Willis Creek Slot Canyon

Good morning, my friends. With this post, we say good-bye to Utah. When we meet again, we'll be in Ely, Nevada. 

We had a wonderful hike in the slot canyon yesterday. It's another big bucket list item. Most of the slot canyons we know about are either too difficult to reach or else too crowded for our taste. Many of them require permits or guides. This one was easy to reach. Willis Creek Slot Canyon is within the boundaries of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. There is a visitor center between the RV park and the trailhead. We stopped in, but found it closed. Maybe they missed the memo that the shutdown was averted.

Continuing on, we traveled over a dirt road for around 3-5 miles. After it rained the night before, parts of the road were scarily slick, but not enough to make us turn back. It was a winding, up and down, over hill and dale journey.

There were some fantastic views along the way. It's hard to tell from this picture, but the red area in the foreground was a deep canyon, and there was one like it on the other side. The road was graded along a ridgetop with deep valleys on both sides.

After a distance, we came to a parking lot and the trailhead. There were several cars there, which was surprising. For no reason in particular, we expected to have the place to ourselves.

Across the parking lot, this sign talked about our hike.

As we walked toward the trailhead, I turned back to see this threatening cloud. It didn't seem to be moving in our direction, and so we went ahead.

Crossing over the dirt road, we looked to the left to see Willis Creek.

Here's the trailhead. We didn't see any horses, but we did see the "apples" they'd left behind.

The trail first meandered above the creek.

Eventually, it descended a short distance to the bottom of the canyon.

At times, we walked across, over, or through the stream as we made our way. In most places it was only a few inches deep. 

The desert varnish and undulating sides of the canyon were fascinating. 

The canyon starts out fairly wide.

A few trees appear to be growing from solid rock.

I'm imagining flash floods sometimes fill this canyon and that could account for the "scouring" along the canyon walls.

Looking up...

Eventually, the canyon narrowed into the slot we were hoping to see.

Looking directly overhead, it looked like this:

Sometimes we were forced to walk through the water a short distance. In most places it was only a few inches deep. Where it was deeper, a few strategically placed rocks made crossing over easy. 

We saw a few wildflowers at the far end. My phone identified these as "Scarlet Trumpet."

The wind was blowing, and these flowers were tiny. It was hard to get anything in focus. I believe this might be what's known as "wintercress."

The "slot" part of the canyon extended maybe half a mile before opening up to a wider section.

My hiking shoes are waterproof, but Mike brought an extra pair of shoes and socks that he didn't need. 

Here we approached the end of the slot portion of the canyon. We could have continued on, but we really just wanted to see the slot. Also, we were concerned about rain and whether it would make it difficult to travel back over the mud/dirt road we'd come in on.

Heading back, we saw more spectacular views of the valley. Look way off yonder there, and you can see there is snow at the top of those plateaus.

Here's a more expansive view of the valley.

Okay, so we were back at the camper in time for lunch and naps. We dispensed treats to the kitties, and then Mike got Smitty out for another walk. I washed one last load of clothes. We have enough clean clothes to make it home now. This has been the one location where we took the camper off the truck, and so we spent some more time putting it back on the truck for today's departure.

I tried another new recipe for dinner last night. This was actually really good and so simple. I riffed off a recipe I saw in the NYTimes. The original recipe had this being prepared like a grilled cheese sandwiches, by toasting the bread in a buttered skillet. I bagged that effort and toasted the bread in a toaster, then buttered the insides and added the jam. The rest was done pretty much as the recipe was originally written. We liked this a lot. It's called Gilgeori Toast, a Korean street toast with cabbage and egg.

This is a quote from the original recipe in the NYTimes:

Gilgeori toast, which literally means “street toast” in Korean, is a popular salty-sweet egg sandwich sold by many street-food vendors in Korea. For many who grew up there, it's a nostalgic snack, reminiscent of childhood. Eaten for breakfast or lunch, it’s quick, easy and adaptable. If you don’t have cabbage on hand, toss in any vegetables you have that would add crunch and flavor, such as sliced scallions or julienned zucchini. For a modern twist, try substituting the sugar with different flavors of jam, or dress the sandwich up with your favorite condiments and sandwich fixings.

It looked good in their picture, and so I gave it try. Here, I've rewritten the recipe the way I did it. It was way simpler than the original. 

We'll be heading to our next stop this morning, near Ely, Nevada. We'll stop and pick up a few groceries along the way. We'll spend two nights in Ely. While there, we plan to visit Cave Lake State Park. Just now when I Googled the link to the park, I found a note that the lake has been drained and access closed for "dam construction." Well, that could be interesting. For sure, we'll probably do a hike on one of the trails. We'll figure it out when we get there.

So, as always, I won't know if I have internet access until we get there. We have two nights at an RV park, and then we'll be making a beeline for home. If you don't hear from me for the next few days, you can expect to catch up with me no later than Sunday when we'll be back at the Three Cats Ranch.