middle earth

On Sunday, we got going a little earlier than we had on Saturday.  Since we were going to hike, we didn't need it to warm up so much; since we had to drive back to SLC, we did need to be timely about things.  To pick our hike, we got a little unconventional: we had a Google Earth image of the Colorado River as it left Moab and we studied the various canyons coming off the Potash Road until we found one that looked likely.  As we headed out, H remarked that since we knew nothing about where we were going, it could be a total bust.  Milton, proudly wearing his harness, looked like he wouldn't care if it was a bust or not - he was just glad to be going.

Milton in motion

We parked at the [much larger and improved since I first was there] Corona Arch trailhead, already busy with people and dogs.  Leaving all that behind, we walked back up Potash Road, intending to explore Bootlegger Canyon.  Although all that seems to be online about Bootlegger is that the Union Pacific railroad runs through it, below Corona Arch, from our photograph it looked likely enough, especially the right fork that the railroad tracks did not go through.  Unfortunately, the lower canyon was thickly choked with vegetation and after a fair amount of futile back-and-forth, we realized we weren't going to get far without a machete.  According to our photo, however, just a little way further up the road was another canyon that led to the Middle Earth waterfall*.  There had been a car parked there when we'd driven past but by the time we got there, that car was gone and we had the whole hike to ourselves.  Given how busy the Corona Arch trailhead was, this was great. 

Love the light in this photo

As soon as we'd gotten away from the road, we let Milton off his leash.  While he loves hiking in general, he really loves this kind: we were walking up the sandy wash in a narrow canyon, high cliff walls looming overhead, so he could run way ahead and then sprint back to us, knowing that we couldn't wander off.  It was cool in the shady depths of the canyon - we even found big icicles growing out of a slow-dripping spring in one rock wall - and the light was beautiful.

Really pretty place

When the canyon ended, it was in a huge, round, high-walled bowl with a deep sandy bottom.  There wasn't any water coming over the pour-off but we could see that it must be dramatic in a heavy rain.  At one side of the bowl, the slickrock ramp was gradual enough for us to climb out of the bowl.  As we gained the sandstone ridge (littered with curious, dark, rounded stones), we looked up and laughed.  There was Corona Arch straight ahead of us: we could see scores of people wandering around beneath it.  That meant that the canyon below us was Bootlegger; we looked down the canyon and thought we could pick out how far we'd gotten. 

Following the faint trail

We explored along the canyon rim for a while but couldn't find any way to get down into it, so instead of making a loop, we headed back the way we came.  Ain't nothing wrong with that.

Corona Arch

Hike stats: 4.88 miles; moving: 2:00 hours/2.4 m.p.h.; overall: 2:31/1.9 m.p.h.; 710' elevation

*  The Middle Earth waterfall post on gjhikes.com - where we get a lot of good hiking information - describes a completely different hike (starting by the Jeep Arch trailhead) that ends at a completely different waterfall.  But other online sources seem to indicate that where we were is what is commonly known as Middle Earth.  So now we're going to have to go back and check out gjhikes's trail.  Hooray for more hiking!