And that slot canyon was cool and worth the detour. We openly mocked the gazillion cairns that littered the slot canyon, showing us like the lighted path to the exit doors of an airplane, that our only choice was to go in the direction of the canyon. You can see one of those GIANT cairns in the picture above at the bottom right. These cairns were everywhere in that little canyon. We joked that some ranger must have had a cairn quota to fill and decided to be ranger funny by piling all of his cairns in that canyon.
That detour also provided us with an awesome overlook.
While this detour was awesome, our true destination was Druid Arch. The canyon up to this arch was really an old riverbed, so it proved much wider with many, many offshoot canyons, which meant that cairns were really, really useful. This wide canyon full of sand also proved irritating due to the strong wind.
But we found Druid Arch to be awesome, awesome, awesome. That sucker is huge. And looks like an elephant from the side.
And then it started to sprinkle rain ever so softly, so we decided that hiking the last 5 miles back to the car was a good idea. So we set off, covered in sand, but feeling good and still mocking the cairns. And clearly, others had a sense of humor about them as well.
Soon we noticed a large-ish group trying to set up a tarp to combat the rain at their campsite high above us. We were checking out this campsite and talking about it (instead of singing "Band on the Run") and continued hiking. I noticed that while cairns had earlier littered the riverbed, now there were none to be found, but I figured (as did Steve) that we would find another one soon.
But we didn't. I do think, however, that this "arrow" that we found was totally a sign that we were on the right track.
Steve was determined to use his GPS to our advantage. It showed that we were roughly half-a-mile from our car so we continued in the direction of the arrow. And then, he pointed up a side canyon that seemed to only hold tall, precarious needle formations, blocking sight of the car for sure, but making it debatable that this path was going to get us to our destination still in one piece. Topo maps would have been helpful.
Against my better judgment, we headed up this side canyon, bearing our own trail and killing cryptobiotic soil (don't tell). And then, it started to rain harder and much more persistently. We scrambled up a ridge and found ourselves blocked by the needles. At this point, the rock was slick, slick, slick with rain. Walking across a diagonally-placed rock face, I slipped, but strategically kicked out my leg to break my slide. No harm done, but I was even more hesitant about our new route than before. Steve eventually climbed up and ahead to check out what lay in our path; I hung out under a ledge to get out of the rain.
And then, we did what we should have done long before--we turned back and retraced our steps. Steve slipped on the same rock as I, which made my fall seem a bit more justified. I have no pictures (except for the "arrow") during our lost period, primarily because I was just ready to be back at the car and done with that hike.
We ran into those campers that we had been observing earlier. One of the men offered to walk us to the turnoff. He was from Chicago and probably thought that these people from SLC were too stupid to notice that TEN, or just about ten, cairns marked the turn-off. Luckily, he said nothing of the sort. I might have kicked him in the shin.
And now I will never mock a cairn again.
Total hiking mileage: 18.6 miles (thanks to the GPS)
If someone had said to me that morning, "Hey, want to hike 18.6 miles today?" I would have firmly declined.
In this case, I guess we were truly the band on the run.
And then it started to snow.
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