2022 Spring Utah Adventure, 4.23.22 - 5.12.22, Part 3 of 12

As soon as we left Panguitch for our camp above Red Canyon we were on UT-12 which is the western end of the Scenic Byway that provides non-stop and ever changing scenery all the way to Torrey, Utah and Capitol Reef National Park. From there the amazing views continue on US-24 past Hanksville and all the way north to I-70. There may be a more beautiful state in the country but I haven’t seen it yet. Utah is an astounding array of texture and color.

We packed up and left Red Canyon, drove past the entrance to Bryce Canyon and down into the town of Tropic where we did a quick grocery run. From there a short drive took us to Kodachrome Basin State Park. We arrived early in the morning by design and parked our rigs in a large trailhead parking lot since our sites would not be available for several more hours. While we waited we all took the Jeep maybe halfway back to the highway and turned down the Skutmpah Road. I followed this road for just over six miles to a signed trailhead for Willis Creek where we parked. I was extremely excited for this hike as I knew the others had no idea what they were about to get into. I had never been here either but from my research I knew this would be pretty special and I wasn’t wrong.

**Bridgit and Dana at the Willis Creek trailhead**

The main gist of this hike is to enter the dry creek bed and simply follow it down for 1.2 miles, turn around and hike back up. You can drop straight into the creek from the road but there are several pour-offs that make that a challenge so we used the popular bypass trail to access the creek.

**End of the bypass trail where it drops into the creek bed**

As soon as you reach the creek it winds around a corner and almost immediately the walls begin to get higher on either side. Soon we were surrounded by high canyon walls with weird twisted shapes carved by thousands of years of water slicing through the rock. The section of Willis Creek that we hiked basically had three main sections of narrows. We would go through a really cool section, then it would open up for a ways before narrowing into another narrows section. I had read that after the third section of narrows it opens up and that’s pretty much the end of the really cool stuff so at that point we turned around and retraced our steps back to the trailhead. In narrows and slot canyons, hiking in the opposite direction can almost be like an entirely different hike so doing and out and back is not necessarily a bad thing when it comes to canyon hiking.

**The entrance to the first narrows section**

**Dana and Bob entering the first narrows section**

**One of the cooler sections where the walls get high and narrow**

**Dana coming out of a narrows section**

**This was a spot known as a pour-off where the creek bed drops over a cliff and continues further down. Luckily there was an easy bypass of this section.**

By the time we finished hiking Willis Creek and drove back to Kodachrome Basin it was time to check in to our sites. Kodachrome Basin State Park is an absolutely beautiful place and it was such a treat to be able to camp there even if it was for just one night. Bridgit and I had been here once before last year but during that trip we had stayed in a different campground and had come into the park for an evening hike on a spectacular trail known as the Angel’s Palace Trail. We had more plans here for the next day so after we got set up we just hung around and in short order my best man Harry and his wife Annie arrived. They were on their way to points further east but had made arrangements to meet up for a couple of days which was great. We bbq’d chicken and sat around soaking up the views from the campsite until they headed back to their motel in Tropic about seven miles away.

Bridgit and I really, really love Kodachrome Basin. The color of the rocks are so vivid and the landscape is so strange and wonderful. I’m sure I could spend a week here and never get bored.

One of the odd things about this park is the amount of spires sticking up all over the place. Oddly enough, they are formed underground and then the softer top layers erode away, leaving the spires.

**Description of how the spires are formed**

Behind our campsite was one of the trademark icons of Kodachrome Basin known as Geoduck Spire (pronounced gooeyduck), named after the large saltwater clams common along the Pacific Northwest Coast. Bridgit and Dana, quite sure that there are no geoducks in Utah, felt that Stiffy Spire might have been a more appropriate name.

Our first deviation from the itinerary came the following morning. The original plan was to take the Jeep about twelve miles down a road from Kodachrome Basin and hike another cool narrows called Cottonwood Wash Narrows which would have been a 3.2 mile out and back hike. On the way back we would have stopped by a cool arch near the road called Grosvenor Arch. Dana and Bob weren’t that keen on doing another hike that morning, Annie was content to kick back at the motel and Bridgit was content to sleep in so this freed up Harry and I to do a hike right in the park. Bob was chomping at the bit to drive his side by side so he and Dana left early and drove about ten miles down the road to Grosvenor Arch and back which they said was quite cool. Harry drove in early in the morning and we started on the 6.5 mile Panorama Trail before the sun even came up.

**We started where the dotted line meets the road below where the map says “Jeep”. Going in a clockwise loop, we hit all the side mini-loops and trails.**

This was a real treat for Harry and me. Despite the fact that I’ve known him for over fifty years, our only other real hike together was our epic backpack trip to Tapto Lakes Basin in North Cascades National Park with Neighbor Greg and Mike Kent several years ago. So we were both really happy to be on a trail together again. Our early start also provided for having the entire trail to ourselves the entire hike until just before we got back to the trailhead. It was a beautiful morning.

**From the short side trail to Panorama Point we could see the sun rise on the entire amphitheater of Bryce Canyon off in the distance.**

**Kodachrome Basin pano from Panorama Point**

**Exquisite morning light along the Panorama Trail**

**Approaching the entrance to The Cool Cave/Panorama Trail**

**Harry entering The Cool Cave/Panorama Trail**

The entire morning turned out to be fantastic for everyone. Bob and Dana had a blast driving the side by side down to the arch, Bridgit and Annie both had good mornings and Harry and I had a fantastic hike and were back by ten to get ready for our next adventure!

2022 Spring Utah Adventure, 4.23.22 - 5.12.22, Part 3 of 12

Spring 2022 Utah Adventure, 4.23.22 - 5.12.22, Part 2 of 12

2022 Spring Utah Adventure, 4.23.22 - 5.12.22, Part 4 of 12