Kane Gulch To Bullet Canyon Loop, Grand Gulch, Cedar Mesa- April 2022

When your friend has a permit to a very special place, and throws you an invite, you accept that invite! I have always wanted to visit the Cedar Mesa area. But to get a 20 mile, 3 day, 2 night backpacking trip in April in Utah is my kind of good time! Its been nearly a decade since I have done a backpacking trip in the desert. Most of my time I am in the alpine, so this was dusting off some cobwebs to get ready for the trip. Especially that even on a good water year this place is one of the most arid places in all of Utah. Water is scarce in Grand Gulch, and any adventure planned for, water better be your first objective to reach. We made the 5 1/2 hour drive to Cedar Mesa, then went to a spot that I scoped out before leaving which would make for a car camp before we entered Kane Gulch on Friday. We found a great spot with an overlook. We got camp set up and we settled in. We did a few walks out to the rim of the overlook that we were camped near. Beautiful is an understatement. This was by far the best car camp spot I have had in a few years. We watched the sun set, made dinner, hung out for a bit, then we both turned in.

We awoke at sunrise, made breakfast, then broke camp. Our objective for the morning was to drop a shuttle vehicle at the Bullet Canyon trailhead, then put another at Kane Gulch Ranger Station so we had a vehicle when we exited Bullet Canyon. Once the transportation was set, we put on the packs and headed on in. Both of us decide to carry 2 liters because we had good info on where the water was. Its typical high altitude Utah desert until you start descending into the canyon. There were several obstacles you went around, but nothing that required scrambling. When there was a trail it was pretty easy to follow, when there wasn't just look for a carin, it will get you in the right direction. There was actually good water about half of the way down before you reached the bottom of Kane Gulch. When we got to the junction with Grand Gulch the spring there was dry. We moved down Grand Gulch as our destination for night one was Toadie Canyon.

As we hiked Grand Gulch, its treasures in history started to reveal themselves. First some ruins, then one of the places I wanted to see was the Turkey Pen Ruins. We thought we had missed them but realized that they were just a bit farther than we thought. This is an amazing ruin, with a collapsed house, graineries, and a stick fenced Turkey Pen that the inhabitants used to corral wild turkeys in. There were pottery shards everywhere. I found these three laying on a rock by the Turkey Pens.

As we moved down Grand Gulch, we saw more ruins from teh trail, and Stimper Arch which sits up on a cliff and was just awesome to see! The bottom of the canyon was sand and wash from a ancient river that used to run in here. We eventually moved on and finished our day off by arriving at Toadie Canyon. We had good info there was water here, but we did not know where it was. There was a bit of a panic moment as we knew we were going to have to go really far to get water if there was nothing here. but alas we found the source just a bit of the way up the canyon. Both of us filled up everything we had and then brought our dirty bags full to camp incase we needed more water. We set up camp, ate dinner, and both of us crawled into the the tents at sunset.

We awoke to some chilly temps, but a rapidly rising sun. I made breakfast, then had coffee, then we packed it up. As soon as the sun was on us we were moving. Grand Gulch is a series of footpaths that cross a very large wash that has evidence of flooding in modern times. You can walk in the river channel as you go, but you will have to take trails around log jams and choke points. Its up and down river beds which are all sand and have no water. We saw some ruins and had to navigate a pour off and some short but steep loose sandy slopes as we made our way to Sheiks Canyon. We soon came upon more ruins Split Level Ruin which is one of the better known sites in the gulch. We moved on and saw a large garden of prickly pear and barrel cactus, and yucca plants growing everywhere. So we would find another ruin which what actually really nice and not marked on any maps. It had this old dead tree in the sand that was pretty stoic and was a nice land mark. There were some ruins and pottery shards.

As we continued down Grand Gulch the scenery just kept blowing our minds. We eventually came to Thumb Pour Off, a pretty well known feature. Its is one of the most shallow pour offs in the gulch, but most recognizable. We continued our walk and eventually ended up Sheiks Canyon. This canyon had the one ruin we were hoping to see because it has the infamous Green Mask pictograph. We put priorities first and filled up our water, then we move the packs to the shade and climbed up to the Green Mask Ruin. The story goes there was a burial site in another part of the canyon and the mummified body was wearing this same mask. There is also another site in the area with the same pictograph. There were structures and other very interesting pictographs. We spent a considerable amount of time hydrating and filling up 3 L each to make sure we had enough water for the last night in this area. We moved on and junctioned with Bullet Canyon which had us trudging sand for miles. There was some elevation gain as evening set in and we found a spot in the general vicinty of the Jailhouse Spring. This is where we would spend our final night. We were tired, it was the hottest day of the trip, and we knew we had to get out early as the drive home was over five hours. We both crashed at sundown.

Morning came with a little less wind and clear skies, but cool temps. We each decided since it was between 4-5 miles, we would just carry a liter of water to stay light and fast. This was such an amazing climb which was hiking at times, to navigating rock fall and choke points, to some light scrambling to gain a ledge. As we got closer to the rim, we started navigating pour offs and those were a good challenge are so unique as terrian to navigate with a full backpack on. The last mile was more channel walking and one final scramble that puts you up to the Bullet Canyon trailhead. What an amazing weekend! 20 miles, 3 days, 2 nights, and so much primitve human history.

This was an amazing adventure to a new area that I will visit again. Enjoy the pics and my YouTube video from this trip. Its great to be backpacking again! More adventures to come!