Buckskin Gulch, Kanab, UT
I have heard some interesting things about Buckskin Gulch. I know that it starts from Kanab, Utah and is a “13-mile corridor of stone so deep you can barely see the sky and so narrow it sometimes forces you to remove your pack to get through….in the entire region, there’s no start to a hike as dramatic as Buckskin Gulch’s two-mile squeeze through the two-foot-wide passage of Wire Pass. (Adventure Magazine)” It sounds pretty cool. Peter Potterfield even rates is as one of the top ten classic hikes of the world for 2005 in Adventure Magazine. However, my dad told me about a part of it that is referred to as the “cesspool.” From what I understand, it is a section of the Gulch that is only washed out during the high water of a flash flood. During the rest of the time, the water is stagnating and bodies of animals caught in the flash floods rot in the water. That seems pretty gross to me. My wife said that if we were to go that I would have to give her a piggy-back ride across it. Does anyone reading this know if it is really that bad? Was my dad lying? Worse maybe? Is it bad but worth it for the cool hike? Let me know.
Also, in the same Adventure Magazine article, the John Muir Trail in California is rated in the top ten. That and Buckskin are the only two on the list in the lower forty-eight states. Go Utah! (and California)
2 comments February 25th, 2006
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