No, not that Jackson Hole. And although all the google searches for the Moab one call it "Jackson Hole," all the signs out on the trail call it "Jackson's Hole" so that's what I'm going to do.
Since we saw the Mad Moose Behind the Rocks Ultra race , I've been eager to do the accessible portion of their course; since the forecast was for partly cloudy with a high of 77 F, this was our best chance to do it until fall when things cool off again. We had our route: up Jackson's Trail, down Jackson's Ladder, around Jackson's Not-Hole, up the Ladder and down Amasa Back. We were out the door at 7 a.m.
There were two other vehicles in the Amasa Back parking lot when we started walking back along the Kane Creek road to the Jackson's Trail trailhead at the OHV trailer lot. It was cool but not cold, a little humid from being so close to the creek. We didn't see anybody for the walk along the creek and river (30 minutes) or during the first climb up to the top of the mesa where we crossed the Cliffhanger trail (35 minutes).
From there, the descent via Jackson's Ladder was pretty quick (about 17 minutes). There's a fairly well-defined trail for the top third, then you have to pick your way down a fainter trail, with some loose footing, marked with cairns, until you reach the bottom of the cliffs. At the bottom, we were on hard-packed double-track which was so easy to walk on. It didn't escape our notice, however, that we were doing nothing but going downhill - gradually - and also out further around the mesa than we expected.
I sometimes wish I had been a geology major when I'm out hiking because the terrain is so interesting. With the dark red sandstone cliffs looming overhead, we were clearly walking along the old river bottom because the double-track was winding through huge piles of smooth, round, black river stones. We kept going out and down, almost to the river, before the road finally turned, got sandy and headed back towards the cliffs. The clouds had momentarily rolled in, however, so it wasn't hot - which was good because this portion would have been a slog in the heat.
It took us an hour and a half to make the loop, and then around fourteen minutes to climb Jackson's Ladder back up. Again, the trick is to keep your head down, focused on footing, and not keep looking up to see how far you have to go. I did keep looking up, though, because I just love the audacity of the first person to think they could even put a trail in here. From down below, we could see some jeeps cautiously making their way across the Cliffhanger trail. We waved, hoping they could see us making our way up the cliff wall.
The clouds had moved on by the time we got back to Cliffhanger. As we moved across that trail towards the top of Amasa Back (30 minutes), we kept peeking over the edge so we could see what we had just been hiking, far below. At this point we started meeting up with other people - hikers, MTBers, dogs and vehicles - but were feeling pretty smug that we were the only ones who would be doing the exact route we did.
The descent through Amasa Back was straightforward, although our knees and feet were starting to get a little sore by the time we got back to the truck. You better believe there were high fives and celebratory beers (and sandwiches) then. That was a great hike - and the up and down Jackson's Ladder was super-fun.
Hike stats: 12.17 miles; moving 4:18 hours/2.8 m.p.h.; overall 4:47/2.5; 1,710 feet of elevation
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