Wire Pass and Buckskin Gulch

After our hike to the Toadstools we headed down the road to our second planned hike of the day: Wire Pass to Buckskin Gulch.  This would end up being our last slot canyon hike of the trip.  Like most of the canyon hikes, this one starts out in the open desert.  As you walk down the wash towards the canyon it is quite wide at first but eventually starts to get narrower.  After about a mile from the trailhead you reach the first set of narrows.  Almost immediately after entering the narrows we came to a small group of people and the first obstacle: a large chockstone that was stuck on the bottom of the canyon.  We waited as the people in front of us figured out how to negotiate climbing down the stone.  Soon it was our turn.  I was able to climb down the face of the rock pretty easily and with my longer legs could drop down to the bottom with little difficulty.  It was harder for Jessica who isn't as tall as I am.  I actually helped lift her down from the top of the rock :-)  

We were worried about trying to climb back up the rock on our return, but we shouldn't have worried.  It ended up being much easier to climb back up over it than it was climbing down it :-)  This proved to be the only major obstacle along the route.  We also came to a few logs that were jammed in the canyon from previous flash floods but we were able to easily get around them.  Wire Pass was an amazing canyon, much darker than the other canyons we had been in.  The canyon walls were taller and very narrow at the top so very little sunlight spilled down into the canyon, even though we were doing the hike right in the middle of the day when the sun was the highest.  We went through a couple of sets of narrows then came to the confluence with Buckskin Gulch. 

The area where Wire Pass met up with Buckskin Gulch was beautiful.  The canyon opened up a lot to where there was plenty of sunshine coming in and we decided this would be a good place for a rest and a snack.  We only sat down for maybe 10 minutes and in that time several groups of people went by.  This is easily one of busiest slot canyon hikes in the southwest.  It's also the starting point for an almost 40-mile backpack journey through Paria Canyon all the way to the Colorado River.  After our snack we hiked a little ways upstream into Buckskin Gulch then turned around and went back through Wire Pass to the trailhead.  The rest of the day was spent driving through Page, Arizona and on to Monument Valley where we stopped for dinner at "The View" restaurant.  After dinner we drove a little further on to Mexican Hat where we stayed for the night.  The "Hat Rock Inn" was a very pleasant surprise with beautiful, extremely comfortable rooms and an outdoor pool and hot tub!  We checked in about 9 PM and after settling in to the room we headed down to the pool and enjoyed the hot tub underneath a beautiful star-filled southwestern sky.  The inn sits right on the edge of the canyon for the San Juan River, so as we soaked in the soothing hot water we could also hear the water running over the river rapids below.  It was a sublime end to a wonderful day :-)