The 30th Anniversary Tour, 9.19.22 - 10.15.22, Part 7 of 12: White Pocket

Oh let the sun beat down upon my face, with stars to fill my dream. I am a traveler of both time and space, to be where I have been. “Kashmir” - Led Zeppelin

As we move into this segment of the 30th Anniversary Tour, I need to explain a little bit about our original itinerary plan and how White Pocket fit into it. I discovered White Pocket through internet research and didn’t know anyone who had ever been there. It sparked my interest because of the photos I was finding online. It was a place so strangely diverse, so wild looking that I couldn’t help but want to see it for myself.

White Pocket is an isolated area of Navajo sandstone located in the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument. More simply, it is in northern Arizona very near the Utah border sort of in between the towns of Kanab, Utah and Page, Arizona. It is quite close to another vastly more famous place known as The Wave. Scores of people try to get a coveted permit to hike to The Wave of which fewer than 3% are successful. On the other hand, White Pocket is still relatively unknown, harder to get to and thus much less popular.

I had big plans for White Pocket. To really do it justice, I knew I had to photograph it both at sunset and sunrise which meant camping there overnight. The original itinerary called for Gina, Bridgit and I to drive from the Grand Canyon to Jacob Lake Campground, a three hour drive. We would get the Navibahn situated, load up the Jeep with tents and whatever else we needed to stay overnight and drive to White Pocket. Free dispersed camping is allowed there so we would set up our tents and then I would have that evening and the next morning to explore and photograph White Pocket.

Enter my new online friend Gary. Gary, who emigrated from Houston, Texas (y’all) to Virgin, Utah some twenty years ago, had been to White Pocket more than once. He provided me with a wealth of information about the road which was the sketchiest part of the plan. He gave me confidence that I could get in there unless the road had deteriorated or if it was too wet. Like almost everyone else, he thought airing down would be a good idea so I went out and bought an air compressor for the Jeep. I tested it at home by airing down a tire and refilling it back up, but that was the extent of my experience with airing down. Gary also provided me with numerous other options of things to see and do in the area. All that would be great had I not already had a reservation for Zion afterwards but we only had the two days allotted for White Pocket. One of the places he insisted I go was further up the main road to a slot canyon called Wire Pass. A short hike through this very beautiful slot canyon would lead us to a junction with the famed Buckskin Gulch. Buckskin Gulch is the longest slot canyon in the world and is known for its incredibly high and narrow walls. In only a six mile round trip, he said we could hike through the Wire Pass slot, down a beautiful section of Buckskin Gulch and back again. Since we had no plans other than to relax after returning to the Navibahn from White Pocket, it made total sense to me to take a side trip to Wire Pass Trailhead and do a day hike before going back to Jacob Lake. Then the following morning we could sleep in and then head to Zion which was only two hours from Jacob Lake.

Now then, why am I even bothering to tell you all this? If you read the previous installment you already knew that the ranger told me White Pocket was inaccessible due to water damaged roads. When we found out we couldn’t go to White Pocket we decided to explore the north rim of the Grand Canyon instead. I had already resigned myself to the fact that White Pocket was out and had done enough quick research to decide we would drive down to the north rim from Jacob Lake and see Bright Angel Point, Cape Royal and maybe even squeeze in a sunrise at Point Imperial before heading to Zion. Read on my friends, because fate has a funny way of rearing its head.

Since we weren’t going to White Pocket, we were in no need of getting to Jacob Lake super early so we took our time. The drive from the Grand Canyon up 89 to Marble Canyon was positively gorgeous. The whole way up 89 we had a great wall of red sandstone paralleling the road and from Marble Canyon we drove right alongside the incredible Vermilion Cliffs before climbing out of the valley to Jacob Lake. It is hard to fathom how much beauty there is in the southwest.

When we got to Kaibab Camper Village we settled into our site and Gina got situated in her tent site. We figured since we had the entire next day to explore the north rim we would just take the afternoon off, relax, bbq a good dinner and maybe play some guitar around the fire. And that’s just what we did. Sort of. For grins, I made another call to the field office just in case anything had changed at White Pocket. Since my last call (the day before) they had gotten one report from a day hiker who stated that the main road up to Wire Pass Trailhead was open and passable. He also said that the Wire Pass slot was dry, there was still a wooden ladder in place where there was a high pour-off (although there is also a bypass to this) but that Buckskin Gulch had pockets of chest deep water and areas of quicksand. Well I thought that the Wire Pass slot sounded much more interesting than more Grand Canyon views so we made the decision right there to make a day trip the next morning to Wire Pass and hike the slot canyon as far as Buckskin Gulch and then turn around. And here’s where fate intervened. I told my plan to Shelli, the campground host and included how disappointed I was that we had to scrap our White Pocket plan. Well Shelli and her husband Ron have been to White Pocket as well and she just flat out told me I really needed to just go for it. Granted, we had no new information on conditions but it hadn’t rained in several days and she was so enthusiastic that I knew right then and there we were going to have to try for White Pocket.

At first I thought it would be our day trip instead of to Wire Pass but since Zion was only a two hour drive I thought we could actually pull off leaving in the morning, staying overnight and then drive back to Jacob Lake the next morning so we could pack up and check out by their checkout time. It would mean not going to Wire Pass but we wouldn’t have been able to do Buckskin anyway. That’s already on next fall’s itinerary!

