pritchett canyon

Yeah, the country/world has gone completely mad since my last post.  But we had a couple of soups in the freezer and a bunch of beer so we went to Moab on Friday. 

Ready. For. Anything.

Social distancing is not difficult for us: we scarcely go out to eat since we went vegan and we try really, really hard to find trails that don't have many people on them.  The only real change for us  was that this time we didn't go hang out at Woody's - which saved us some money.

The Brickyard obstacle

We knew where we wanted to hike on Saturday: Pritchett Canyon.  H had been watching some jeeping videos in that canyon - it has the highest difficulty rating of all the April Jeep Safari trails - and noticed how pretty it was.  We wanted to check it out before OHVing got into full swing.  You do have to pay a small entrance fee to access the canyon because the trail crosses private land, but after you walk through the campground, you're back on BLM land.

Milton in cruise mode

What makes Pritchett Canyon so difficult?  The eight+ obstacles that will stymie the average rig.  Many of these obstacles have winch anchors; most of them involve step-ups over five feet high.  There are lots of off-camber angles to deal with and rollovers are more common than not.  For hiking, it's straightforward since it's a jeep road, but the footing is mixed, with sand and cobbles and slickrock and ledges, and it's fairly long.

Milton and me atop Chewy

When you're on foot (two or four), these obstacles are no big deal.  But they are impressive to look at as you climb up them.  We were hoping that we would see some vehicles attempting them on our hike back out (if you're hiking, this is a 9+ mile out-and-back; if you're in a jeep, you can make a loop out of it.

Rocker Knocker: double ledge, nearly impossible if wet

Pritchett Canyon is also very, very pretty.  There was more green than I expected, even though the creek doesn't run year-round.  The canyon walls are high and there are numerous side canyons and rock features.  We heard canyon wrens trilling their lovely songs for nearly half the hike.

Arch in the wall after Rocker Knocker 

Since this trail didn't have too much slickrock, we weren't planning on making Milton wear his new shoes the whole time.  We put the front ones on, intending to have him wear them for a couple miles, just to keep getting used to them.  He lost one of them a half mile into the canyon but, incredibly, H found it.  Buying bright red dog shoes was a good idea!

Axle Hill: the black is from all the tire rubber

Towards the head of the canyon, it gets narrow again, rocky and steep.  The final few obstacles are incredible: I can't imagine driving a jeep up them.  And then, once we climbed up Yellow Hill to the saddle, the 360-degree views were phenomenal.  The clouds started to break up a bit and the sun came out long enough for us to have a snack.  Simply gorgeous up there.

Rockpile or Son-of-Rockpile

That's Yellow Hill, the last obstacle

We retraced our steps from that saddle and as we made our way back down, we began to see some more people: a couple of dirt bikes, ten jeeps and about eight hikers just as we were finishing up.  That's really not too many people for a 4+ hour hike on a popular trail.

View back down Pritchett Canyon

We didn't encounter any jeeps on any of the infamous named obstacles but we did watch three of them playing around in the slickrock area below Rocker Knocker.  It is truly amazing what these vehicles can do.  And not a little terrifying.

The guy on foot had broken his own jeep's axle

the day before so he was scouting

We finished up the hike under a few passing rain sprinkles but it was windy enough to move the clouds past in short order.  Milton zonked out - if we people did nine miles, he must have done at least twelve - and H and I snacked and drank some beers while watching all the parking lot activity around us: trail runners with dogs, old school ATVs, lots of dirt bikes, jeeps and OHVs either getting set up and starting out or finishing and loading up.  This is a very popular motorized area, with Pritchett Canyon, Amasa Back and the Kane Creek Road all in one centralized spot: there's plenty to do and there's plenty to watch.

Hike stats: 9.2 miles; moving 3:36 hours / 2.7 m.p.h; overall 4:34 / 2.2 m.p.h.; 1,530 feet of elevation