Spring 2024 Southwestern Swing, 4.01.24 - 5.06.24, Part 13, Thousand Pockets
At this point in our visit to Page, Arizona, we had done everything on the planned itinerary with the exception of Coal Mine Canyon/Blue Canyon which was cancelled due to inclement weather. Since that was supposed to be an overnighter, we now had two days to fill before leaving for Kanab. But what to do? I considered Horseshoe Bend but it is such a tourist trap for one view that it just didn’t rock my boat. I also considered the Wahweap Hoodoos. I would very much like to get to these elegant hoodoos but it’s a ten mile out and back and the forecast for the next two days was a bit shaky with a good chance for rains and possible winds. Saturday looked better than Friday so on Friday we just puttered around and wasted the day. I researched some more and came up with a good plan for Saturday.
One of the areas I had read about before even going on this trip was called Thousand Pockets. It intrigued me because it was in the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument. We had driven along the southside of these gorgeous cliffs a couple of years ago and ventured into the monument when we went to White Pocket which was one of the most amazing places I’ve ever been. The Wave is located inside its boundary and we had plans to visit another part of the Vermilion Cliffs in the coming week. All those other spots were on the southwest side of Vermilion Cliffs but Thousand Pockets is located on the northeastern side of the monument. I checked with my desert guru Gary. He had never been but had it high on his list of places to go. So I didn’t have a lot of info but from what little I did have, it sounded worth investigating.
It rained lightly throughout the night. It was still drizzling when I got up at six but within a couple of hours the rain stopped, the sky cleared up a bit and it warmed up to t-shirt weather. The forecast still called for a possibility of more rain after noon, but I had already sat around for a whole day and I wasn’t about to lose another to the weather. Bridgit opted out because it sounded like a lot of hiking miles and even elevation gain. Add getting rained on to the mix and she was happy to let me go and have some solo fun.
I left around 8:45AM and drove up 89 past the dam. Very close to the turnoff for Wahweap Overlook on the opposite side of the highway was my turnoff to Ferry Swale Road. I was a little apprehensive about the chance of driving through deep sand but I was also happy it had rained which can make the sand firmer for driving. The first mile was old chewed up pavement and then turned into a dirt road. I drove by a vehicle that had stopped and asked the driver (Trent) if he was going to Thousand Pockets. He was and had been there before and assured me the Jeep should do fine on the road. I pushed on, following the road for about five miles until I came to a gate. I figured I had to park here but then Trent came up behind and said it was okay to go through the gate and that the actual place to park was just under a mile further. It turned out he was a a guide and taking two women to Thousand Pockets. We went through the gate, drove down a rocky hill and found a small turnaround spot and parked. I showed him my Gaia map and asked him if my intended route seemed sound. He pointed to some white rocks high on the top of a ridge and said that was where Thousand Pockets started. He said there is no trail so just pick your own route. His clients were taking their time getting ready so I thanked him and headed out. That was the last I saw of them and never saw another person on this entire hike which I absolutely love.
The route starts out on a closed sandy dirt track. Due to the recent rains, bright pink flowers were popping out all over the desert as the cactus were in full bloom. I followed the sandy track for maybe a half mile until it petered out and then turned south and headed straight for a high wall of slickrock. With no trail, I just hiked across untracked desert through sage and lots of cactus. Crossing a wash, I soon came to the base of the ridge. If I could negotiate the steep hillside it would be the most direct line to the white rocks Trent had pointed out to me.
Possibly the most incredible National Monument in the country
Desert blooms
Thousand Pockets is somewhere up there
Climbing up the ridge was very easy and enjoyable. It involved traversing back and forth up a series of slickrock ledges. I gained about six hundred feet before coming to the top of the ridge. I didn’t have a route on Gaia, but I did have a map to follow. It showed a feature called Hourglass Double Arch so I made my way towards this spot. It was incredibly cool with contorted twisty rock and a large fin of rock jutting out of the top.
