Reflection Canyon
I'm pretty sure the first time I saw an image of Reflection Canyon I was at work browsing google maps for interesting land formation in Utah. Checking out whatever random images that would pop up when I zoomed into interesting areas.
Wait wait wait, lets go back 4 years from now
I was on winter break and doing my first solo road trip/photo hut through Utah and passed a small town call Escalante. At this time I was driving a 2001 Dodge Neon. I was checking this area out to see some attractions down a road called Hole-In-The-Rock-Road. I remember reading about this road and its terrible road conditions. I was stopped in my car on this gravel road that looked very manageable, but knowing that I was less then a half mile in I was stuck staring at a sign. It seemed to me that all the colorful stickers on the sign made a poor attempt to cover up the bullet holes that dotted its dusty and faded words "4WD high clearance vehicles only". At this point in time I was 2 weeks in on my adventure through Utah. I had to stop and think about how lucky and a bit amazed I was on how this little jelly bean of a car had held up to the beatings I had put it through. I counted my blessings and turned around. For leaving this area unexplored, I knew I had a reason to come back and for that I could rest easy.
Back to the future-ish
So there I was at work, staring at amazing pictures of this place called Reflection Canyon. I remembered briefly its location in my head and saved it's location on google maps. Having little recollection that 4 years ago I was staring at a bullet riddled sign that was the entrance to this adventure. Some time went by and I did a little research on this place. Found a few websites and blogs with info and there topo's of how people hiked in to it. 6 months or so had passed and I finally had time and what I thought was a worthy vehicle to take me there. Well long story short, my car blew up on me on this attempt to Reflection Canyon. Bummer.
6 months later from car blowing up
It was off season, which means time to hit the road and get lost. Utah in October = PERFECTION <--- Don't tell anyone
Yup, so there I was. At the beginning of Hole-In-A-Rock-Road. Today was the day to send!!! The time was about 11:30am and I was looking down a 52 mile dirt road in hope of finding a trail head at the end. I started driving my 1994 4runner with stupid monster truck tires down this very bumpy and washboard road. (the washboard effect: this happens naturally on dirt roads. Pretty self explanatory if you have every seen a washboard. Think wavy bumps.) The tires did not help on this crazy washboard road. So there I was creeping down maybe driving 15 mph. At times I would try and push it and drive 40 mph-ish with the hopes that driving faster would smooth out the ride. It didn't help. The fear of my car breaking grew stronger and stronger the farther I went. Every minute I drove, I would think about how much further of a walk it would be to get back to town and it didn't help that around mile 35 I stopped seeing cars. With that thought in the back of my mind and no cell signal, I was constantly questioning my decision making.
I made it to my destination and parked the car at 3:30pm. With a map saved on my phone and a full battery, plus a back up power bank, I was almost ready to go. Just had to pack my camping gear, gather my camera gear and pack food. Remembering that I read somewhere that there was no water source, meant I had to pack water for the hike, dinner, breakfast and the hike out. So I figured 5 liters would be just right. I threw everything in my pack, locked the car and started to hike at 4pm.
Viewing the terrain map about every 10 minutes on my phone I began to realize that I should have brushed up on the details for this hike, seeing that it had been about 1 year since I had read anything about his hike. But having the GPS gave me confidence that I would be alright. Looking at the terrain map I saw a few canyons that I would have to move around and staying high and closer to the cliff face to the west of me looked to provide the easiest way of travel. The sun set quickly over the cliff faces to the west of me and I was walking in the shade. Happy that the sun was off me, but knowing that dusk wasn't to far away. The terrain was sandy in most places and soft rocky in others. The bushes where no problem to step over or walk around. Every step was taking fairly lightly watching for rattle snakes and cactus. I saw a few foot prints here and there but all seemed to be misleading and it never looked anything like a defined trail, so I choose to avoid them and kept on a straight line in the direction I thought was right. Miles seemed to fly by. I was definitely on a mission to make it as far as I could before it got dark. Darkness set in around 7pm and the terrain had just changed to slick rock and sandy washes. Headlamp guiding lighting my way at this point. As the map read, this section was mostly down hill with a few very steep sections, which I guessed correctly were cliff. I continued walking through this maze that was littered with spots of flat sandy areas and hilly steep slabby rock. My headlamp would help but really could just see to the base of the next hill. On the downward side the light help me from walking off cliffs. I remembered checking my phone much more frequently in this section. About an hour later or so my phone was showing me that I was on top of my destination. There was no moon out this night and the sky was clear. I found a perfect camp site up high in a hole that had been fill with sand and could just fit my tent. I dropped my bag there and had to snap and few photos to ensure I was in the correct spot. As the pictures appeared on my camera I was stoked, I had made it.
I set up camp, made dinner and set an early alarm.
I woke up well before the sunrise and even beat my alarm. I could see a slight glow through my tent walls. I stood out front of my tent and took in the view that I missed the previous night. The clouds were looking perfect and help some promise of producing some good colors. As you could image I grabbed my camera gear and started running around like a child on Christmas morning. I was laughing out loud and snapping pictures from different positions to get an idea of how to frame the shot. When the sun came up I stop every thing and tried to soak in what I was seeing. The echo in this place was amazing! It was like there was 5 or 6 of me out there yelling back. Super happy with my achievement and remembering all that went into getting to this place I sat quietly and watch the sun unfold it awesomeness on the beatful landscape that I had surrounded myself within.
It was so quite and peaceful there. I never saw signal person the whole hike, in or out.
