Falls and preserves a depressing but significant piece of American history. Minidoka Relocation Center, then called Hunt Camp, became a concentration camp for Japanese Americans in 1942 just months after the attack on Pearl Harbor under the jurisdiction of the War Relocation Authority (WRA). Ten such concentration camps were run by the WRA, and eight others existed under the control of the Department of Justice. We had visited one of the DOJ camps in Missoula, Montana the previous summer and were ready to learn and visualize more about the daily life of those detained under Executive Order 9066 at Minidoka.
Executive Order 9066 was signed by President Roosevelt in February of 1942 granting the US Army the ability to remove all people of Japanese descent from their homes on the West Coast. Through this order, residents of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds of them American citizens, were incarcerated simply because of their ethnicity. There were no court findings or evidence-based accusations. It was purely racial hysteria fueled by Pearl Harbor and underlying prejudice.
Incarcerees were only allowed to bring a suitcase or two of belongings and given just a week to sell their other possessions. Careers, communities, and autonomy were all severed. Can you imagine having your life’s work- your house, your business, your standing in society- taken from you without any evidence of wrongdoing? I can’t. This was such a clear violation of the Constitution of the United States, why was it allowed to prevail? It was even upheld by the Supreme Court at one point.
Portions of Minidoka are surrounded by a replica of the barbed-wire fence once built to keep American citizens contained within.
It was in this frenzy of anti-Japanese sentiment that Minidoka formed. Minidoka housed 9,397 people at its peak in 1943 making it the 7th biggest “city” in Idaho. By the time the camp closed in October of 1945, over 13,000 incarcerees had lived there. It had a 196-bed hospital, two fire stations, a library, multiple schools, a police force, sports teams, theaters, skilled tradesmen, plumbers, electricians, a lumberyard, welders, and auto repair shops. Most of the food required to feed its inhabitants was eventually grown onsite. For instance, in 1944 that equated to 7.3 million pounds of produce. While Hunt Camp became self-sufficient, it certainly didn’t start that way.
Large numbers of people were sent to Minidoka when it was only 75% complete. Amongst the “niceties” not finished for another year was the sewage treatment plant. As you might imagine, poor sanitation led to repeated outbreaks of gastrointestinal diseases. What was ultimately finished wasn’t much better. Tar-papered barracks with single-room units housed families and bathroom buildings had no privacy as doors were absent by design.
In the Supreme Court Case Ex parte Endo (1944), the court ruled that the WRA had no authority to detain citizens who were concededly loyal regardless of their ethnicity. This was at odds with their Korematsu v. United States decision, also from 1944, in which they upheld the legality of internment camps. Regardless, Ex parte Endo reopened the West Coast to Japanese Americans who had been detained. The racial wrongs didn’t end there though. After Minidoka closed, its land was given to WWII vets for farming via a lottery system. However, vets of Japanese descent were not eligible for this lottery.
The trail through Minidoka is 1.6 miles, only covering a fraction of the camp’s expanse, but it still gives you a deeper appreciation for life in these centers. I’d highly recommend visiting this historic site to gain a tangible connection to this troubling period in American history.
On our way out of town the next day, we stopped at Centennial Park to see Perrine Coulee Falls, a 200-foot gushing attraction. While the pour itself is pretty, it is right next to a road. This lessens its overall appeal. Therefore, I’d recommend Pillar Falls over Perrine Coulee Falls despite Perrine Coulee’s easier access.
Twin Falls wasn’t what we were expecting. It certainly had falls, but we didn’t come across a single twin. It gave us access to important pieces of history and pieces that looked like they belonged on another planet. Overall, I’d say the area is underrated and worth a visit.
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