Cathedral in the Desert and Davis Gulch

Much calmer today with just a little breeze. Left our beach here near Hole in the Rock, and headed up towards Escalante River Arm. Soon after departing we came to Ribbon Canyon. There is a boat up in a canyon crevice that sunk a long time ago and is a ways above the water line now. I could barely see it in April, but no joy today. Onward to the Escalante. As you enter the Escalante, you go past a group of caves high up in the canyon wall. (And there are a lot of caves at water level now also.) We turned into Clear Creek to go check out Cathedral in the Desert. When I was here in April, I think there was about 10’ of water inside the Cathedral. And several years before that, I think twice that much. Today it is dry inside, except for a tiny stream that comes from a waterfall. This is only my third time in it. My cruising buddy that I was with in April, showed it to me a couple years prior. My photos don’t do it any justice. Very neat canyon that twists and narrows near the top. And the acoustics echo. We were able to beach just outside the Cathedral, which made for an easy walk in. After spending a bit of time there, we headed back out of Clear to go into Davis Gulch. Between the two, is a small unnamed canyon that is fun to check out. There are some different layers of hanging gardens at the end of that canyon, and I pulled up a photo from April, to compare with a photo today, in regards to the lower water levels. We entered Davis Gulch and got very close to the waters end in it. (I stopped when I was down to just 3 feet of water under me, and where there was a lot of vegetation blocking the corner, beyond which became a mud flat.) Turned around and headed back to the beach we stayed at last night. (I uploaded a couple of short videos in Davis Gulch. For a longer video, see my youtube channel: https://youtu.be/PxyrW7R-3x8 . Decided I’d do some Striper (Striped Bass) trolling. Fired up the kicker, which has been working good the past couple of times I started it up and ran it for a bit. It worked for a short while, and then quit. I got it running again, but for only a short time. Gave up, started the Main back up, put the fishing gear away, and on to the day’s destination. Ok, this is just going to be my weird happening crap trip. After getting back to the beach, I pulled the cover off the kicker to find that the oil fill cap had come off. Of course some oil had blown out… The one thing I didn’t have with me this trip. Alain had some he gave me, so I topped the oil off, put a new cap on, (long story, but I do have a few spare oil caps!) and started back up. I think that was the problem. Beyond my knowledge why missing the oil cap would cause the fuel to keep losing suction. (Each time the kicker stopped, I had to pump the fuel bulb again to get it going.) I’ll run on it again at full throttle for a while tomorrow and see how it does. We are heading back to Wahweap now and will just stay in the main channel and continue to run slow at 6 or 7 mph to conserve fuel.Read more