The rock ledges on the ridge climb
Hourglass Double Arch formation
Fun rock everywhere
Hourglass Double Arch formation
The Great Fin
Amazing what forces shaped these rocks
Climbing up onto the rocks I had a good view of the entire area which was huge. I really wasn’t sure even where to begin, but I made a plan to roughly do a loop by heading east, then south, then west and finish up heading north to get back. It’s hard to describe the feeling of being completely alone in such a wondrous place. I felt like a pioneer discovering a treasure for the first time.
After exploring the rocks around Hourglass Double Arch I made my way east across some beautiful slickrock flats to another great pile of rock. Here I came across a feature I didn’t see anywhere else in the area. It was a line of rock that had been uplifted to almost a vertical angle and the wind and rain had created a row of thin rock fins covered in colorful lichen. Some of the fins were only centimeters thick.
I was having a blast wandering through this stuff
The rock fins
The rock fins
Some of these fins were as thin as a potato chip
From the fins I worked my way to a point on the far southeastern edge of the area. It was a long way over there but I had nothing better to do and time wasn’t an issue. I got to an area of raised rounded rock ridges with deep water pockets in between. Some were like big toilet bowls, maybe fifteen feet deep. I was hoping to see more of the water pockets filled with rainwater from all the recent rain but most were dry. At my furthest point that I hiked to in the southeastern section I came to a rock point where I took a nice break. There was a flat meadow area about a hundred feet below me. Across from the meadow I was looking at a great wall of chocolate brown rock with crazy, twisted lighter rock on the top of the wall. Looking at my map I figured that the other side of this wall was the Paria River. If you were to hike Buckskin Gulch all the way to Lee’s Ferry, it would take you down the Paria past this point. It looked like some really wild country.
One of the few water pockets I found that actually had water in it
Deep water pockets near the southeast point
The great wall above the Paria River
Amazing rock at the top of the Paria Ridge
After a really nice break I began to head west towards a prominent “bullseye” rock in the distance. Now I was almost due south from Hourglass Double Arch. On my map it showed that the spot that was actually called Thousand Pockets was still to the west of the arch so I wanted to finish up my hike checking out that area. As I made my way north the rain started. I got out my rain jacket, but to protect my camera gear I wore it over my day pack which meant I couldn’t zip it up in the front. It wasn’t ideal and I should have just brought a pack cover but I didn’t. I didn’t mind the rain but it was hard enough that I thought it best to start heading back. I skirted through the area called Thousand Pockets and it seemed to be just that. It was a large expanse of slickrock with most likely a thousand water pockets. I wish I had stayed longer to explore that area but by now I was getting a bit wet and it was time to move on.
Instead of going back down the rock ledges on the east side of Hourglass Double Arch, I followed a wash down further west in the Thousand Pockets area. This proved to be challenging. Washes are great to hike down until you come to a thirty foot pour-off. With no way down, I had to work my way around the pour-off and then find another way to get back into the wash. This happened a few times as I made my way down to the desert floor. During this stretch the rain stopped, the sun came out and I dried up quickly. Once I got back down to the desert floor I simply headed across the desert until I came to the abandoned road that led back to my Jeep.
“Bullseye Rock”
More bullseye rocks
Approaching rainstorm through a small arch along the way
One of several pour-offs to negotiate
While hiking through the desert it is best to avoid kicking one of these
Rain makes the cacti happy
The desert floor was covered with these blooms
All in all, I spent about six hours in Thousand Pockets. Even though I kept looking for them, I never saw Trent and his clients or anyone else the entire day. Heavenly! It had been a phenomenal day. Thousand Pockets was an excellent substitute for our cancelled trip to Coal Mine Canyon/Blue Canyon and a great way to wrap up our first visit to the Page area. We celebrated our success over dinner at Big John’s BBQ. Along with the Bird House, this is an essential eating spot in Page. Now it was time to move on to Kanab, Utah for the last week of our great adventure!