So now my excitement level is out the roof and my brain was going a mile per second thinking about White Pocket. I got the Jeep all loaded up and then we had the rest of the night to kick back. And we did. We took the afternoon off, we had a nice fire, we bbq’ed up a good meal and I played guitar for a couple of hours with Gina accompanying me on a small conga drum she had brought along for the occasion.

The morning of October 6th we finished loading up the Jeep and set out for our overnight adventure. We drove back down to the bottom of the mountain and turned up House Rock Valley Road. This was a dirt road but in great shape. We followed it up the flat valley for just over nine miles until we reached an old corral by the side of the road. Here we turned off onto a slightly rougher road but still very manageable. I put the Jeep into 4H as a precaution but could have easily driven this stretch in 2WD. About six miles further we came to an old ranch. Here was a turnoff onto another road and where I’d read the miles of deep sand began. Right at that turn a vehicle came out from the direction of White Pocket. He assured me that my Jeep would have no problem getting in, even without airing down. He also gave us a tip on where to camp and then he was off. Now I was really getting excited. Without airing down, we turned and headed up the final nine and a half miles to White Pocket. We did indeed encounter plenty of deep sand. Most of the road was two very deep ruts filled with sand with a high mound of harder dirt in the middle. I was worried about clearance but the Jeep never once bottomed out. In the deepest sections we made sure to stay at a steady pace and gave it a bit extra going up the hills. There were several rock steps to drive up and over but nothing I hadn’t done before. When we saw the sign for White Pocket, we knew we had arrived!

When we got to White Pocket there was a large parking area surrounded by a log fence. We saw about ten vehicles there but guessed (correctly) that most if not all of them would leave before dark. Following the tip from the guy we ran into, we parked on the far left end of the lot as you drive in. There was a little break in the fence and we found a great spot amongst some juniper trees to pitch our tents only about twenty yards from the Jeep.

We had arrived by about 11:30AM. After setting up camp it was time to check out this place. From the camp you could only see the tops of some buttes. We walked through the gate in the center of the fence and followed a sandy wash for about four hundred yards. Topping a small rise, we were now gazing down on a large expanse of slickrock. We abruptly left the sand and transitioned to slickrock. Bizarre shapes of convoluted rock sprawled out before us. To the right was mostly grayish white rock with a surface that can only be described as cauliflower. Ahead and to our left was a plain of white and red rock all mixed together in swirls and odd patterns. A host of hoodoos, small hills and large buttes were further back, completely multi-colored and contorted into twisted shapes.

Almost immediately we came upon little pockets and pools of water. I had been wondering whether we would see any water at all this late in the year but perhaps due to the recent rains and much to my delight, there were pools all over the place. Where to begin? We started out heading to the right to check out the area of cauliflower rock. The pools of water were amazing. By lowering my iPhone all the way to the surface of the water I could get incredible reflection shots of the hills in the water pools. It was all so spectacular. Some of the pools were small and shallow but there were plenty of much larger pools all over the place tucked into odd nooks and crannies. We wandered around the east side of the cauliflower mounds and I could see an entire lower section of White Pocket with lots more twisty rock and pools. I made a mental note to go back and check that out later. Instead, we worked our way around the “front” of White Pocket. Heading over to the red and white larger bluffs, we came across a series of conical rock pyramids that looked like giant beehives. It was all so cool!

I couldn’t even believe how great the colors were even in the middle of the day! We went back to camp and relaxed for a bit, just reveling in our good fortune to have made it to such an incredible place. Around four I took off by myself for another round of photography. I think it may have been one of the better photo sessions I’ve ever had. The late afternoon light made the colors even more incredible and with perfect weather the pools were as still as glass. As the sun slowly lowered in the sky, I must have wandered around for several miles all over White Pocket. The colors of the rocks were phenomenal. The reds and yellows were brilliant and contrasted wonderfully with the white cauliflower rock and the azure sky.

I found several pools I hadn’t seen on my first outing and got some mind=blowing refections. I had scouted out the area on our first hike out there and used my compass to calculate where I wanted to be later in the afternoon which really helped a lot. I headed over around the front side to the multi-colored rock face I had seen earlier with the beehive rocks. As I dropped down the slickrock to the base of the beehives I found a large still pool of deep blue water that provided fantastic reflections of the multi-colored knob. Then I backtracked and dropped down a gap maybe a hundred feet to the lower section. There I found more great pools, incredible rock formations and my camera was purring like a contented kitten. Bridgit had come out to meet me but by then the sun had pretty much set so we made our way back to camp for the night.

We slept really well. In the morning Bridgit and I were up and out on the rock before sunup. This time I focused more on the east side where the sun would hit the cauliflower rock before working my way around the front side. More gems and more great light. It was truly a photographer’s paradise. I got everything I had hoped for and more.

A huge debt of gratitude goes out to Shelli back at Kaibab Camper Village for encouraging me to go for it. She and her husband Ron were super nice folks and they run a really nice campground. I have a feeling we will be staying there again. I would go back to White Pocket in a heartbeat!

The 30th Anniversary Tour, 9.19.22 - 10.15.22, Part 7 of 12: White Pocket

The 30th Anniversary Tour, 9.19.22 - 10.15.22, Part 6 of 12: Grand Canyon National Park

The 30th Anniversary Tour, 9.19.22 - 10.15.22, Part 8 of 12: Zion National Park/Angel’s Landing