Changing Plans With Don, Mary, and Luna

We met up with our friends in Kanab on the morning of the 12th. Our plans to visit the North Rim were looking less and less feasible due to the growing forest fire on the Kaibab Plateau. We decided to attempt to skirt the fire to the east and perhaps salvage a visit to the Grand Canyon after all.

Our route took us on another 40 mile deeply rutted dirt road between routes 89 and 89a. We made it just past the trail head to Buckskin Gulch and The famous Wave when the rig got a flat tire. Lots of fiddling and a bit of frustration followed. Turns out the spare tire is accessed with the use of a special key to prevent theft. Fortunately Don's rig uses the same spare so we were able to get moving all the way to the Big O Tire company in Page Arizona. They sold us a Ling Long brand tire to replace the damaged Michelin and explained the special key to us. Soon we were on our way. We passed over the Glen Canyon dam and picnicked at the shore of Reservoir Powell. The Chinese brand tire runs as smooth as the French brand tire. For someone who could smell the tire factories in Akron each morning that's saying something.

The evening found us back in Cottonwood Canyon on a pleasant hike to some great geological features. Once again the bugs were ferocious. Three of us ended up with rings of bug bites around our socklines.

By late afternoon we'd gassed up in Escalante and headed to higher altitudes up toward Hell's Backbone. We camped at the State run Blue Spruce campground. Six sites along a lovely creek.

Next day we hiked about three miles down the creek into a box canyon. Lots of bouldering and ten to twelve creek crossings. Luna was a trooper. Not what you'd call a water dog though, as she was carried across the creek each time.Read more