New Site!

I have a new site now.  I have switched over from wordpress.com to having it hosted for real.  just click on this link to my new and improved page and enjoy!

Anticipation.

We are moving right along getting ready for the start of spring guiding season.  Our insurance is in and we should be just days away from having our Kanab BLM field office permit.  This is but the first step for our little company to be the top dog in outdoor rec in Southern Utah.

My mind keeps reeling back to some places that I have recently explored.  A couple of weeks back I explored a canyon near Kanab called Willis Canyon (not to be confused with Willis Creek near Cannonville).  As I reached the large head wall, I noticed a perfectly placed tree for a nice 90 foot rappel down into a convoluted slot.  I kept thinking, a slot in the Vermilion cliffs?  I set up the rappel with a “Biner block” and some pull cord and made my way down into the depths.  A crystal clear pool of water not too deep, waited for me at the bottom.  Obviously a spring coming out of the sandstone.  I love this dang area.  As I made my way out of the slot the ground became very spongy and I started sinking in the quick sand, I hurried and jumped to higher ground.  As the creek formed, the willows poped up.  I thought to myself, “Welcome to the Jungle” along with the song playing in the background.  Argg.  These willows really make travel tough.  I though well, its the winter and daylight will be fading soon so maybe I should bail.  I took off up the south western slope up and out of the canyon onto the scrub lands crossing other drainage’s.  Up above me was a mesa top that was easily 700 feet of elevation high. I though, man it would be cool to get up on top of that thing.  Then I thought, it would probably cliff out on the other side and I would have to back track but then I remember, well I have rope so why not?  I trudged up the super sandy hill stopping at one point to down a pack of Sardines.  My wife hates sardines.  MMMM, especially mustard ones.  There’s protein for ya!  I need a breath mint just thinking about it.  Anyway, I made it to the top of the mesa and started following the edge around to see if it lead me back to my jeep.  All of the sudden I started seeing a lot of Indian Pottery Shards.  Interesting.  The pottery shards kept showing up and I followed them back to some Anasazi Pit Houses.  Those Indians were amazing.  Soon, I found a non tech route back down to my car as I completed a nice day hike.  Very tough for your average tourist but I had a fun day.  I need to go back and revamp my route and see if I can make a fun tourist type route into the slot.

Stay tuned as I will be setting up some first of the season discounts for clients this spring.

Nick Smith

Seldom Seen Adventures

Bob Gett’n Down

My friend Bob Clayton on rap in a side canyon of the Gulch Escalante Ut.

A LOOK AT PUGH CANYON

This is one of the canyons we will be guiding in this spring.

See you there!

Its just about time

It is just about time to realize our dreams.  My wife Julie and I have dreamed about this for the last couple of years.  It has been a difficult road full of a bit of disappointment.  In a couple of weeks  we will have our liability insurance.  It was told to us that this is the last step in getting our permit for the Kanab BLM field office.  We will be taking a step back from Escalante and we will be focusing our effort on the Kanab area which offers us a lot of potential for great canyoneering and back-country hiking.  I also have some fun news to offer.  I am creating a second blog which I am callingvwww.intotheseldomseen.wordpress.com.  This blog will be for reviewing outdoor gear and clothing.  My favorite brands like OR, North Face, Patagonia, Marmot, Mammut, Mountain Hardware, and many others.

Great news

Ok so we are a green light to start guiding in the Kanab area come spring 2012.  The area is filled with hidden canyons full of springs and slots.  We will offer canyoneering, hiking, and custom maps.  Call us today and set up your trip.  We can offer our expert advice for your trip through all of Southern Utah.  We know good places to stay, things to do, the stuff that you can only find by spending years exploring or knowing just the right people.  435-689-1884

Free Information on hikes in Escalante

Whats a blog worth if you we don’t give you some free goodies?  So we are giving you a choice few of our favorite locations off the beaten path in the Escalante area.

Unnamed slot canyon near Heads of the Rock

A few bumps in the road.

Well things haven’t quite gotten off on the right track like we hoped it would.  Our permits for the Grand Staircase have been put on hold for what we can assume is for some bureaucratic reason.  Actually that is exactly the reason.  While we did everything right on our side of things, the BLM did not come through for us.  So now instead of guiding on the GSENM this year, we will be offering detailed custom maps of routes to some of the more popular areas.  Zebra and Tunnel Slots, Peekaboo and Spooky Slots, Phipps Arch and Maverick Bridge, Neon Canyon and the Golden Cathedral, Death Hollow Sneak Route, Big Horn Slot, Red Breaks Slot, and many more to come.  I am not sure what my asking price is yet but in the coming weeks I will have that information for you.  If you have any interest please don’t hesitate to call @435-689-1884.

The last couple of weeks

The last couple of weeks have been spent up in the heads of the rock area of the Escalante area in the Grand Staircase.  Lots of local history can be found in the area.

It’s easy to see after visiting the Escalante area, that the settlers of the area must have been dumfounded when they looked out across the slick rock of the area.  Surely they had never seen nor imagined land like this.  To them, the world was green hills of England and woodlands from the East Coast.  How does a pioneer cultivate land like this for farming?  Usually they would plant their crops next to the few rivers and streams that dot the area.  Only to find flash floods wiping them out by mid summer.  To really harness the land, large canal systems had to be built to pull the water away from the flood channels.

The area is home to two small towns, Escalante and Boulder.  These towns are unique in that they were separated by some significant canyon systems that impeded travel from one to the other.  Eventually some early wagon roads were created to bridge the two settlements.

One attempt at a wagon road was called the Boynton Wagon road.  It is a small narrow trail cut right into the Navajo Sand Stone as it weaves its way down a very steep 1000 ft drop all the way to the Escalante River, then up and out over the slickrock plains to the settlement of Salt Gulch and eventually Boulder.

To walk down the Boynton Wagon Road is exciting because it makes you think just how wild and indomitable this land is.  The road was only used for a few years before rock falls and washouts made it impossible to use.  Nearby another attempt at a road is called the Cream Cellar road.  For a while, the ranchers were convinced that they could make extra money if they could sell the cream from their cows to a local creamery in a settlement called Antimony.  They built a better road to get the cream there sooner, but it too was washed away and abandoned.  An interesting side note is that the Cream Crocs would shake in the back of the wagons and tied to the animals that were carrying them, so the cream would turn to butter mid trip.  Some would expire from the heat of the sun and explode scaring the animals and spilling over the wagons contents, this happened quite a few times and the settlers abandoned their hopes for the cream.

The Cream Cellar Road

Call today at 435-689-1884 and explore with us the exciting history of the area.

Here’s to a great week!

Sarah, Richard, and I and their significant others got together this week to go over a lot of our trails and I think it went really well. We found some new stuff too out near Dr. Seuss land that just adds to the wonder and amazement of the landscape of that area. Every little side canyon in the area offers another worldlike experience. We are lucky to have stumbled upon one of the most ominous looking slot canyons I have seen yet. In one section of this unnamed slot, the upper wallls have collapsed leaving a completly dark tunnel about 70 feet long. In fact, I think I know what I will call it. “Ominouso”
Pictures coming!